A Dream of Death Read online

  Mr Bailey was remanded in custody and appeared first before Clonakilty and then Skibbereen district courts. He was granted bail but was initially unable to meet the bail terms involved. Because of this, the journalist subsequently spent over three weeks in custody before his case was dealt with.

  His arrest and appearance at various district court sittings over the next few weeks made headlines not just in Ireland but in the UK and France. The fact that the assault involved a woman was accorded major significance by the French media. Mr Bailey’s every court appearance up until his sentencing was covered by the Irish and UK media.

  One of my abiding memories of that time was coming out of a west Cork court hearing, in which Mr Bailey had just been remanded with consent to bail, only to receive a call on my old Nokia phone to urgently turn on my car radio. Those were the days when mobile phones were either turned on or off – and only the really expensive models had a ‘silent’ function. When I did turn on the radio I heard the unfolding tragedy of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. The following day, Mr Bailey’s court report was relegated to a distant inside page in the newspaper.

  ***

  On 17 September Mr Bailey finally appeared before Judge James O’Connor at Skibbereen District Court. The journalist, who was by now 44 years old, admitted the assault on his partner of 10 years. Ms Thomas was not in court for the hearing.

  Judge O’Connor was told that Ms Thomas feared for her safety because of the attack. Having heard an outline of the facts, and that Mr Bailey had already spent more than three weeks in custody, the judge imposed a three-month suspended prison sentence. He also ordered that Mr Bailey pay compensation of IR£2,500 and allowed him until the following February to do so. That would subsequently prove the focus of further court hearings as Mr Bailey had no regular source of income and owned no assets suitable for disposal in Ireland.

  Judge O’Connor also directed that Mr Bailey be of good behaviour for a two-year period until the end of 2003 – coincidentally, the very time that his long-awaited defamation action would finally arrive before Cork Circuit Civil Court.

  Not surprisingly, there was a large media presence for the Skibbereen hearing with reporters, photographers and TV crews assembled outside. Mr Bailey, who looked pale, left the courtroom without comment and was driven away by a friend. Before he left, he politely nodded to the local journalists whom he had by now come to know on a personal basis. Even with the enormous coverage devoted to the appalling aftermath of the New York, Washington and Pennsylvania terrorist attacks, his suspended prison sentence was still accorded major coverage in every Irish newspaper the following day.

  Any hopes Mr Bailey had of the relentless media glare slowly fading were by now clearly abandoned. Instead he decided to challenge the media head-on with a civil action that would, if anything, dwarf the coverage that he had been accorded in the media over the preceding four years. The looming Cork Circuit Court action would also dramatically escalate public interest in the du Plantier investigation and have profound, if unexpected, consequences in France.

  6

  LIBEL HEARING

  Two years later, Mr Bailey found himself back in the headlines. On Monday, 8 December 2003, he commenced a series of libel actions before Cork Circuit Court. The actions were taken, as he would later explain, in a bid to end ‘monstrous’ media reports about him both in Ireland and in his native UK in the context of the ongoing Sophie Toscan du Plantier investigation.

  He complained that his life had been rendered a ‘nightmare’ through unfair and inaccurate media reports about the killing. Mr Bailey’s barrister, Jim Duggan BL, declared that his client had been the victim of a trial by media – that he had been not only subjected to ‘character assassination’ but also ‘demonised’ to the point where he was being ostracised in his adopted west Cork community.

  What quickly became apparent was that, far from ending media interest in him, the libel actions were akin to pouring petrol on an already smouldering fire. By the end of the two-week hearing, the entire country was fascinated with the du Plantier case, Ian Bailey and the dramatic revelations of the Cork libel action.

  Such was the profile of the Cork Circuit Court action, it even made headlines in the UK and France. Critically, the French media became aware for the first time of key elements of the garda murder file in Ireland as a result of the material that was brought into the public domain by the newspapers’ defence team during the court proceedings. They were revelations that would have far-reaching consequences.

  Mr Bailey had decided to sue eight Irish and British newspapers over specific articles they had written about him over the previous years. The newspapers being sued were the Sunday Independent, the Independent on Sunday, The Times, the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Irish Mirror, the Irish Star and the Irish Sun. The Manchester journalist was taking on some of the biggest media organisations in Ireland and the UK.

  I was covering the case each day for the Irish Independent, the Evening Herald and the Sunday Independent, and knew from months beforehand that the libel hearing would generate huge public interest. But what none of us Cork-based journalists fully appreciated was just how dramatic the evidence would turn out to be and how all-consuming interest in the case would become.

  In truth, Ireland had never experienced a libel action like it before or since. Somewhat bizarrely, the highest-profile libel action taken in Cork in modern times was heard in a former garden supplies warehouse that was being used as a temporary courthouse while the main Cork Courthouse on Washington Street was the subject of a protracted €26-million renovation programme. It was a setting totally at odds with the profile of the case at hearing.

  By the end of the two-week action, curiosity about the case had grown so intense that there wasn’t even standing room in the main court on the concluding day of evidence, with journalists who had covered the duration of the trial having to access the court early through a back door just to ensure they secured a seat for the judge’s ruling.

  Members of the public attended in unprecedented numbers. Dozens of people would queue in the morning for the court to open just to secure the best seats in the public gallery. Many brought their lunches with them. One pensioner I spoke to said it was more interesting than any daytime programme on RTÉ or TV3. At the conclusion of the trial I bumped into a Sunday’s Well businessman who happened to own the building where my newspaper’s Cork office was located. He, like everyone else, had become gripped by the case and wanted to watch its conclusion in person.

  There were several interesting aspects to the case. First, Mr Bailey decided to take his action before the Circuit Court, not the High Court. While it is always more costly to take proceedings before the High Court, the potential damages that can be awarded are effectively unlimited. In the Circuit Court, damages were limited to €38,000 (though they have since been increased to €75,000). If Mr Bailey were to win all the actions, the most he could receive in damages was €266,000 – hardly a vast sum given the issues at stake.

  Another crucial difference between such High Court and Circuit Court libel hearings is that, before the High Court, the matter must be argued before a judge and jury. In the Circuit Court, the matter would be decided solely by a judge, in this case Judge Patrick Moran.

  Although the State was not a party to the proceedings, it was an interested party. It had objected to any material related to the garda murder file being entered into evidence lest it compromise potential future action. The murder case remained both open and active and the State was acutely aware of this fact. Specifically, the State did not want any of the investigating gardaí to be called as witnesses by the newspapers’ defence team.

  The DPP had already made it clear that, on the current basis of the garda case file, no action would be directed. This decision dated back to a major assessment of the garda file conducted in 2001 by Robert Sheehan, an official within the DPP’s office. He found that there was not s
ufficient evidence to support a prosecution. In addition, he ruled not only that there was no tangible evidence against Mr Bailey but that the journalist’s actions in offering to cooperate with investigating officers at the earliest possible stage was, if anything, likely to point towards his innocence.

  The summary of Sheehan’s report played no part in the libel hearing. It didn’t properly enter the public domain until nine years later, during the first French attempt to have Mr Bailey extradited from Ireland. For the time being, all anyone understood was that in 2001 the DPP had emphatically ruled out any question of a prosecution in the absence of new evidence.

  Few of us at the time realised the critical importance of a ruling made by Judge Moran on the opening day of the hearing that gave the newspapers’ legal team access to specific material obtained by the gardaí. In granting the disclosure order, the defence received the right to examine Mr Bailey’s personal diaries and writings – and to cross-examine him in evidence about them. Those diaries had been in garda possession since 1997/1998. But, at the same time, no gardaí involved in the murder investigation itself would be called to offer evidence.

  Mr Bailey was represented by Bandon-based solicitor Con Murphy, who would be appointed a Cork Circuit Court judge the following year. Tragically, Mr Murphy would later die after a short illness, at the age of just 51, in August 2011. Leading Mr Bailey’s legal team was barrister Jim Duggan BL.

  In contrast, the newspapers were represented by four different firms of solicitors, with McAleese and Co. taking the lead. Their team was led by David Holland SC and Paul Gallagher SC, who would later become Ireland’s Attorney General. Everyone realised that the newspapers were determined to fight the action tooth and nail – there would be no eleventh-hour settlement on the steps of the courthouse.

  The hearing opened with Mr Duggan outlining the damage to Mr Bailey’s reputation as a result of the articles. The barrister said that his client had been branded as ‘the murderer’ as a consequence of the articles, that Mr Bailey was now being shunned within the west Cork community he had chosen to make his home and that his life had been rendered a ‘living nightmare’ because of the ongoing newspaper coverage of the crime and the constant association of him with the terrible events of 23 December 1996. Mr Duggan said that Mr Bailey’s primary hope was that the true culprit would be caught by gardaí and convicted of the killing.

  He told the court that Mr Bailey’s sole purpose in taking the libel action was to defend his good name and to demonstrate to people in west Cork not only that was he innocent, but that he had been treated dreadfully by being associated with Mrs du Plantier’s death. It was further claimed that Mr Bailey had only agreed to participate in interviews with some of the journalists involved after the promise of a favourable or sympathetic article. When the articles had been published, Mr Duggan said, his client had been appalled and had felt betrayed by what was written.

  Mr Duggan said that the case was not about portraying his client as a ‘saint’. He said it was critical to understand that gardaí had been supplied with Mr Bailey’s clothing, his hair, DNA and blood samples, but no charge had ever been levelled against him in respect of the killing. Mr Bailey, the barrister argued, had been left with no alternative but to take the libel actions in a bid to publicly underline his innocence and defend his reputation from what he termed the ‘grossly defamatory slurs’ cast against him.

  In his opening statement, Mr Gallagher argued that the newspapers had never portrayed Mr Bailey as the killer. Rather, they had dealt with him in the context of the fact that he was the main suspect when the articles in question had been published. He argued that Mr Bailey was a ‘very violent man’, who had actually cooperated with many of the journalists.

  Tall, composed and with a notebook in his hand, Mr Bailey, with his partner Jules Thomas by his side, listened without emotion to the opening statements, pausing occasionally to take notes. By mid-afternoon, the opening statements had concluded, and the main drama began. Mr Bailey took the witness stand to outline to his legal team the damage caused to his reputation.

  What struck me most in the courtroom that day was how dramatically he had aged. I had first encountered Ian Bailey in 1997, a couple of months after his first arrest. With his raven-black hair, a tall and upright bearing and strikingly handsome features, I thought he looked more like a leading Shakespearean actor than a journalist. Six years later, I was shocked by his appearance. His temples were greying and his face was haggard and drawn. He appeared to have aged 20 years. There could be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the past six years had taken a terrible toll on him. Yet, despite the obvious strain he was under, he took to the witness box with a confidence that indicated he had been eagerly waiting for this day to defend his good name. Over a total of five days, he gave evidence in what could only be described as a gruelling process.

  Mr Bailey explained how he had moved to Ireland in 1991 and met Welsh artist Jules Thomas. At the time, he was working at a fish factory in Schull. They began a relationship and, after dabbling in various jobs in west Cork, he decided to try to revive his journalistic career by supplying occasional stories to the Cork Examiner.

  He said that he received a phone call on 23 December 1996 from Eddie Cassidy, the newspaper’s west Cork correspondent at the time and now a news editor with the paper. Mr Bailey said that Mr Cassidy informed him that there had been a murder outside Schull and that it was understood to involve a person who was a foreign national. There was a suggestion that the person involved might be French – details Mr Cassidy would later insist he had not been aware of at that time.

  Mr Bailey was adamant that this was the first occasion he had heard anything about the murder. He also insisted it was the only reason he had decided to go to the site of the incident that day. At the time, he had been helping Ms Thomas with preparations for Christmas. His jobs were to cut down an evergreen to use as a Christmas tree for the family home and to kill turkeys that had been fattened for the festive season, both for the family’s own use and for sale.

  He said he used a knife to kill and prepare the turkeys but, as he did so, he was scratched by a bird’s talons. He explained that he also received some abrasions to his arms when he was cutting down a seven metre-high fir tree to use as the family Christmas tree. He was assisted in cutting down the tree by Ms Thomas’s daughter Saffron.

  Accompanied by Ms Thomas, he made his way to Toormore after the call from Mr Cassidy and discovered a calamitous scene with a heavy garda presence.

  ‘I could see a lot of garda activity on the hillside [below Ms du Plantier’s house]. A little later, a few gardaí came up to me. I explained that I was there for the Cork Examiner. They told me to contact the Garda Press Office.’ Mr Bailey moved a short distance back, and Ms Thomas, who had brought a single-lens reflex camera, began to take photographs of the scene and the garda activity using a telephoto lens.

  Mr Bailey later submitted articles to both The Examiner and the Irish Independent, but both ran with pieces by staff reporters for the editions on 24 December. However, he secured work supplying material to a number of Irish and French publications, including the Irish Star and the Sunday Tribune. By this stage it had been confirmed locally that the victim was Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

  Throughout his barrister’s questioning, Mr Bailey remained focused and detailed in his answers. He explained the circumstances of his two arrests by the gardaí in February 1997 and January 1998. The decision to arrest him left him deeply shocked – and he claimed gardaí had blatantly tried to frighten him into admitting the crime. At one point he claimed that a garda told him he was ‘finished in Ireland’. He also claimed that another officer warned him that if he was not convicted of the killing, he would be ‘found dead with a bullet in the back of the head’.

  Mr Bailey told the court that he was stunned on his arrival at Bandon Garda Station on 10 February 1997 to discover a media posse already waiting for him. He desperately tried to shield his face from the
photographers, but one still managed to get a shot of him being led into the station for questioning under arrest.

  He said he had consistently maintained his innocence to gardaí at the station and had agreed to supply any forensic samples requested, knowing he had nothing to hide. ‘I had no fears about giving my blood or DNA,’ he said. Throughout a questioning period he described as ‘ferocious’, Mr Bailey maintained that he had absolutely nothing to do with the crime.

  Mr Bailey’s name was first used by the media in connection with the du Plantier investigation the following day. The Irish Sun published his name and photograph in connection with the garda arrest. Shortly afterwards, other publications also identified him as the person held by gardaí.

  Released without charge, he was detained again by gardaí eleven months later. In a mirror image of the first arrest, he was questioned at Bandon Garda Station before being once again released without charge, going straight from the station to the offices of his solicitor, Mr Murphy, just a couple of hundred metres away. Again, he was identified in the media as the person detained by gardaí.

  Mr Bailey’s subsequent release without charge made headlines not just in Ireland but in the UK and France. The newspapers published the following Sunday carried extensive articles on the latest in the garda investigation. Mr Bailey complained of the enormous impact of the coverage on his life: ‘I was stripped of my presumption of innocence. Life was a struggle. Sometimes it felt like I was being eaten alive. I have been absolutely battered [by publicity]. I felt sick to the pit of [my] stomach. I was now untouchable [to west Cork locals]. There were times when I felt like a hunted animal.’