Journalist Ian Bailey told colleagues he believed he was being regarded by police as a suspect for the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier while they were on their way to try and obtain a photograph of another suspect in the case, the High Court has heard.
Mr Bailey revealed that he was working with the Paris Match team of Irish photographers Colman Doyle and Ian Vickery and French reporter Caroline Mangez when he began to suspect that he was one of the six people identified by gardaí as a suspect for the murder of Ms Toscan du Plantier.
Yesterday, on the sixth day of his cross-examination by defence counsel Luán Ó Braonáin SC in his action against the State for damages for wrongful arrest, Mr Bailey told the jury that he had “a growing feeling that I was being drawn into something” in January and February 1997.
Pressed by Mr Ó Braonáin if he recalled telling Ms Mangez, Mr Doyle and Mr Vickery that he was a suspect in the case, Mr Bailey initially said: “I can’t remember what I said in a car 18 years ago . . . what I can recall is this – that I was working with Colman Doyle, Ian Vickery and Caroline Mangez – we were aware there were six suspects and we went down to get a photograph of one of them, a gentlemen who has since passed way.
“I was aware that I was one of the six suspects being spoken of in the media so I may well have mentioned that,” he said.
The discussion
Mr Bailey said he didn’t know if the discussion that he was a suspect extended beyond the
Paris Match
team and journalists Senan Molony of
the Star
and
Sunday Tribune
news editor
Helen Callanan
who had both said to him that it was being said he was a suspect in the case.
" I can remember the occasion [with the Paris Match team] but I can't remember the exact words – I think actually they knew that themselves. I can't remember specifically what transpired . . . six suspects were being referred to and I had subjectively concluded that I was one of them."
Later, Mr Ó Braonáin asked Mr Bailey if he recalled telling copytaker Rita Byrne on the Sunday Tribune that the reason that he knew about the interior layout of Ms Toscan du Plantier's holiday cottage at Drinane was because caretaker Josie Helen had given him the keys to the property.
Mr Bailey denied he had ever said such a thing to Ms Byrne and said he had never obtained the keys to the house from Ms Helen and had never entered the cottage where the 39-year-old French film producer was staying.
Internal layout
The only reason he knew about the internal layout of the cottage was that he had accompanied French journalist
Christophe Dubois
and another French reporter when they went up to the house and looked in a window after gardaí declared it was no longer a crime scene, he said.
Mr Ó Braonáin said Ms Helen had also denied she ever gave Mr Bailey keys to the property but he asked him could he understand in the light of both his denial and Ms Helen’s denial of matters in Ms Byrne’s statement why gardaí would cite it as a reason for his second arrest for questioning on January 27th, 1998.
“It’s a nonsense [that I got the key from Josie Helen] I certainly didn’t get a key and I certainly never accessed the property . . . I had no access to the property and I cannot explain why Rita Byrne made this statement,” he told the jury.
The case continues.
