murder mystery | 

Jim Sheridan’s Ian Bailey theory is ‘conspiracy madness’ says Sophie’s cousin

Frederic Gazeau says filmmaker paid him a visit in Paris to persuade him but he was left unconvinced

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Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s cousin has labelled Jim Sheridan’s theory that Ian Bailey is innocent as “madness”.

Filmmaker Sheridan (75) has told how he is going to focus on “clearing” Mr Bailey’s name as the prime suspect in the 1996 murder.

However, Ms du Plantier’s cousin Frederic Gazeau told the Irish Independent he felt Sheridan’s theory was unpalatable. And Mr Gazeau called for “anyone who knows anything to come forward” with information on the 28-year-old case.

“I know the Jim Sheridan project,” Mr Gazeau said. “I met him in Paris, maybe a year ago. He wanted to see me, to talk. And if someone wants to talk to us about the case, we are here.

“But he has his own interpretation and it’s not ours. He is free to do what he wants to do. I am not a censor. But we do not agree.“Jim Sheridan wanted to convince me on a new thesis about how Sophie was murdered and by whom she was murdered. I listened to what he said, but I’m not convinced by his interpretation.”

Mr Gazeau said Sheridan was using a theory that a Frenchman had been seen with Ms du Plantier the afternoon before her murder.

“His interpretations are based on the Marie Farrell testimony,” he added.

Mr Gazeau said the “testimony” Ms Farrell had provided had already been “changed” and thus he did not credit it.

The witness had originally stated in the past that the man she’d seen had been Mr Bailey. But in recent years, she said the man she saw was an associate of Ms du Plantier’s deceased film producer husband Daniel.

“I think Jim Sheridan’s belief that Ian Bailey was innocent is conspiracy madness,” Mr Gazeau said.

“There’s so much conspiracy around the case, due to social media and the fact the case was never solved.

“I think Jim Sheridan really believes that Bailey was innocent and that he has a very strong motivation and belief, but I don’t agree with his view.

“Like a lot of people who got too close to the case, it’s difficult to maintain a balanced view.”

Mr Gazeau said he and his family ensured “balance” was at the fore of the 2021 Netflix true-crime series, A ­Murder in West Cork – a creation by John Downer and made with the support of Sophie’s loved ones.

Mr Gazeau was a producer on the documentary and thus had a huge input into the work.

He said it was “vital” for the family that Sophie be at the centre of the documentary.

The Murder of Sophie Toscan de Plantier

Sheridan had previously made a ­documentary on the case, Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie, also in 2021.

And now it seems working on that project inspired his latest work – a drama influenced by the 1957 American movie 12 Angry Men.

That courtroom drama saw a poverty-­stricken 16-year-old boy accused of murder.

“We are still thinking about the case,” Mr Gazeau said. “We weren’t happy that Ian Bailey died because we wanted to know the truth. We wanted justice.

“And there’s a lot of elements still unexplained. We are still searching for the truth, even after the death of Ian Bailey.”

He repeated an appeal to the Irish public, saying: “If anyone has new information, we are here. We are open to hearing from anyone.

“We want to know what happened. We are aware that a person may have seen Sophie that weekend, or there may be people with new elements that we are not aware of.”

He was reacting after Sheridan told Newstalk on Saturday at the Irish Film and Television Awards (Iftas): “I’m ­going to get up to more of working to clear Ian Bailey’s name. I kind of got fed up of having to lie that I had to be balanced and make balanced documentaries.

“I did the wrongly accused Irishman in England. So, now I’m going to do the wrongly accused Englishman in Ireland.”

Sheridan’s 1993 movie In the Name of the Father – starring Daniel Day-Lewis as one of the Guildford Four – told the story of Irishmen wrongly accused of a 1974 pub bombing in England.

It seems the focus of this new drama would be to attempt to prove Mr Bailey, from Manchester, was wrongly accused in Ireland.

“I was astonished that nobody from the English establishment stood up for him whatsoever. It’s just a mind-blowing thing to me,” Sheridan said. “Maybe it was because he was a difficult personality, you know, but it’s still not right.”

Mr Bailey described himself, when he was alive, as the prime suspect in the murder case but he also protested his innocence.

But Mr Gazeau said an independent judge in France had proved Mr Bailey to be Sophie’s killer, though the Irish State had so far failed to solve the case.

The long wait for justice has, Mr Gazeau said, been a difficult one for Ms du Plantier’s family and particularly for her parents, Marguerite and Georges Bouniol.

“Georges and Marguerite are now very old and very tired of this wait. It’s very difficult for them,” he said. “It’s difficult to have this story without an ending but we hope to find out the truth someday, even after the death of Ian Bailey.

“And we are working now to study the file. We are hoping new elements will emerge.”