Gardaí investigating the murder of Sophie Toscan du Planter have started examining hours of video footage from cultural events held in west Cork in the mid-1990s to see if they show the French film producer with the chief suspect in the case, Ian Bailey.
Photojournalist Stephen Bean confirmed he had handed over 16 90-minute long Hi8 video tapes recorded at events held in the area to officers from the Serious Crime Review team who are re-examining the original investigation into the 1996 murder.
He said these included footage from a storytelling festival on Cape Clear and art exhibition openings in Skibereen and Schull from between 1993 and 1995.
Gardaí are keen to examine the footage due to long circulating rumours that Ms Toscan du Plantier, who bought a holiday home at Dreenane near Toormore in 1993, met Mr Bailey at an art exhibition opening during a summer visit to west Cork.
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A witness, Mark McCarthy, made a statement in 1997 to gardaí investigating the murder saying he saw Mr Bailey speaking to Ms Toscan du Plantier at the 1995 storytelling festival on Cape Clear.
In his statement, which was entered into evidence at Mr Bailey’s trial in absentia at the Cour d’Assises in Paris in 2019, Mr McCarthy said he thought it was “strange” to hear Mr Bailey say in an RTÉ report earlier in 1997 that he had never met the French woman.
He said he had known Mr Bailey for five years at that point, having met him through his friendship with Saffron and Virginia Thomas, whose mother, Jules Thomas, was in a relationship with the former journalist who was living with the family in Schull at the time.
Mr McCarthy said he did not know Ms Toscan du Plantier then, but he recognised her when he later saw her photograph in the media following her murder. He said he had “no doubt but she was the same woman that was at the festival that summer”.
“When I saw her at the festival, I saw her talking to Ian Bailey. I did not hear their conversation, but it was a sort of occasion where everyone talked to everyone. They would only have talked for a few minutes,” he said.
“At the time, the thought that crossed my mind was that Ian Bailey was talking to an attractive blonde,” said Mr McCarthy, adding in his statement that the incident took place outside the Club Bar down by the pier on Cape Clear during the festival in the first week of September.
Mr Bailey, who died last weekend, always denied having anything to do with the murder of Ms Toscan du Plantier, whose badly beaten body was found on the laneway leading to her isolated holiday home on December 23rd, 1996.
He denied ever knowing the French woman, telling his 2003 libel trial that he saw her while he was carrying out some gardening work in the summer of 1995 for her neighbour, Alfie Lyons, but that he had never met her.
Mr Lyons told the same trial he was 90 per cent sure that he introduced Mr Bailey to Ms Toscan du Plantier. Another local man, Leo Bolger, who was carried out some maintenance work for Ms Toscan du Plantier, said he was present and saw them being introduced.
Another witness, the late Paul Webster, who was The Guardian correspondent in Paris, told the same libel trial he received a phone call in February 1997 from a man who introduced himself as Ian Bailey and said he knew Sophie Toscan du Plantier.
Film producer Guy Girard said Ms Toscan du Platier spoke about a friend of hers who was exploring the theme of violence in his writings and that his name was Bailey.
Mr Girard said he thought he knew who she was speaking about - French filmmaker Edwin Baily - but Ms Toscan du Plantier replied that he could not know him, as his name was Ian Bailey and he was a freelance writer who lived in West Cork who she seemed to know well.
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