This is a bit longwinded so bear with me. There are a number of things that I find it hard to reconcile about Bailey which lead me to thinking that it is impossible to rule him out. He didn’t have an alibi and has told many lies throughout the course of the investigation. No one loves a conspiracy as much as me involving cover ups etc but that would have had have to mean that too many people were complicit, who had no ties to the area and would have had no real motive to do so. I think that scenario is simply unrealistic. Detective Gilligan was from Dublin and O Dwyer was from Kerry and it is a stretch to think that they were covering up for someone else. There is undoubtedly massive malpractice and gross incompetence from guards of the day which is inexcusable even when taking into account the fact that they never had to deal with a homicide before. There is no evidence to suggest that they were trying to railroad Bailey from the start. The initial investigation ranged from guards quizzing family members including ex-husband. They requested that the family look for scratches and scrapes on arms of anyone at her memorial service. They looked at possible feuds over her 13 acres of land as this was not a strange occurrence in the locality. They had a list of 6 suspects locally. So they were not out to get Ian Bailey from the start. What lead to Ian Bailey being front and centre of the investigation was his own actions along with testimony of the fruitcake that is Marie Farrell. This woman had zero credibility and it is impossible to decipher if there is any truth, some truth or no truth in what she said. So best to rule out her accounts entirely. But she did precipitate a chain of events where the guards became fixated on Bailey through her accounts. It is then a certainty that they tried to ram the whole investigation to make it look like Bailey did it.
So while Bailey could never see justice be carried out properly and would never have got a fair trial, that in itself is not enough to say he didn’t do it. Bailey put it on record himself about a foreign connection in relation to the murder. He wrote articles about how Daniel her husband had financial problems as a result of movies that flopped at box office. He was trying to control the narrative from the start.
So with Bailey then. What do we know about his actions from 22nd December to in and around Christmas day.
He drank heavily night before 23rd and ended up crashing on the sofa of a house in the locality. He had left this house but returned back to ask could he spend the night. There is undoubtedly a missing few hours there. When asked about his whereabouts on 22nd Bailey said he was at home which was false. The owners of the house – The Murphy’s told the guards that he had come back and spent the night with them. Bailey subsequently went back to the police and in his own words corrected the record of his whereabouts on that night but not before he learned that Murphy’s had told police where he had been and not before Bailey in a very agitated state had asked the Murphy’s what they told the police. This shows that he didn’t have his story straight from an early stage. He became fixated on the aftermath of the murder and getting his story straight. Every good story has a start, middle and an end. His oversight was the former.
Bailey according to himself learned of the murder of a foreign national around the 1.40pm on 23rd December. She had been found at 10.30 by Alf Lyons wife. He had got a call from someone from the examiner newspaper who he did a bit of freelance work with informing him of the murder. He listened to 2 O Clock news where he gleaned a little bit more about the murder and POSSIBILITY that the victim was French. He had done a bit of gardening work for Alf Lyons – (STDP’s neighbour ) previously where according to himself he learned of the fact that there was a French woman living up the lane and she came over from France every now and again. His house was 10 mins drive from STDP’s house but yet he was able to arrive there at 2.20pm after watching the news, gathering his camera equipment, and stopping by post office where he supposedly had a conversation with Alf Lyons wife (who found the body) and she told him the specific site. She refutes this ever happening and didn’t talk to Bailey until he was turning in off the main road and making his way to the murder site. She mentioned he only stopped because she beckoned him to. To think that Bailey was able to join the dots that quickly and logistically go to murder site is not credible. Also some months after the murder there was a couple with whom Ian Bailey had an appointment on the 23rd December. The couples name were the leftwicks. They said they got a call at 12 noon from Ian Bailey to cancel that engagement as a murder of an attractive French woman who holidayed in Ireland every now and again had taken place and he was to report on it. How was he to know…
There were 2 witnesses who mentioned to guards that they saw a bonfire outside the studio of Baileys on a Christmas morning walk. He denies this happening and this account is corroborated by his partner Jules Thomas. She might have been unaware as it was a 100 yards from main house but shoes and buttons from items of clothing were found along with mattress springs etc. Nothing that could be used of evidence but actions that do not make him very credible and if he did have blood splattered clothes it was one way of taking care of them. Christmas morning is an odd time to have a fire so maybe he was tying up loose ends before going to the pier where there was a ritual Christmas morning dip where swimmers and local bystanders would see him. He didn’t partake in this himself but watched on. Business as usual…
He did have a black sarcastic humour and did “admit” killing her which was taken at face value and could not be taken as an admission of guilt. But he did give a 14 year old a life home where he said he was doing fine until he “bashed her head in with a rock”. The skull fracture from being hit with a rock was cause of STDP death but he wasn’t to know this at the time. He confronted a Pat Sullivan in his house and turned the tables on him accusing him of committing the murder. While that in itself doesn’t tell us anything Bailey let slip “you saw her tight arse in spar and went up there to see what you could get” projecting what he in fact saw and into his minds eye at that time and also pointing towards the fact that he was in Schull that day when she was, and was fully aware of who she this woman was.
The scrape marks on his hands were got supposedly from cutting down a spruce tree and he had a mark on his forehead which he supposedly got from a Turkey, I have handled 1000’s of spruce trees in my life time and have never got welts or scrape marks. He was supposedly playing a bodhran at a session in local pub couple of nights before but his hands were not visible but in any case you could see why guards and detectives were highly dubious of him.
When Bailey and Jules Thomas were arrested they were both questioned individually. Jules Thomas said that she woke up in the middle of the night and noticed he was not in bed. She did not wake again until the following morning when he brought her coffee. His coat and clothes were resting on a cane chair outside the room before he went to bed. He then recollected that he had in fact got up in the middle of the night to write an article for a newspaper. He stated that he never left the main house but his type writer was down in the studio 100 yards from the house so he would have had to make his way down there at some stage. It is not beyond bounds of possibility that he would have walked the 36 minute journey to STDP house. When asked if he was accustomed to taking midnight strolls his response was “not particularly no”. Numerous witnesses have from taxi drivers to breadmen have seen sightings of him on midnight strolls. There is an overlapping window of time where Bailey has no alibi and has given contradictory evidence about his movements and when STDP was killed. He had a considerable amount to drink and in all probability did not write an article. Jules Thomas never mentioned this article in her original statement.
So in summary I don’t buy the line that a now deceased local guard did it who was consumed by alcohol and that there were others trying to cover it up for him. The guards did not show much professional integrity and were stupid but surely not willing to risk it all to cover up for a loose cannon. What would they have had to gain by doing this?? This is hear say and local gossip perpetuated by a psychopath in Gemma O Doherty. She made reference to 2 wine glasses. STDP family said this meant nothing as she probably used both herself. She rang her husband Daniel at 10.30 that night which doesn’t sound like someone who was entertaining someone. He missed her call and called back later. Sometimes if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is a fucking duck. Bailey had a history of domestic violence and prone to outbursts of rage. The attack was opportunist and frenzied and he had 3 reported incidents of domestic violence against his partner and his ex-wife said he was very violent as well. STDP mentioned to a friend that she was meeting a poet while over in Ireland. Maybe Bailey was this poet albeit a very poor one – only he did not know that. It was his pride and joy and she may have belittled it or having faced rejection and left heartbroken from his previous marriage did not appreciate being rejected by STDP again. He probably met her the night before in the missing few hours where he woke up at Murphys and the night didn’t go as he had envisaged. This may have flipped him after a heavy night on the drink and lead to her demise.
This is by far the most likely outcome of all the scenarios I have seen mentioned.
Bailey is a compulsive liar. When he was given a gift of a type writer from Ian Montague a person he admired greatly but who shunned Bailey subsequently, the type writer was found strewn in the back garden with all the keys bashed in as if by a hammer. Bailey says this was now a garden sculpture. This anecdote sums up Bailey in a nutshell insofar as people were trying to help him over course of his life but he was his own worst enemy, he is a violent person as depicted by the smashing of the keys who is able to mask it with a love of the arts and speaking the queens English. He is able to think on the spot but ultimately he is a liar. Not only is he a liar but he is a complete narcissist who will get himself into a frame of mind whereby he will believe his own lies and create a siege mentality where he is the real victim. He is also controlling. He tried to control the narrative from the moment he turned up at the scene, by talking to witnesses like the Murphy’s, leftwicks, Jacksons and many more. He spoke to detectives without a solicitor having been advised to get one but he was cock sure of himself that he was of superior intellect to his inquisitors and ultimately tripped himself up time and again. He denies ever meeting or talking with STDP when multiple witnesses point to the contrary. Every witness statement of which there are many is met with the same retort by Bailey, “that is nonsense”, “they must be mistaken”. Sometimes the obvious answer is the answer and Bailey committed the murder.