Sophie Toscan du Plantier (39) was murdered near Schull in west Cork and her badly beaten body was found on the laneway leading to the isolated former farmhouse on the morning of December 23rd, 1996.
A former journalist, Englishman Ian Bailey came to public attention in Ireland when he first reported on, and then was arrested for, the murder of the French film producer at her remote holiday home at Dreenane, Toormore.
For the following 28 years, Bailey was rarely far from the public eye, whether he was giving interviews after his two arrests, taking libel actions against newspapers, suing the State, fighting extradition to France or pleading his innocence after he was convicted in 2019 in Paris in absentia of the voluntary homicide of Toscan du Plantier under French law, which allows suspects to be tried for crimes against French citizens abroad.
He was sentenced to 25 years in jail and the French authorities sought to have him extradited on a European arrest warrant. However, the High Court in Dublin refused to allow his extradition.
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Bailey collapsed and died at the age of 66 on the street in Bantry in west Cork just over a year ago, on January 21st, 2024. Toscan du Plantier’s family believed Bailey was her killer and, when he died, said they had hoped “the cold case review team would get DNA and forensic evidence to prove it beyond any doubt”.
At the end of December 2024, gardaí carrying out the cold case review said they remained hopeful of finding forensic evidence which will enable them to identify her killer.
Bailey had protested his innocence to the end. His sister Kay Reynolds is in reflective mood as she marks the first anniversary of her older brother’s death.
It was very difficult when Ian was arrested, because my dad had cancer as well – he came on and told us what had happened – that he had been reporting on the story and then that he had been arrested and he was very scared
Reynolds says she doesn’t believe her late brother committed the murder, and while she says she and her family have suffered over the past three decades because of him being linked to the killing, she is anxious to stress her sympathy for Toscan du Plantier’s family.
Reynolds says they kept in contact when he left Gloucester, where he worked as a freelance journalist, to try his luck in London, and later when he moved to Ireland.
She attributes his move to Ireland to the fact he had run up debts in London as he found it hard to get work as a journalist in the UK after he crossed the print unions’ picket line at Wapping to do shifts at the Sunday Times, a move that led to him being effectively blacklisted.
Bailey settled near Schull in 1991, moving in with Welsh artist Jules Thomas and her three daughters. He was arrested for questioning about the murder of Toscan du Plantier in February 1997.
The news came as a shock to Reynolds and her parents, Ken and Brenda, but Bailey called them after his release without charge and, she says, kept them abreast of developments from then on, trying to warn them in advance of any stories that might appear in the media about him.
“It was very difficult when Ian was arrested, because my dad had cancer as well – he came on and told us what had happened – that he had been reporting on the story and then that he had been arrested and he was very scared, he told us because he had become a suspect.
“It caused my parents a lot of distress and it caused Ian a lot of distress because his drinking increased – he was an alcoholic from before that, but he was drinking a lot more and he was often very drunk when he phoned my parents and that wasn’t very nice.”
Mum was 85 when she passed and that was particularly hard on Ian, she was dying but he couldn’t come over
Ken Bailey died in 1999 and after his father’s death, Bailey, who Reynolds says was particularly close to their mother, Brenda, would visit her regularly. But that was all to change in 2010 when the French authorities issued a European arrest warrant (EAW) for his arrest in connection with the murder.
That was the beginning of a 10-year-long legal battle in the Irish courts. The existence of the EAW meant that Bailey could not leave Ireland and the impact of that on his family became particularly apparent in 2013 when his mother was dying.
“Mum was 85 when she passed and that was particularly hard on Ian, she was dying but he couldn’t come over – it was Skype rather than Zoom at the time and I used to try and set up Skype calls, but my mum couldn’t really quite understand it and she didn’t like the headphones,” Reynolds says.
“She was very accepting of the situation that he couldn’t come to see her, but I know Ian found it very hard not being able to see her before she passed and not being able to come over for her funeral to say his final goodbye because they were very close.”
Reynolds says that, generally, her family has been able to stay out of the media spotlight, but she recalls an instance in 2003 after Bailey’s failed libel actions when she discovered a photographer taking pictures of her elderly mother after she moved in with them.
“That was awful because they took pictures of my mum by the window – I drew the curtain quickly and we left the curtains drawn for a week and I remember screaming at my brother, saying: ‘You brought this on us, you dragged us into this’, because I was so upset for my mum.
“He begged me not to desert him... and I said I didn’t want anything more to do with him because I wanted to protect my mum, but he pleaded his case and begged me to keep in touch and I did.”
Reynolds says she travelled to Ireland with her family every couple of years to visit her brother in Schull where he lived with his then partner Jules Thomas. Bailey and Thomas parted in March 2021.
“I came over for his graduation at UCC in 2010 and that was very nice, and I was very proud of him then – he was always very hospitable when I visited him at Schull and I got on with Jules, but every conversation always came back to what had happened and that took its toll.
“He was doing a lot of dope and drinking and I’m sure that being named as a murder suspect played a big part in his demise – he was an alcoholic before the murder – he was drinking and violent to Jules before the murder, but it accelerated his drinking.
“It felt like he was never sober, and he got worse after the split with Jules – she gave him an ultimatum: ‘Stop drinking or go’ and I think that really threw him because I don’t think he saw it coming and you could see how it affected him – look at how his appearance demised.”
Although Bailey was unable to visit his sister and it was before the Covid pandemic hit when they last met, Reynolds says they grew closer in the year or so before his death when she used to send him videos of her daughter singing to her newly born granddaughter.
Her daughter “has a most extraordinary voice and of course she was his niece, so he loved these videos with my granddaughter in her arms – I used to send him two or three of these a week – he said he was really touched by them, and I think it was perhaps the most human I had ever known him.”
It was very, very hard – it absolutely freaked me that Sunday afternoon, I get a phone call and Tuesday morning, someone is being cremated – it’ s just unreal – no chance to say goodbye, but I didn’t want a media circus
Reynolds knew of her brother’s cardiac problems and how he was facing a major operation in 2024. She says he had told her that he was taking his medication and given up drink, only for her to discover that he had not.
Still, the news of his death was a shock to her.
“The police had spoken to me before and they kept ringing and I couldn’t take the call for some reason, so I gave the phone to my husband, and he took the call and said it was the Irish police, and they told me Ian had passed, and they wanted me to know before I read it in the paper.”
Stunned by the news and faced with trying to organise a funeral from outside the country, Reynolds quickly decided to hold a private cremation service. She had heard there had been press outside Bantry morgue, where her brother’s remains lay.
“It was very, very hard – it absolutely freaked me that Sunday afternoon, I get a phone call and Tuesday morning, someone is being cremated – it’ s just unreal – no chance to say goodbye, but I didn’t want a media circus, and it felt like the right decision at the time.”
Reynolds said that she felt her brother’s absence more this Christmas than perhaps when he actually died, but took some comfort from a message which arrived from west Cork.
“Just before Christmas, Bantry hospital sent me an invite to a memorial service for all the people who had died in their care during the year – it was too short notice, and I couldn’t go but it really touched me because Ian was simply being remembered with no story, no judgment.”
The cold case review continues.
