Episode 14. He Sees Sophie Everywhere.

Transcript.

PIERRE-LOUIS BAUDEY-VIGNAUD Dear friends. Families. And dear people of Ireland. I was 8 years old the first time I came here and 15 years-old when my mother was brutally killed. My mother Sophie is not a ghost. She's a victim of human cruelty and violence of a man who lives among you. And in a few days time the trial will begin at last. 

JENNIFER A lot has happened since the French charged Ian Bailey with the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier back in 2016. The French tried to extradite Ian but they were blocked by Ireland.  Ian contested the charge, but France denied his appeals.  And so a date was set for an unusual trial. An Englishman on trial in a French court for a murder committed in Ireland. We went to Paris for the trial in May of 2019. Lots was different about that trial … evidence that you wouldn’t have heard in Ireland, arguments that weren’t made in France. But it was strange in one respect most of all. In every other point in this 25 year saga, Ian Bailey has loomed large but this trial wasn’t like that. Because, Ian Bailey wasn’t there. And so while Ian’s fate hung in the balance, the focus shifted to Sophie. This woman, so often in the shadow of her own story, to us that week was about her. 

SAM Sophie Toscan du Plantier came late to her career as a documentary maker. But she was full of ideas for films about art and philosophy. Her final project was a film called, ‘He Sees Folds Everywhere’. A fold as in the fold of a napkin or a piece of paper. Sophie never got to finish the project herself. Editing was yet to begin when she flew to Cork that Christmas of 1996. But her director, Guy Girard, did finish it, and released it a year after her death. I recently tracked down a copy. In the opening scenes, the director is walking the streets of Paris, wearing black, smoking … so far so French … but he’s playing with an origami fortune teller. Kids sometimes call them cootie catchers or a chatterbox - a game with directions or fortunes hidden under the different folds. Each time Guy Girard unfolds a corner, it sends him off to explore the fold in a new and surprising way… He meets a brain surgeon, a performance artist… the fashion designer Issey Miyake. He’s saying that if you look in the right way, folds are all around us. He reads from the work of an abstract philosopher explaining how folds shape our very existence, unfolding in the embryo and shrivelling up in death.Through an endless procession of examples, Guy is trying to animate an intangible idea. And as I sit here watching the film on my laptop during lockdown, it reminds me of a day I spent in Paris, with a guy called Fred. 

SAM Can you say something

FRED Hello Hello. C’est bon?

SAM C’est bon

FRED Parfait 

SAM I’m Sam Bungey.

JENNFER I’m Jennifer Forde and this is ‘HE SEES SOPHIE EVERYWHERE’ 

SAM Introduce yourself, say your name. 

FRED Ah okay, I’m Frédéric Gazeau, and i’m Sophie’s cousin, and that’s all… [LAUGHTER] 

SAM It’s a Sunday. Fred and I are in a busy cafe in central Paris, the morning before Sophie’s murder trial.

FRED It’s strange that i choose this place to talk with you because i didn’t realise but this is the place where i learned that my cousin was dead.   

SAM  He says that this is the cafe he was in when he heard about Sophie’s murder. Fred was a student then. He was just hanging out reading a football magazine when he started getting messages  through on his pager. Messages saying things like, ‘Fred, I’m so sorry for your loss’. 

FRED And it was a very stressful moment because i knew that somebody was dead and i didn’t know who 

SAM He went looking for a place to make a call … he remembered there was a payphone in the basement of this cafe...

FRED and i phone to my friend … 

SAM In this cafe? 

FRED In this cafe yes. An this moment i was thinking. My friend say i don’t want to say this to you, and i say come on say me what happened? At this moment i was thinking it was my mother or my father, and she say no it’s your cousin. What?! My cousin? Sophie? And she say yes. And I say How? And she say, she has been murdered. 

JENNIFER Fred has an official role to play at the trial this week. In France, as part of a murder trial, the court hears from ‘personality witneseses’ who will talk about the victim. The thinking is that to understand the crime, you first have to understand who was lost. As a kid Fred was starry-eyed about his older cousin. 

FRED I was very amazed by her. I was very very proud to have a cousin like her her. She has a lot of energy. And. when she comes in a  room there was electricity in the air. She looks at you when you are you. You. Feel that you exist. 

SAM We wander out of the cafe into the 1st district of Paris, where Sophie spent most of her life. Fred has chosen this place to organise his thoughts for the trial, and I’m tagging along. 

FRED We’re going to the sophie’s place now near Rambuteau

SAM  Sophie was 15 years older than Fred and the eldest of the cousins.

FRED we have to walk 5 minutes...

SAM It’s something Fred returns to often. She occupied that place that the eldest in the group of young relatives often does. The smart, thoughtful, cool one.  

FRED You see there is window? And it was er...

SAM We’re outside a modern apartment building, where Sophie lived with her young son, Pierre-Louis, after she divorced her first husband. 

FRED … Pierre-Louis’ room. The other one is Sophie’s room 

Fred often came by to babysit Pierre Louis here.

FRED and it was simple like her character (...) only one couch and her desk for writing 

Fred’s sifting through detail after detail about Sophie’s life. That she read gothic novels, that she couldn’t hold a tune but loved to sing, about the time she confronted the homeless guy she realised had been sleeping in her car...

FRED She says cmon you can sleep in my car but in the morning you have to clean up

SAM What? She was like that’s fine? 

FRED Yes that’s fine but please, clean in the morning. She was always gentle. 

SAM Fred’s talking to me but I get the impression he’s thinking about the courtroom, searching for the perfect detail that might explain what his cousin was really like.

SAM it’s amazing the things you remember 

FRED Ah i remember a lot of things. I can speak for hours.

SAM Fred feels a certain pressure speaking about Sophie in front of her family, the pressure to sum up a person who meant different things to different people. But Sophie and Fred really bonded over their love of culture. She inspired him to become a documentary screenwriter himself. In court he’s going to focus on what he knows best. 

FRED So you want to give you want to give a portrait of her by talking about her taste in music and poetry and theatre. Yes It’s very important.

SAM Sophie wanted to make documentaries about African art and Greek dance… For a project about the old belief in the four humours of the body, she had Fred read up in medical texts while she spent hours in a museum filled with gruesome specimens in preserving jars. 

FRED She was always interested in these things … but she was a little bit afraid. She wants to see but a little bit afraid. Like a child. You see the monster, and you see the way you want to approach, but when the wave come to you you run the other way. She was like this yes.

JENNIFER For her documentary on the fold, Sophie and her director Guy Girard would meet to share their research. Guy told Sophie a story about a man who’d murdered his wife, and told the police that things had taken a ‘mauvais pli’, like a bad turn. The literal translation is ‘a bad fold’. Sophie told Guy that if they were going to pursue violence as a theme they should make sure to speak to a particular writer she knew in Ireland - and she mentioned the man’s name. They never did interview him. Shortly after this conversation Sophie flew alone to Ireland that weekend before Christmas.  But when Guy read Ian Bailey’s name in the paper in connection to Sophie’s murder, he was sure that this was that writer she had talked about that day in the office. He even got on a plane to Ireland to meet with a detective. But by that time more than 2 years had passed, who could be sure that his memory hadn’t been coloured by all the media coverage of the case. Sophie hadn’t wanted to go to West Cork alone that weekend. It’s something that many in the family have struggled with over the years. She asked lots of friends and family to come with her but no one could. Fred got a call from Sophie that he never got round to returning. 

FRED She has sent to my cousin a fax to say, ‘come with me please come with me’ And I don’t know why she goes in Ireland if she doesn’t want to go alone. Maybe she was afraid of something I don’t know 

SAM The trial this week probably wouldn’t be happening without Fred’s father, Sophie’s uncle, Jean Pierre. He started a pressure group, pushing for an investigation in France when it seemed Sophie’s case had been all but forgotten. But now faced with the reality of a trial, Fred is thinking of Sophie’s elderly parents.

FRED I think there is a lot of tension, you know. They are waiting for this moment but  I think very terrible things will be revealed during the trial. … the autopsy … a lot of things. And I’m worried … I don’t know how they’ll deal with it. 

SAM It’s well into the evening by the time Fred and I finally part ways. 

FRED I go home now to sleep and to be with my children for a few hours and i know  tomorrow will be stressful

SAM  I know Fred feels anxious not to let anyone down this week, most especially Sophie’s son, Pierre-Louis.The week before the trial Pierre Louis had travelled to West Cork to stand before the congregation at Sunday mass.

PIERRE LOUIS Dear friends. Families. And dear people of Ireland.  I have been coming to Ireland. For 30 years now. I was 8 years old the first time. I came here. And 15 15 years old. When my mother was brutally killed. 

JENNIFER  Pierre Louis had come to this church in the village of Goleen to make a direct plea.

PIERRE LOUIS My mother Sophie. is not a ghost. She's a victim of human cruelty and violence. Which has no place here. Because humans are sometimes capable of the worst. This man was capable of the worst. Because my mother defended herself from the worst up to where I left with. To escape the savage and brutal violence. Of a man who lives among you.

JENNIFER Pierre-Louis didn’t say the name of the man accused of killing his mother, but everyone knew who he was talking about. Ian Bailey’s lawyer Frank Buttimer would later blame the church for allowing his client to be ‘read from the pulpit’ he said, like back in the days when priests would shame people during mass. 

PIERRE-LOUIS You know as well as i do who killed my mother. In a few days time. The trial will begin at last

JENNIFER That weekend people across West Cork were receiving summons letters from France.The French can’t force witnesses to come to this trial. They don’t have that power. But the letters explained that the court would reimburse them for expenses, they just had to get themselves to Paris.  And Pierre Louis was in church that day to strengthen the appeal. 

PIERRE-LOUIS It is time today to turn one of the saddest pages of your story. The darkest page of mine. Don't betray me. Don't  betray yourself. 

BEAT

JENNIFER It’s Monday morning, three hours before the trial starts and something that for so long just seemed like a wild idea is really about to happen. Ian Bailey is about to go on trial for murder. But Ian Bailey isn’t coming.  The foreign press are gathered by a cafe opposite the courthouse debating the whole idea of a trial in absentia. 

SHERIDAN The thing you've got to take on board - and most people in Ireland are blind to this. 

JENNIFER That’s Michael Sheridan, he’s written two books on the case. 

SHERIDAN  That it’s his decision not to defend himself. You cannot blame the French authorities for legislation for allowing for in absentia. It was his decision. The French would like to have him here, very much so.

JENNIFER There is something kind of fascinating about a system that would allow the victim a day in court regardless of whether the suspect shows up. Under the common law system, which is what’s used in Ireland and lots of other places like the UK and the US, holding a trial without a defendant present would be  considered a violation of that person’s right to a fair hearing, which is all about two sides duking it out. But that’s not going to happen here this week. Not only is Ian not coming, nor are his lawyers.  So a murder trial without a defendant present and without a defence. Mick Clifford from the Irish Examiner jumps into the argument. 

CLIFFORD The point michael is our system is based not on someone having to defend an innocent, that the system is based on having to prove somebody is guilty it's nearly turned on its head.  

SHERIDAN He says constantly in newspaper interviews over recent times that he's an innocent man. So I mean why isn't he coming? Why isn't his lawyer defending him?

CLIFFORD Well I haven't a clue but (...) certainly if I was in his shoes and the way it has progressed through the French system I'd be very slow to come myself. 

JENNIFER Instead this week, Ian’s at home in his new writing shed composing poems. The French are preparing a ‘bonfire on a bed of lies’, he says. Better they burn an effigy. But putting Ian Bailey on trial without Ian Bailey, is something that his lawyer Frank described as ‘Hamlet without the prince’. It’s a saying that supposedly refers back to the summer of 1775, when a theatre company was putting on a production of Hamlet above a pub in London’s West End. One night the actor playing the hero absconded with the innkeepers’ daughter. But the tickets were sold, the other thespians all in place... So one of the troupe went out before the curtain call to warm up the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark – with the part of Hamlet left out for the night.”

[SOUNDS OF COURTHOUSE]

SAM A lot of modern courthouses can be fairly functional looking, slabs of concrete with low ceilings and strip lighting. The Palais de Justice is not that kind of a place.  This building has been a symbol of French justice for nearly 800 years. It’s where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned awaiting the guillotine. We clear security, walk along a marble hallway and up a worn stone staircase to the Victor Hugo Court. Outside are two armed policemen, and a sign saying ‘Bailey trial’. A trial in absentia is like a stepping stone. If Ian is convicted the French will try to bring him to France to face a new trial in person. But inside the courtroom, it doesn’t feel like anyone thinks this is just a dress rehearsal. The lead lawyer for the prosecution is Marie Dose, she’s stylish and has a high profile here in Paris. She cracks a can of Perrier, and begins laying out weighty files - 17 separate folders. They’ll be stacked there all week, perhaps as a physical reminder of the heft of their case against Ian. Sophie’s family and friends occupy the benches behind the legal team and even spill over on to the other side of the central aisle where Ian’s lawyers would, had they come, be laying out files of their own. The dock, where Ian, would be sitting under police guard, is empty. At a little after 2pm the presiding judge, Judge Frederique Aline enters the court and with a glance over at  the dock, she asks “Is Ian Bailey in the room?”  Silence. Judge Aline says,  “We consider that Ian Bailey is absent without a valid excuse”.And so the trial begins. 

JENNIFER The judge reads out a roll call of witnesses who have been asked - but not ordered - to attend. And it’s here, where the challenges of this trial begin to sink in - different languages, different jurisdictions, the corroding passage of 23 years … 

LARA MARLOWE I think the way they have handled the witnesses is very sloppy.

JENNIFER That’s Lara Marlowe from the Irish Times. 

MARLOWE As far as I can tell they just sent summonses to whatever old address was somewhere in the file and more than half of them came back saying no reply or unknown at this address or in. Person unknown

JENNIFER The list even included Martin Graham, the garda informant, who had sadly died just a couple of months before the trial. Another witness called had died a few years earlier.

MARLOWE If they really wanted (...) people to come and testify they needed to have someone in charge of it.

JENNIFER Perhaps the biggest name on the list is Marie Farrell - the witness who said she saw Ian near the crime scene on the night of the murder, and then changed her story. We contacted Marie a week or so before the trial, she told us she never had any intention of going to Paris. 

SAM Back in court, the first person to testify is an expert witness who talks about Sophie. Occasionally he speaks directly to the case but overall it seems more about opening with a portrait of the victim. We move onto photos of the crime scene, at which point most of Sophie’s family step outside. The photos are presented here to the court by a fast-talking French detective. He’s the first of two French detectives who will testify today - both were part of the team assigned to the case back in 2008 when France launched its own investigation. They travelled to Cork multiple times to meet Irish detectives and re-interview witnesses. Though they did their own policework, most of what they’re presenting here is directly from the Irish Garda file. When it comes to the crime scene photos, the French detective isn’t always sure what he’s looking at. The prosecution lawyers step forward to help clarify a few points. Judge Aline is understanding. “I realise these aren’t your photos”, she says. But by mid-way through the second detective it’s pretty clear the French are not just going through the motions here. He and his partner have been on their feet testifying for hours. By the time the courtroom empties out its past 11 o’clock at night and the rest of the Palais du Justice is deserted, The trial will resume at 9.30 tomorrow morning. There’s a schedule… 

MICK CLIFFORD they're talking about Bill Fuller and Reid. Your woman Cerrie William. 

JENNIFER And then the Richard and Rosie Shelley. 

SAM … but it all hinges on who turns up. 

CLIFFORD Jesus Christ it’s a long day.

JENNIFER Anyway see you later... bye thanks take care.

BEAT

JENNIFER By late morning on day two, word had gone around that of the West Cork witnesses called, just two have made it to Paris.They’re about to meet the court translator.

EUNICE KOUNOU So my name i’ll do the short version as I have an extra long African name is Eunice.  Eunice Kounou. I've been working (...) as a translator for 17 years. 

JENNIFER  Eunice likes to meet witnesses before they come into the courtroom.

KOUNOU because usually they're very nervous. They're in a foreign country. They don't speak the language. They are terrified. And so I (...) explain what's going to happen once they enter the room so that they're prepared.

JENNIFER First up is Irune Reed. Irune is here to testify on behalf of her son, Malachi. Remember, Malachi got a lift home from Schull with Ian Bailey one evening and Ian told him things hadn’t been going well for him since ‘he went up there and bashed that woman’s brains in with a rock’. Or words to that effect. Ian doesn’t deny saying something like that, he just says it was a dark joke. Malachi was just 14 back then. And doesn’t want anything to do with the case anymore. So his mum has come instead.

TESS DE LA MER Yeah obviously their system’s very different.

JENNIFER AP journalist Tess De La Mer is new to this case, but has covered legal proceedings for years in the UK. She’s not used to hearing evidence second hand like this, especially not without some healthy cross examination.

DE LA MER when he's saying oh the garda took me to one side, and this interview with the garda that he had before he told his mother about what happened. How did how did they know of this and that just didn't seem...  that wasn't picked apart at all.

JENNIFER In fact, a detective had got word that Ian had driven Malachi home that night, so the detective went to see Malachi the following day in school. But Tess has concerns about that too, about the way that this evidence was gathered.  

DE LA MER Why were they talking to a 14 year old, where were they talking to him? And the mother clearly knew this story very well. So they might have been questions she could have answered.

SAM The second witness Billy Fuller is here to testify among other things about a strange encounter he says he had with Ian Bailey before his first arrest. If you don’t remember he says that he and Ian were having a few drinks one evening when Ian accused Billy of killing Sophie; the accusation had a lot of detail that made Billy feel Ian had incriminated himself. When he came out of court, Billy repeated his testimony for reporters on the stairway ... 

BILLY Well she said that you went up there to see what you could get you for. And then she ran away screaming. So you chased her to calm down realize you stove something in the back of her head realize you went too far not to finish you off.  That's what he said to me himself. I have a confession to have some way of saying it, you know

SAM  This is just one of many claims Billy Fuller has made about Ian to the guards.  One story was that he saw Ian trying to dispose of a big stick down near the beach one day. This claim was disproved by the guards themselves, who established that Billy had actually seen a local farmer. Billy knows the Guards found this, and yet he told us he still struggles to accept he really didn’t see Ian that day. The way the DPP in Ireland saw it, back then Billy was in the grip of a community-wide hysteria about Ian, that had been stirred up by the investigation. 

SAM Ian would claim that you were coached into saying into making up the scenario that he said this by the Guard who spoke to you what would you say to that.

BILLY Say that's absolute rubbish The guards never put fear into anybody it was the fear was there. As you said before the fear was already there. Guards was just helping out reacting on that really, you know?

FRENCH REPORTER And why do you think there is so few Irish people here? 

BILLY There's any given this someone has eight days before the case you know. So some people haven't got passports They haven’t got the money to do this, I had managed to get a loan to do this. it took a lot of energy and left a lot of stress. But it's worth it for me because I've been gone for 22 years and I was when I just want an end to this now, you know 

JENNIFER So how does it feel now (...) to have stood up in court?

BILLY its' a Relief is just on the next day you got to do it now. We still go live with the guy like and I'm two people stood here and help me and I wound you know and he knows what I've said against him now again you know as you got live around that I live around the ripples that causes 

SAM Eventually Billy breaks free and flees down the stairs practically two at a time. And that’s it. During Ian’s civil case against Irish state, more 80 witnesses appeared.In a case that has rarely been out of Irish newspapers in over more than 20 years, this is all we are going to hear from anyone in Ireland. 

THIERRY LEVEQUE (...) but at least these people have saved the honour of skull village 

SAM That’s Thierry Lévêque, the French reporter who first began covering the case for Reuters back when the murder happened. He doesn’t think much of those witnesses  who hadn’t given up a day or two of their time to come to Paris.. 

LEVEQUE Perhaps it is the illustration of Ireland they’re not really comfortable with this case.  It's all the people know there that they have missed something. And of course it is a bit shameful to go to Paris to admit that the French are doing their job. But I think they should put this apart and help people here to finish with this story.

JENNIFER One Irish witness seems to have anticipated this kind of reaction from the French and she is determined to shut it down. Helen Callanan had been called to testify about another of Ian’s alleged confessions. She was one of the newspaper editors taking Ian’s reporting on the murder investigaiton, and when she confronted him about being a suspect he said he killed Sophie to resurrect his career. Another joke, Ian says. Callanan is now a prominent barrister in Dublin. And she has written an email to the court, read out by the prosecutor, explaining that she can’t possibly come on such short notice. If they can wait until next week she says she can arrange to testify by video link. But the judge says the trial will be over by then. Callanan is scathing of the witness handling.  She wonders why the ‘French authorities had waited until the last minute’ when the ‘facts had been known for more than two decades.’ And worries that the lack of verbal testimony will undermine the credibility of the trial. It’s not the people of West Cork that are betraying Sophie’s family she writes. It’s the fragility of the process to be found in Paris.

BEAT

CLIFFORD One thing  I will say what I noticed in the last few days... 

JENNIFER This is Michael Clifford from the Irish Examiner. 

CLIFFORD The place given to the victim's family in French law I think is very commendable 

JENNIFER He says that one of the criticisms of the common law system is that the victim is forgotten about, it’s just the state and the suspect. 

CLIFFORD in the last few days to two witnesses in particular we've been given a picture. Of a life. That this woman had and the type of person she was and everything about her. So to some extent she came alive and her life was there in the courtroom.

JENNIFER The two witnesses Clifford is praising here are Fred, Sophie’s cousin, who you heard from back at the start, and her best friend, Agnes Tomas. But when we found Fred and Agnes outside later they were beating themselves up, convinced they’d done a terrible job. 

AGNÈS It was really hard to explain I wanted to to do her a very lovely testimony and explain  what the joy the joy Sophie was able to you know the joys the energy the their lives. She was really alive. She was a great girl. I mean her you know. So I wanted to expand it but they were so sad. I didn't say a word. This is it. 

FRED She has five pages of notes. She was writing in the room.

AGNÈS Yes. And yes I prepared the the the story of Sophie but impossible. It was too hard

JENNIFER Before they testified, Fred and Agnes were in a room together, going over what they were planning to say, trying to calm each other down. Fred says he ended up forgetting to mention members of Sophie’s family in his testimony. For her part, Agnes spoke the first few lines of the speech she’d prepared, and then just petered out. But over our time with Agnes and Fred this week, just shooting the breeze about Sophie, we find they’re able to recall up their old friend so vividly that sometimes she seems to hang in the air with us. 

AGNÈS Really I miss her. Now because I don't have any friend like this. She she she was calling me very often. And some myself. So if you don't call me I don't have anything to say. We could talk. I already do. Yesterday I spent two hours. It's OK today though do it. But you know she's OK please and we can talk of everything. She she was loving talking yes. And if I don't (...) calling back so quickly. She called me. Hi Agnes it's Sophie. Please call me back. Come on. You didn't call me back. Please call me Sophie. Sophie is me back. She was so cute. Please come on agnes please call me. I have new things to say. She was so funny. 

It was absolutely Sophie. So. Someplace. Irresistible. I don't know I just have to resist Tebow irresistible. Table. She was so nice. Really. We really miss her. Yeah. We lost someone. You know. We can say that we really lost  someone.

BEAT

SAM Day 3 begins with a reading of a ‘personality assessment’ of Ian Bailey, prepared by two French psychologists. They conclude that Ian is “particularly complex and intelligent” but bears the traits of someone with a ‘borderline personality’. He is self-obsessed, and has a tendency towards extreme violence. The psychologists looked at Garda interrogation notes and Ian’s personal diaries which feature long passages of graphic sexual fantasies and horrifying accounts of his violence against his partner Jules. In places, they seem to depict a man on the verge of some kind of breakdown. But the psychologists here didn’t evaluate Ian in person, they  correspond with him at all, and in fact from here on out, any testimony from people with first hand knowledge of the accused will be delivered in written statements from the investigation file, read in by the judge herself. Names that have circled the case for years. Neighbours, guards. For Marie Farrell alone there are hundreds of pages of statements. A lot of Marie’s statements contradict one another, in multiple ways. But back in the original indictment against Ian the French prosecution made it clear that they assumed Marie was telling the truth about seeing Ian out on the road that night, until Ian menaced her into changing her story.  Ian contests all this and his lawyer Frank Buttimer even says that on one date where Ian was supposed in West Cork harassing Marie, he was actually with Ian himself in Cork city. On and on Judge Aline goes, for hours, working through a big stack of print outs. Lara Marlowe from the Irish Times finds it kind of hypnotic.

LARA You know it's funny because at the end of the day, one almost gets confused between the witnesses who came and the witnesses whose testimony was read aloud in court. It was more effective than I would have thought it could be. The judge read them very well in the beginning I thought she was she was speaking much too fast but as it went on one was able to take it in and also because the story is so familiar to everyone. 

SAM Some of the material that hasn’t been through the mill in Ireland concerns the allegation that Ian had an existing relationship with Sophie. Remember, Sophie’s cousin Alexandra Lewy gave a statement to French police that a few days before that final trip to West Cork Sophie got a call to her office in Paris from a man who lived near her holiday home in West Cork. He told her that he was an independent journalist and writer, and was requesting a meeting for “cultural reasons”. According to the statement, Sophie had been surprised by the call and the fact the man wouldn’t tell her how he’d got her number. The court in Paris also hears the statement of Guy Girard, Sophie’s director, who remembered her talking about a writer in Ireland named Eoin Bailey, Ian’s pen name at the time. This chimes with something else we hear at this trial, a story Sophie’s best friend Agnes Tomas tells about a phone call Sophie’d received shortly before her final trip - from someone who was bizarre and made her feel uneasy. She had met this man before and was now unsure about meeting him again. Agnes only recalled this several years after Sophie’s murder, and she couldn’t remember the man’s name, or even whether he was meant to have been in Ireland. But she did recall that this man was a poet. As Lara Marlowe points out, it’s a detail that stands out to people.

LARA Obviously one thinks of Ian Bailey. 

SAM But overall, most of what’s being presented here in France has been covered extensively in newspapers in Ireland over the years. 

JENNIFER Something you hear a lot about this case is that guards messed up in those early days. It’s come up here at the trial more than once. Talk of the crime scene being poorly preserved. The suggestion that the guards were simply overwhelmed by the scale of the task. Sophie’s son Pierre-Louis once complained to us that no one from the Irish investigation bothered to interview him … It spoke to him of a half-assed job. This struck us as strange, too - the idea that the guards had never wanted to speak to the son of the victim, one of the few people who had been regularly been to the house with Sophie. In fact Pierre-Louis is mistaken. The guards had wanted to speak to him. But it was complicated. In the way things have been complicated here this week. It turns out that the challenges that come with working across international borders have plagued this case from the start.  Back in 1996, the guards weren’t allowed to directly investigate in France. Instead they would draw up a list of questions and people in France they wanted to speak to.The list would then run a gauntlet of red tape. And at the other end, supposedly there would be a French police officer, who would ideally work through the list.  But too often it seems a French cop never got to such assignments. The guards put Pierre Louis on their list, but never got a statement back. The same goes for Guy Girard, the director who worked with Sophie on her final film. Naturally the guards had wanted to meet Sophie’s husband Daniel in the weeks after the murder, but had to settle for a single statement taken by a Paris detective. So it feels like some of the criticism of the guards’ work in those early days is a little unfair. But what seems to be missing this week at the trial is some of the criticism that has come since.

SAM  Over the past decade in Ireland there’s been a public reckoning with An Garda Siochana following a run of scandals. And this case has been in the middle of that. In 2018, the body which investigates alleged Garda wrongdoing, GSOC, published a report with disturbing findings about the Sophie investigation.  They found pages from the jobs books were missing, some apparently removed with a pair of scissors. Two pages are missing right after where Ian is first nominated as a suspect. And the guards are missing evidence. A lot of evidence. Five suspect files were missing. The originals of 139 statements. GSOC found 22 exhibits had either gone missing or were not held by the guards. A wine bottle recovered near Sophie’s house, Ian Bailey’s black coat and, the big one, the four-metre long, blood-spattered, five bar gate taken from the crime scene. The gate in particular has captured the public imagination in Ireland. How in the world do you lose a gate? Some people began referring to the scandal as ‘gate-gate’ We do know the gate went from a West Cork store up to Garda HQ in Dublin, where tests were done on it until around mid January of 97. In 2001, new tests were carried out on swabs from the gate. By the time the French carried out their own tests on crime scene exhibits in 2011, there’s no mention of the gate at all in their paperwork.  At some point, as GSCO reported, the gate had disappeared. One of the many surprising features of this case is that there is no hard evidence. Despite the frenzied scene, it has frustrated people over the years that the only DNA ever found has been Sophie’s. Except we recently learned that’s technically no longer the case.

JENNIFER In 2011 a French forensic scientist travelled to West Cork, at the invitation of An Garda Siochana, to take fresh samples  from objects recovered from the crime scene. The scientist was shown nine exhibit bags at Bantry garda station. As she later noted in her report all these bags were already opened. Anyway, she took samples back to France and ran tests. All the blood tests showed only a female DNA profile, just as all the other UK and Irish tests had done over the years. But on a single sample - a swab of a whitish trace near the laces on Sophie’s left boot, they found something else. The DNA profile of an unknown male. We took the paperwork on these results to independent experts. They told us that this was the result of a contact trace sample taken to detect DNA from skin cells, sweat or any other secretions. They stressed that this is just a single sample from among many and that there are plenty of reasons it may have no evidential value in Sophie’s case. It might have already been on the boot prior to the attack, or it might be the result of contamination after the fact. Eugene Gilligan, the retired scenes of crime detective who worked on this case, remarked to us that it was a strange place for male DNA to be found. He speculated that it could have wound up there during the post mortem when the boot was pulled off. Jim Donovan, the former head of Ireland’s forensic science lab, mused that saliva from a loud talker might have landed on the boot and survived for months or even years.   

SAM  What we couldn’t establish is exactly what, if any, official work was done to find out whose DNA this is. Did anyone compare the profile to those of the officers and experts who had been at the scene? Or to other suspects? Did they run it through Interpol? Were any additional tests done on the boot? We have reached out to people in France and Ireland - from senior investigators to forensics officers - and they have declined to tell us either way.  We assume they have Ian Bailey’s DNA on file and have established it doesn’t match but they won’t even tell us that. The French file has no explanation for the DNA, and the French are apparently famed for their fastidious paperwork. If any record exists in Ireland about follow-up investigation, it wasn’t captured by discovery in Ian's civil suit in 2014. It may have been done since. The point is, there’s been 25 years of seeking answers in Sophie’s murder. And it seems a little late in the game - with missing gates and trials in absentia - to be keeping secrets. Again, this isn’t necessarily some forensic bombshell. But since no-one will answer our question, we’re asking it here. Did anyone check? 

JENNIFER Had a defence been here at the trial this is one of the many questions that might have been asked. But Ian’s legal team haven’t stepped foot in this courtroom all  week.  Today though, they did send a letter. Dominique Tricaud has been Ian Bailey’s legal representative in France since the first European Arrest Warrant was issued back in 2010. You might remember that one of the first phone calls Ian made back when he found out about the French charge was to Tricaud - he couldn’t reach him at the time as Tricaud was on a yacht off the coast of Italy. But though he’s boycotted the trial we noticed that a guy from Tricaud’s office is in the viewing gallery. It turns out that Tricaud is being kept abreast of events at the Palais de Justice. And he has written to the court to add to the chorus of criticism about the lack of witnesses. This is just his latest attempt to influence proceedings from outside the courtroom. To explain we have to go back to last Wednesday, five days before the trial started.

[CHATTER FROM THE PRESS CONFERENCE] 

SAM Around 30 journalists have assembled at Dominque Tricaud’s office and the event is being recorded for French TV and radio news. Tricaud denounces the upcoming proceedings as the trial of a banana republic and claims the whole thing has been organised by the state as a gift to the victim’s family. He spends time picking holes in the case against Ian, and even starts putting forward alternative scenarios for what might have occurred in the crime. Tricaud spoke only in French at the conference so I sat down with him afterwards. I asked him what the purpose of the press conference had been. Tricaud said he wanted to let the court know, on the record, that he thought they were making a mistake. He says the symbol of showing up in his lawyers outfit, would give credence to the proceedings.

TRICAUD I don't want that a black robe worn by Tricaud shows that the trial is an independent trial

SAM Tricaud told me that he thought the judges were intelligent people and would understand that as Ian Bailey’s defense lawyer, not showing up was really his only move. I asked him whether he thought that made Ian look guilty, and he said he’d put the scenario to the journalists at the press conference. 

TRICAUD It is not a question of guilt or innocence, it’s a question of chance...That was my question to the journalists yesterday, you are innocent, you have been said innocent in france, there is a new case in ireland, do you go. You are innocent but do you take the risk of getting 30 years? 

SAM Tricaud asked any journalist in the room who thought that they’d risk going to a trial in this scenario to raise their hand … 

TRICAUD ... no-body did it.

SAM When we spoke to the prosecution lawyer Marie Dosé about this press conference she dismissed the whole event as a desperate publicity stunt - a circus number. She had great respect for Tricaud she said, but by sounding off at a press conference instead of making his case in court, he had turned himself into a clown.

JENNIFER Back in court, Tricaud’s letter is read in, but by the end of the day, no one is talking about anything much other than prosecution lawyer Marie Dose’s thunderous performance when she delivers her final pleading. Dose later told us that while researching this case she had travelled to West Cork stayed at Sophie’s house she even slept in her bed. She wanted to fully immerse herself. In court, Dose speaks passionately, without notes, roaming the courtroom, banging on the bench where Ian’s lawyers should have sat, berating them for their absence. She lays out her vision of the night of the murder. Ian drinks and drinks and drinks more. On the way home he stops at a look out point. He has a direct view of Sophie’s house. He knows she’s alone. She goes on. It’s emphatic and theatrical, and there is no one here to undercut any of it, to point out that, starting with the claim he even knew the victim, Ian has  denied every part of this story. Sophie’s cousin Fred says that the family found it all overwhelming. Afterwards they’d all just scattered out into the city. 

FRED It's the first time you hear the story of this case with someone who … you know Marie Dosé, you know she uh she put all her heart in you know her pleading. Yeah. And we were there. During the night of the murder. Like in a book or in a novel. You know it was incredible incredible. 

JENNIFER Marie Dosé had ended her pleading with a reference to Fred’s testimony.  Fred had spoken of the responsibility Sophie had felt for the younger family members like him, because she was the eldest.

FRED when i speak in front of the court I focus use my speech on the fact that. Sophie was the oldest of our generation of cousin. (...) I didn't know what it means really. But. the a lawyer Marie Dose. Understand what I was saying better than me. And uh when I speak I say says Sophie was the first one to be married the first one to have a child Pierre Louis. First one who divorced. And I didn't finish my sentence. And when (...) when Marie Dose made her pleading, she finished with this sentence. She said this was the first one tous ca. And she said the last sentence was first one to die.. Sophie was the first one to die.

BEAT 

SAM It was very dramatic. Your story.

MARIE DOSÉ But it is dramatic and it's not a story ... 

SAM I’m speaking to Marie Dosé standing on the court house steps 

DOSÉ … So I have to. I have to speak about this horrible story and what happened exactly minute for minute for minute for minute. I mean we know exactly what happened. It's in the case. It's in the witnesses. We know what happened. So I just work this case and I didn't lie. 

SAM She says I just worked the case and I didn’t lie. But could the same be said for everyone who’d ever given a statement about this case to the guards? Statements which had then been handed to the French and led to this point. Frank Buttimer told us that if he ever did defend Ian Bailey in a criminal court, he’d listen to the Garda evidence, and then he’d wipe the floor with it.  Even this week, during this trial in Paris, the prosecution and their expert witnesses have been fairly withering of the original Irish investigation.I ask Marie Dosé about it 

SAM There's been criticism this week of the Irish police and their investigation. But you felt that the material from that investigation was enough for you. 

DOSÉ Yeah of course it is. Of course it is. I mean and Ian Bailey knows it. That's why he's not here. And his lawyer knows it. That's why he's not here.

BEAT 

SAM The next day is a public holiday. When court reconvenes on Friday morning the trial is essentially over, there is just the public prosecutor’s final address. He says the evidence against Ian Bailey is overwhelming. Gesturing to the empty dock, he says that Ian’s lawyers had mocked and insulted the court with their “unbearable contempt” for French justice. And he is scathing of the DPP in Ireland. He says that the DPP had systematically invalidated the individual pieces of evidence, and had missed the bigger picture.  He tells the judges that if in their hearts they believe Ian Bailey to be guilty, they should give him the maximum 30 years. ‘I want to see Ian Bailey here’, the prosecutor says. ‘I want to hear his defence. I want to hear and be able to condemn him face to face’.  The judges retire to deliberate, it takes them 5 hours. At 5.02pm Judge Frederique Aleine announces her verdict. The moment Pierre-Louis escapes the court he’s flooded by reporters.

[PRESS CHATTER]

PIERRE-LOUIS The judgment is very clear. With all the element of proof. Ian Bailey is a murderer. And he killed my mother 22 years ago. So it's a victory for justice. It's a victory for the truth . And now. Ireland will have to extradite Ian Bailey and we will put all the pressure on everywhere to get the justice done. But today everybody must know, understand that Ian Bailey is a murderer and we must denounce it. 

BEAT 

SAM There’s never been any basis for people to say anything like this in Ireland - anything definitive about this case at all.  The truth is that the case against Ian has never been tested in a criminal court in a way many of us would recognise. And it’s increasingly likely that it never will. Ian learned the result by phone from a journalist that evening, it came as no Surprise. This was a week with much drama but little suspense. A year from now Irish authorities will once again block France’s request to extradite Ian Bailey. The family will begin to mount an appeal with the European Court of Justice, but things will be moving especially slowly with that during the pandemic. In the meantime we have a reality that a member of Ian’s legal team predicted years ago. Guilty in France and innocent in Ireland. It’s an outcome Ian Bailey appears resigned to but one that Sophie’s family cannot accept.  

JENNIFER  That evening in Paris, the family gather in an old restaurant. Sophie’s aunt Marie Madeleine is hosting the evening and invites us along. It is a muted celebration. But there is a quiet energy in the room. You sense they’re feeling the flush of having come through something together for Sophie, to have collectively done something palpable.  There’s been media coverage here in France of the trial, but in a few weeks it will inevitably fade from the headlines as the news cycle moves on from this distant and intractable case. But we noticed more Irish journalists in the Paris court this week than French. There was even one guy, a retired doctor, who came over from Cork to follow proceedings. Because in Ireland, the story is different.

FRED when I go to west cork ... I found something that I didn’t know... 

JENNIFER Sophie’s cousin Fred was there that evening. He never went to Ireland with Sophie, but he told us about a trip he made after she had died.

FRED We go in a pub to drink a beer and people in the pub come to see us, you are French? You are coming for Sophie?  it’s not Sophie Toscan du Plantier the woman of a producer, it’s not the victim, but it’s Sophie. You feel that Sophie now is a part of the land. I don’t know. Part of her is there, she has left traces. Well she’s alive somewhere, you know? 

JENNIFER Sophie’s documentary on the fold features an artist named Elga Heinzen who has produced dozens of paintings of clothing hung on hooks.  She thinks of folds as living organisms. She is fascinated by the idea that whoever wore the clothes had left something of themselves behind in the creases. On the back of the kitchen door of Sophie’s house in West Cork, where her son Pierre Louis now holidays, new items have piled up over the years - aprons, children’s jackets, umbrellas. But Sophie’s coat has been deliberately left, folds and all, hanging underneath.