Ian Bailey has died

[Taytocrisps]

I'm sure you all know that he was the chief suspect in the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier. I guess we'll never know for sure if he was the murderer. I'm sorry for Sophie's son who probably feels that he has been denied justice.

IIrc, it took the Gardaí hours to drive down from Dublin. The motorway network wasn't as extensive back then. And when they got to west Cork, they had to pull in and ring for directions, because the house was so isolated. There was no Google maps back then. In my head, 1996 was about five years ago but we forget how much things have changed since then. I'm sure that's not much consolation for Sophie's family and especially for her son.

Tayto I also remember hearing about her murder like it was yesterday, and was shocked when I saw the Netflix documentary and the fiesta gardai car & realised how far behind we still were then. I visited Schull in 2021 after watching the documentary and it's still bleak and rural and beautiful.

Her poor family will never know the truth. I saw a clip of a interview with Jools since he died and she says he couldn't keep a secret and was messy, and because of that she believes Ian Bailey is innocent,

When I visited Southern Ireland in 2019 and mentioned the case, people were adamant it had been the police and was covered up. Whether that's true or not I don't know, but my hunch is it wasn't IB.
That doesn't stop him from being a horrible domestic abuser or a narcissist though.

Slightly off topic but I think Phillip Boucher Hayes is an excellent broadcaster who doesn't get the credit or the "big" show he deserves.
And no, I don't know him.

The country is not called Southern Ireland @ZeppelinTits.
Lots of people outside Ireland get it wrong (by extending their thinking from Northern Ireland), but it's Ireland officially. Also known as the Republic of Ireland. Not Southern Ireland anyway.

I don't know what part of the country you were in. West Cork is in the south of Ireland and would be described as such (ie as being in the south of Ireland not in Southern Ireland).

I don't know if he did it or not. It must be very difficult to have people thinking you're a murderer if you're not and I'm sorry if that's what happened to him.
Most of all sorry this happened Sophie and her family.

Yes @ZeppelinTits ...ppl in Donegal get quite annoyed about the country being described as Southern Ireland. Donegal is in the Republic and is the most Northerly part of the whole island 😉

What do you mean ' it was the police ' though? That they messed up the investigation or were somehow involved in the murder?

Agree @LadyEloise1 . Boucher Hayes is a top broadcaster. He gets to the heart of a thing.

I was down in the south east of Ireland (near Cork) visiting family, and the inference was that a policeman was responsible.

I was too young to hear about it when it happened but have obviously heard of it over the years. I watched the documentary and listened to the podcast and I still don't know.

I swing from 'it was him' to 'he's just an ejit' honestly I absolutely cannot understand why he stayed around in the area. He got some sort of weird thrill from it

I cant believe the replies ; yes innocent until proven guilty , no, he wasn’t convicted in a court in Ireland .
He openly admitted to several people that he killed her and how. Why would anyone do this , why ?
He beat his partner a few times , once so badly that she almost lost an eye. When interviewed about it he always distanced himself and said he was “irresponsible with alcohol “. He proved himself to be extremely violent . Psychologists who reviewed his journal in which he described himself as being very sexually aggressive -(these were his words in the journal according to the interview) described Ian Bailey as being a malignant narcissistic. You can see he has grandiose ideas of himself in the interview and seems deluded about his own importance.
We’ll probably never know now if he killed her but we do know he was a bad man based on his extreme violence on his partner-that is a fact .

@Carmelita76 what??!! “Murdering a
woman in cold blood is different to assaulting your partner” Not if it kills them
it isn’t , like seriously. I mean what do it honk assault is ?? Do you think there’s some point where domestic abusers go “ok , I’ll just hit them a few times so it probably won’t kill them . If you assault a person violently you want to cause harm which will lead to injuring them or killing them . Wtf did I just read !

And a convicted murderer so we still get to call him one.

Yupp and an Irish judge said that he was convinced "Ian Bailey was a violent and dangerous man". Ian Bailey never served a day of incarceration, despite umpteen rounds of drunken domestic violence. So, outraged commenters (mostly on journal 😕 ) who seem to pity poor persecuted IB, and reprimand anybody who considers him to have evaded justice baffle me. What a hill to die on :-/
What is wrong with people. Mostly men, racing to point out that beating up yr partner is not murder. There is a link though. Men who murder women aren't the group who have never been abusive to women.

I watched the PBH interview with him and he was what can only be described as 'jovial'. Definitely no shame about his violence against women whatsoever. Just seemed to be lapping up the publicity.

Her son said this in a video to RTE 'An investigation is still under way in Ireland and we are confident that the discovery of new evidence, the hearing of new witnesses, and the revelation of possible complicity will enable Irish police to close the case, finally, 27 years after my mother's murder.'
This is in relation to the cold case investigation . Interesting. He seems like a quite a balanced person - I don’t think he’d say something like this without good reason.

I lean towards him being guilty as fuck, but also a smug cunt who, once he realised the scant evidence the Gardai have on him, hammed it up and made it his life's work to taunt them and others about it.

But whether he murdered her or not, he's no loss to the world.

I feel for jules" daughters, I don't know them but every body they know locally must wonder what they think. Their mother chose to bring them up as witnesses to domestic abuse. I'm sure they're fine and don't need my thoughts, but ... even so.

I do too @ChanelNo19EDT
Wasn't it their friend who gave a statement re clothes being washed or something?

Yes I think it was a friend of one of the daughter’s who was staying in the house.
Just finished listening to the West Cork podcast again. It’s so well done. His narcissism and lack of insight into his own behaviour is unreal. The minimising of the damage he did to his partner is sickening and her minimising of it is just tragic.
I believe he could have done it in a drunken rage, because she rejected either him or his dire poetry, but that the combination of alcohol and his altered mental state means that he doesn’t remember it. And that’s how he has convinced himself he didn’t do it.

Yes, he didn't take responsibility for his abusive violence to a woman, he condensed these repeated assaults to the Teflon style "we had a problem with alcohol". Wow. Interview asked him about his repeated attacks on Jules and that was his response. "WE" (had a problem).

That was an insight into who he was.

Oh wow... I followed this story closely. I'm so sad to hear this, that her son won't see justice

@AncientBallerina I think you are absolutely correct . I think it was done while in a total drunken rage and then over the years he convinced himself it wasn’t him or even that it was a “different him”Even if he didn’t do it which I think is highly unlikely but he wasn’t convicted in Ireland so have to put that in.

Fact: he beat his partner with extreme violence. We know that . I also feel extremely sorry for her daughters and what they must have witnessed. I think unfortunately Jude looks like v much like an alcoholic and allegedly was/is and so wouldn’t take much from her saying that she doesn’t believe he did it . She probably also carrys guilt for what her daughters were exposed to . Didn’t he burn stuff in the back garden straight after , statements from a foreign student staying in the house said she saw dark clothes soaking in the bath and a very bad atmosphere of fear in the house but then again that was prob normal in the house. Imagine there’s huge relief in that area in cork ( in fact I’ve heard that first hand ) and maybe someone who was afraid before can come forward now , who knows. According to nick foster who wrote about this case , the Garda files should be accessible to everyone in Ireland and it would be easier to see what is most likely the truth from them. But again we don’t know for fact .. but absolutely shocked by the defence just because he’s dead. This man beat a woman up so badly that she nearly lost an eye . Vile

https://syndicatedanarchy.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/30/

This is the DPP's report about why they would not charge Ian Bailey with the crime.

His assault of Jules was awful. And I feel sorry for the daughters. But I'm sure at least one of them accompanied Ian and Jules to court at one point? I don't know anything about them and I'm glad their privacy is respected.

There is a reason this case generates a lot of conversations and headlines - a woman had an awful death and everyone wants justice for her. But the evidence just isn't there.

I listened to the podcast this week and got totally immersed in it. It's an excellent piece of work. My thoughts about it are similar to AncientBallerina and Isthisit2. You have both expressed what I have been thinking. I think Jules covered for him. I feel sorry for her daughters who got caught up in it. It must have been very hard for them.

There is another podcast (Never a Truer Word...I think) that analyses the language used by witnesses talking about Sophie's murder and it mentions 'deceptive truth' a lot. How people's choice of words can indicate their true state of mind as it's very difficult to keep up a lie. People are not naturally predisposed to lie. It was very interesting and I agreed with a lot of it.

I hadn't realised that Sophie's family's first mention of her death was on hearing a French news report, that a French woman had been murdered in rural West Cork. How unbelievably awful for them. The podcast filled in a lot of details for me.

@Carmelita76 you are the pp who said there’s a big difference between domestic violence and killing someone in cold blood. Actually the two are intrinsically linked .
The ddp obviously isn’t infallible , also some of their references;
The pointed out the fact that the teenager didn’t report that Ian had said (in far more revolting language btw if anyone wants to read , utterly disgusting) that he “bashed her brains in” (his words @Carmelita76 ) straight away to the gardai means it’s less relevant..Why would he say that to a young boy @Carmelita76 ? Why? Cause he’s just a quirky artist is it ?
That boy when he heard this was a teenager and in school with jules daughter and getting a lift with that man, I imagine he was absolutely terrified . It was extremely brave of him to say anything and make a statement. Also your reference to jules daughter going to court with them as though it make him more credible, seriously?? I feel incredibly sorry for her daughters, what a shit childhood and teenage-hood . Probably felt obligated to their mother and terrified of Ian. Hopefully they can get help .
Again of course we can’t say he’s the murderer of this French woman as your ddp report states there isn’t enough grounds as there isn’t any forensic evidence.
What do we know ; we know he was extremely violent , a malignant narcissist which has been diagnosed by psychologists who have studied his journal in which is described himself as very sexually aggressive . We know he beat his partner up extremely violently . A statement from a local said he met Sophie as he introduced them but Ian said they never met . Someone allegedly saw her in a car with a man who matches his description, he left his bed that night , jules verified that to go and write in a outshed outside their house so he was out of the house that night . Of course though he wasn’t convicted here and there’s the ddo deport .
My heart goes out to her son who
lost his mother at a young age and Jules daughters. Childhoods destroyed .