MEETING CLAIM 

Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder suspect Ian Bailey refuses to comment on claims he met her year before killing

• 18:46, 11 Jan 2022
• Updated: 18:47, 11 Jan 2022

SOPHIE Toscan du Plantier murder suspect Ian Bailey has refused to comment on claims he met the French movie producer a year before her killing.

Former journalist Bailey has always maintained that the pair never met.

But gardai are now re-examining a claim that they met on Cape Clear Island in 1995.

Gardai have started examining photographs from a festival on the island near Cork which may cast doubt over he claims that the two never met.

A preliminary review by specialist cold-case investigators from Dublin is understood to be now complete.

A report will go to Garda Assistant Commissioner John O’Driscoll. He will then decide if a new investigation is warranted into the murder.

When contacted by the Irish Sun, Bailey said he had no comment to make on the new claims.

The information came to light when cold case gardai in Pearse Street came across a statement by a Mark McCarthy, of Schull, made in Pearse Street garda station on October 3, 1997.

He states: “I know Ian Bailey about five years now. He is a journalist and he is British. He is also a poet and is in his mid-40s.

“I remember seeing him on the RTÉ news earlier this year and he said on the news that he had never met the woman, by this I mean Sophie Du Plantier.

“I thought that this was strange because I had been in Cape Clear during the summer of 1995 at a story-telling festival. I was there and Ian Bailey was also there, and so was the French woman Sophie du Plantier.

“I did not know Sophie du Plantier at the time but I recognised her afterwards when I saw her pictures in the papers and on the television.

“I have no doubt but that 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 that sort of occasion that everyone talked to everyone.“

Ms Toscan du Plantier was founded murdered at her holiday home in Schull in December, 1996.

No one has ever been prosecuted for her murder. In 2019 a French court convicted Ian Bailey of the murder in absentia but he has always denied any involvement in her death.