At A Glance: Bailey case

Witness

Ian Bailey’s partner

Jules Thomas

was cross-examined for the day by

Paul O'Higgins

SC, for the State.

Snapshots

The day’s exchanges centred on statements signed by Ms Thomas twice when she was arrested, in 1997 and 2000. Ms Thomas says the statements she gave orally were marked by additions, omissions and alterations in print.

A statement taken after her arrest in February 1997 stated that, when Ms Thomas and Mr Bailey were driving home from Schull on the night of December 22nd 1996, the night before the body of French film-maker Sophie Toscan du Plantier was found, they stopped at a place called Hunt's Hill for five minutes to take in the night view. In court, Ms Thomas said it was more like one or two minutes.

The statement said Mr Bailey got out of the car and, after getting back in, said he had “a bad feeling” that something was going to happen. In court, Ms Thomas said he didn’t say that.

The February 1997 statement, describing the late- night stop on the road, read: “When we were looking across the terrain, Ian remarked ‘Is that Alfie Lyons’s house across the way?’ and he said ‘there’s a light on there’.” (The court has heard that Mr Lyons’s house was beside Ms du Plantier’s). Ms Thomas said this was “absolute invention” and that they could not see Alfie Lyons’s house from where they stopped.

Ms Thomas had no recollection of saying to gardaí that Mr Bailey got up about an hour after they went to bed on the night of December 22nd/23rd 1996. She had not said he “got up easy” so as not to wake her up. She agreed it was common for Mr Bailey to leave the bed as he would often get up to write.

She said she told gardaí she had seen no scratch on Mr Bailey’s forehead on December 22nd, 1996, and had not told gardaí “or at least I didn’t see one”, as the statement recorded. He had a “tiny nick” on his hairline, she said.

She had told the gardaí about the nick but that did not appear to be in the statement. Her solicitor had not complained about that issue, she agreed.

Asked had she told gardaí Mr Bailey could have pushed out her car without her knowing and freewheeled it down the road, as he had done in the past, she said she did not think she said that and also denied saying Mr Bailey sometimes went “walkabout” at night.

Ms Thomas denied she told gardaí Mr Bailey had said he knew Ms Toscan du Plantier by sight and had seen her at a supermarket in Schull on the afternoon on December 21st.

Mr O’Higgins put it to Ms Thomas there were no additions, omissions or inventions in her statements as written down by gardaí during the interviews. He said some of the sentences Ms Thomas says were added were “completely inconsistent” with “a set-up” as they were advantageous to Mr Bailey.

Ms Thomas disagreed and said they were not faithful recordings of what she said.