Ian Bailey Dies
The notorious suspect in the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier has died.
News broke early on Monday, 22nd January of the death of Ian Bailey. If you have heard of him, and are not a resident of West Cork, then to you he will only be known as the ‘chief suspect’ in the 1996 murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier. There was no news of any deathbed confession, as many would have hoped for. I resisted writing about it until now, but this is surely a development large enough to justify a short retrospective.
Ian Bailey emerges from this story as an incurable narcissist. There is no doubt in my mind that he revelled in the exposure he received when he became linked to the murder of Sophie. But there was never any evidence of his involvement in her death. No forensic evidence at all, even though it seems the killer went back to the cottage and touched the outside door, accidentally smearing Sophie’s blood on it, perhaps closing it. Nobody ever claimed to see Ian Bailey and Sophie together. He claimed never to have even met her, although perhaps once seeing her through a window on a visit to her neighbour, Alfie Lyons.
There was a part of Ian Bailey that enjoyed the attention and liked his status as ‘chief suspect’, whatever that means. I am sure at some point he became tired of the never-ending speculation, but there was a time back there that he loved it. He had fled to Ireland in the early 1990s for some peace and quiet, but his narcissism would return. By 1996 he must have been missing his London life as a journalist. When he heard that someone living close by had been found dead, presumed murdered, his first reaction must have been excitement. Was this a chance to resurrect his career and make a good sum of money? I cannot think of another murder case where the local journalist sent to cover the murder is labelled as the only suspect by police. That alone should cast doubt onto the motivations and imagination of the police back then.
What most people wrongly assume when they first start looking into this case, is that nobody on earth would seek to become a suspect in a murder investigation. There is an exception to every rule, and Ian Bailey is one of those rare exceptions. A man with nothing to lose, whose brief moment in the sun as the local expert, fielding questions from national papers in Ireland, London and beyond, turned sour. He enjoyed playing David and fighting a vague Goliath that included the Irish police, and later the French courts, as well as public opinion. It was Ian Bailey vs The People, a case he could never win, even though he put himself through law school to try.
I feel sorry for the du Plantier family that this case became more about Ian Bailey than about their Sophie. But I do not fully understand why they became so convinced of Bailey’s guilt. Ian Bailey was never charged, and more than one Director of Public Prosecutions has declined to bring charges: the evidence was always thin, notwithstanding the various mistakes and delays in the investigation, and the questionable tactics to try and pin something, anything, on Bailey. He dies an innocent man, untouched by Irish law, if not French law, a system so different to ours that it is not easy for us to understand. Yet so many people are convinced he is the killer.
It was Jim Sheridan’s brilliant Murder at the Cottage that introduced me to this story, as it did so many other people, and it is worth watching again. Could it be that Sheridan is the only man who can bring finality to this story? We await his forthcoming feature-length update on the case. He has a very good network of local contacts and the nose for truth. I have everything crossed that good news will eventually come.
Perhaps the only thing we can all agree on now, whichever side of the debate you sit, is that the killer, whoever he was, is dead.
