01x02 - The Suspect

[bunniefuu]

-[tense music plays]
-[seagulls calling]

Hello again, and first,
the reconstruction of the brutal m*rder

of Madame Sophie Toscan du Plantier
in West Cork.

We were filming over at Three Castle Head
for that Crimeline reconstruction.

We were filming down near the sea,

and a man came bounding across the fields
towards the crew.

[horse nickers]

He was wearing wellies
and had a big, swinging, long coat on him.

He wanted to know what was going on.
He wanted to be part of it.

And he said, "I'm a local journalist,

and I really have
the inside track on all of this."

It was in the middle of filming,
so people said, "Thank you very much."

"We're busy here now, but thank you."

But then, always in the back of my head,

I thought he said, "Actually,
I met her on this walk recently."

Almost like he was showing off.

And it was

Ian Bailey.

[suspenseful music plays]

[Barry] Ian is certainly somebody
who is not shy

about coming centre stage in this story.

[in French] Can I ask you something?

Are you going to interview Bailey?

[interviewer in English]
I think so, yes. Yeah.

[in French] He loves being interviewed.

He loves it.

[ominous music plays]

[wind howling]

[thunder rumbles]

[Ian] This has only just really come out.

See that…

Each one of those is
potentially capable of producing an apple,

but a lot of it…

Look, it's being germinated
by little flies 'cause--

You notice there aren't any bees about?

[bee buzzing]

Ah, bee.

Apis apis.

We call this the Prairie Cottage,
this is known as.

I live here with my partner, Jules.

-The cows are in the field.
-[mooing]

They're the cows I use the milk from
to make my bread and butter puddings.

We have three gardens here.

This is the first garden.

Those are runner beans.

Different varieties of lettuce.

There were some leeks,
but we just pulled them all.

I came to Ireland
to have a new way of life,

and I thought, "Actually,
I wanna get out of the f*cking rat race,"

and I made contact
with various newspapers,

you know, as a journalist,
but at the same time, writing poetry.

And then I met Jules.

I had a house that I had to move out.

She said,
"I've got a spare place out here,

and I use it as a studio
'cause I'm an artist and I paint."

"You could rent that."

We became friendly,
and subsequently we became lovers.

She's Welsh, and, I mean,
she was here a long time before me.

You know, it's her land.

This is the studio house down the lane.

Jules would have the big canvasses,

and I had a kitchen,
and I had a little office in the back

where my Underwood typewriter sat.

[tense music plays]

The victim's house is
about three miles along the road.

It's probably a mile as the crow flies.

I'd done some work
for her neighbour, Mr. Alf Lyons,

but I was never introduced to her.

I was aware of her,
but I didn't know her name.

It was alleged, unexplainedly,

that a lady had seen me
down at Kealfadda Bridge

that night
in the early hours of the morning.

[Marie] Around 3 a.m.
on the morning of the 23rd December,

I saw a man walking along the bridge.

He appeared to be in a drunken state
and waving his arms around.

When I pointed the man out to the Gardaí,

they told me that his name was Ian Bailey.

And it wasn't me. It was completely untrue

because at that time, I was actually
asleep in the Prairie Cottage.

[Barry] He denied
that he was at Kealfadda Bridge,

which is 2.6 kilometres
from Sophie's house

and actually is in the opposite direction
to his own house.

Kealfadda Bridge is southeast
of Sophie's house.

Ian's house is northeast
of Sophie's house,

so it doesn't seem logical
for him to be down at Kealfadda Bridge

if he was at Sophie's house.

[sighs]

[in French] There was a short period,
up to the start of January, uh,

when we focused on our pain
and not the investigation.

[Frédéric] I remember
the last conversation that we didn't have.

[answerphone clicks, whirs]

She left me a message.

[answerphone beeps]

I didn't call her back.

I eventually called her three days later,

and she had already left for Ireland,

and she died two days later.

I wondered why she tried to call me.

Did she want me to come too?

[Marie-Madeleine] It's a mystery

because she usually
liked to go there alone

and this time, she asked
practically everyone to go with her.

[Agnès] She asked me to go with her,

but I couldn't
because my mother was visiting Paris,

so I didn't go.

And me, I had such a bad flu.

I was on a drip.

[Agnès in English] We still don't know
exactly why she insisted so much.

We don't know
if she was scared or something.

[in French] It's terrifying.

As if it was predestined
that no one could go with her.

[crackling]

My mother read palms,

and when she saw Sophie's,

she went pale.

[in English]
She had a very short line here.

[Agnès] Before Sophie died,

a clairvoyant friend came to my house.

There was a photo of Sophie on the wall,

and she said, "Oh la la."

"This young woman will have
a violent death when she is 40."

I replied, "That's not possible."

"Sophie is too vibrant to die."

[Marie-Madeleine] It's as if
everything shifted so it could happen.

I feel terrible
because if I had been there,

she wouldn't be dead.

I feel responsible.

I should have gone.

[ethereal music plays]

[Eugene] We were trying to

determine what could have happened
on the night,

a freezing night.

[knocking on door]

The conclusion we came to was,

she had come out of the house,
dressed for bed.

Something happened outside.

The door closed.

[door closing]

She was brought or run down the roadway

to where the body was found.

[Dwyer] The guy that did this m*rder…

was a fella
that lost it completely in the head.

He goes berserk, frenzied.

She was, uh, battered.

And then left the body where it was.

He wasn't thinking right.

[Eugene] During the as*ault,

she had rolled in
or was pushed into the vegetation.

[Dwyer] The body had been found
in a location

that was full of briars.

[Eugene] Thorny, extremely strong,

thick-stemmed briars.

If you rubbed your hand to them,
some of them were that big.

[mysterious music plays]

[reporter 1] Detectives believe the k*ller
would have been cut and bruised.

Gardaí say they want to hear from anyone
who may have noticed

a person with suspicious wounds
or cuts or…

[Smith] It is quite likely
that whoever attacked her

would have marks or perhaps bloodstains
on their person or on their clothing.

[distant siren wailing]

[Barry] Gardaí obviously had
a lot more investigation to do,

but it would have fallen very much then
to the Gardaí in West Cork.

[woman 1] They'd never, ever
had to deal with a m*rder before,

and they were suddenly behaving

like they thought
cops should behave or something.

[phone ringing]

They would ring up,

and it was all sort of sotto voce,

and they'd go, "Are you alone?"

"Have you got anybody there?"

And then they'd peer up
over the window ledge

to see if the coast was clear,

just like the Blues Brothers,
looking to left or right.

There was all
a bit of an air of desperation about them.

[Ian] One day, I went into the paper shop,

and I noticed
there was a local guard who I knew

and a detective from Bantry.
They were scrutinising me.

"And what's that about, then?"

Then I walked down Schull high street

and just popped my head back around
up the main street,

and what should I observe
but the same two police officers.

I was thinking,
"Why are they looking at me?"

Hmm… Nothing more than that really.

[Claire] You got the impression
that they'd decided on Ian,

and they were desperate

to make it stick.

I can remember saying to them
that I was brought up to believe

that you're innocent
until you're proven guilty,

and that was
clearly not the case with Ian.

And they said, "Wouldn't you think

if you really were convinced
or thought someone had done it,

it was okay to do that?"

And I said, "No, it isn't."

[man 1] Ian Bailey, at that time,

emerges as a journalist
in the immediate wake of the m*rder,

but he had had a career in journalism
in England before that.

[Viv] When I knew him in the early '80s,

he was about 20-ish.

He was doing a lot for The Times.

And he set up an agency in Cheltenham

and did that extremely well.

I think there's a little bit
of a romance about journalism.

I was writing articles
while I was at school,

and growing up, I read a book.

It was All the President's Men
by Bernstein and Woodward.

I thought, "That's what I want to do,
I want to be an investigative journalist."

[Viv] You're not the most popular person,

but you have an edge,

and you have a huge privilege.

You will have
an awful lot more information

than you can ever publish.

You know, he was a natural
at getting information out of people.

I thought he was an excellent journalist.

[Ian] During January,
I was still being a reporter.

I was covering the… the case,

and I was coming up
with lines of inquiry and stories.

Ian Bailey was reporting on the crime,

and he contacted a number of newspapers,

including The Irish Daily Star

and The Sunday Tribune.

[Ian] I would ring up The Sunday Tribune,

a reputable Sunday paper, during the week

and talk with the news editor
about ideas for the Sunday coming

and just telling her what I was picking up

to give her an idea of the… maybe
the sort of story or line I could take.

[Viv] That instinct in him would be there.

Looking at him as a journalist
and this thing has happened up the road,

fair play.

Absolutely fair play, and I'd do the same.

[Daniel in French] He finds himself
in the middle of an extraordinary case.

So of course he was very excited

and determined to write articles
and make some money.

It's obvious.

[Barry in English] On 26th December,
three days after the m*rder,

Ian made his way
around the back of Sophie's house,

which was still cordoned off,

to Alfie Lyons' house
to deliver milk and briquettes,

even though it transpired that
Alfie hadn't requested him to do that.

So he was there at the scene then.

[camera clicking]

[Michael] Bailey got an article published
on 28th December in the Star

with the title of "the tangled love life."

And it gave the impression to people
that he knew a hell of a lot.

He said that Sophie had been
k*lled by blunt force trauma.

He also mentioned

that there were two wine glasses
on the draining board and sink.

And he also added

that she had not been sexually assaulted,

which one would judge as
he had good contacts in the investigation.

[Ian] You don't necessarily win friends
by being an investigative journalist.

In fact, if you're good at what you do,
you tend to make enemies.

He certainly put it about
that she had lovers

and that she had
male visitors at her home.

There's been
the most extraordinary range of stories.

[Smith] There's been
a lot of speculation about this.

We don't deal in speculation.
We deal in facts.

[Peter] Basically,
she was having crazy parties

and, you know,
sex, drugs, and rock and roll, I suppose.

I stopped reading it
because it's just nonsense.

I got angry enough,
uh, reading the first one, you know,

which was obviously
conjecture on his part.

No basis in truth at all,

so just him looking for headlines.

Crap, yeah.

Crap. I mean, basically, we'd have known.

That wouldn't have gone unheard of,
you know? [sighs]

[in French] After Sophie's death,
the newspapers started saying

she had lovers,

that she went to Ireland
with these lovers.

Um…

I don't know about "lovers" plural.
I know of one lover.

Sophie told me one morning over breakfast,

"Listen,
I'm going to leave Daniel. I'm leaving."

"I'm moving in with someone else."

I was a bit shocked.

[Barry in English] Sophie had begun
a liaison with Bruno Carbonnet

six years before, around '91,
who had visited West Cork with her

at least on two occasions.

[Frédéric in French] Daniel knew about it.

Sophie called him and said, "That's it."

She had cleared out her stuff
and was leaving.

It was a separation. They were
still married, but they were separated.

When she asked Daniel
if he was okay, he said,

"No, it's winter here."

[tense music plays]

[Agnès] But this man was quite dark.

Sophie couldn't put up with it

because she was
an extremely joyful and sunny woman.

Bruno soon showed himself
to be possessive,

and Sophie wanted to keep her distance.

[Barry in English] Sophie had ended
the relationship around Christmas '93,

but it ended acrimoniously.

[Frédéric in French] His behaviour
was very worrying after their breakup.

He sent Sophie a screw by post.

[in English] There were reports suggesting
that he had assaulted her in Paris.

[Frédéric in French]
Their relationship lasted over a year,

and then she went back to Daniel.

At the time, everyone thought
that there was only one person

who could have wanted to harm Sophie.

Her ex-lover,

Bruno Carbonnet.

[suspenseful music plays]

[Barry in English] A number of Gardaí
travelled to France in January '97

and did get French police to question
Sophie's, uh, lover, Bruno Carbonnet.

And he was able to satisfy Gardaí
that he wasn't in West Cork.

It subsequently transpired
that he was in Paris.

He was able to produce a receipt

he'd signed for… for the installation
of a phone, I think, on the 22nd/23rd.

He had a fool…
you know, absolutely solid alibi.

[in French] Another theory
was that of the "hitman."

A man who, I don't know,
would have been sent by Daniel.

[in English] Bailey was telling people
of his theories

gathered by his own investigation.

That there was a French connection

because Daniel Toscan du Plantier
would lose half of his estate

from any divorce,

had hired somebody
to assassinate his wife.

[Daniel in French]
He said it to me again and again.

"Toscan du Plantier sent a k*ller
from France to get rid of his wife,"

and he persisted with this idea.

[Ian in English] The victim had a large
amount of insurance money on her life,

and the beneficiary of the insurance money
was the husband,

Daniel Toscan du Plantier.

Sophie was his third trophy wife,

and he wouldn't come over

to identify the body.

[Marie-Madeleine in French] I think
this attitude made people suspect Daniel.

Wouldn't you drop everything
to lay your hands on your wife's coffin?

[Frédéric] Daniel refused to go to Ireland
to answer the investigators' questions.

Quite surprising when his wife just died.

[suspenseful music plays]

[Agnès] I can understand
why people are surprised.

But I went to the house
in the south of France

to help organise the funeral,
and Daniel was devastated.

So devastated.

I think that's what stopped him
from going to Ireland.

I also think that he felt very guilty.
Daniel said to me,

uh, "Agnès."

"I wasn't with her when she died.
I wasn't there when she died,

and I just can't accept it."

[Dwyer in English] Whoever did it
had to know the area very well.

You could even ask some locals to go
to the house, and they wouldn't find it.

So a stranger would not find it.

[Michael] What assassin
would come to a very isolated region

and then rely on weapons of opportunity,

like a slate rock or a concrete block,

to carry out an assassination?

It was absurd.

[Barry] So Daniel again
initially was a suspect

but was eliminated from
their list of suspects pretty early on.

[Dwyer] We eliminated every
possible suspect from Paris.

The… We left nothing undone like that.
Do you know what I mean?

[tense music plays]

[in French] It was Bailey who threw
the police's focus onto Bruno Carbonnet

and Daniel.

[Barry in English] At one point,
he contacted the Gardaí

to say that he had information

related to a French connection
to the k*lling.

[Michael] All these stories
about the French connection

all led back to one person,

and that was Ian Bailey.

[interviewer] Could that have sent
the investigation in the wrong direction?

Of course. Of course.
And wasn't that why he wrote it?

[bird chittering]

In, I guess,
the end of January to early February,

things started to become…
become very strange.

I was putting stories through
to The Sunday Tribune.

I was talking to Helen Callanan,
who was the news editor.

She said to me on one occasion,
"Do you know what they're saying up here?"

I said, "No, tell me."

"They're saying
the word is you m*rder*d her."

[wind howling]

[sombre music plays]

It was just so ridiculous…

But she was telling me this, you see?

I was hearing this
for the first time from her.

I now know that I'm… it's out there.

Somebody is putting round the false word
that I have… I'm the m*rder*r.

Barth O'Leary came to the house.

It was a nice day, the weather was good,
and I was outside working,

and I had rolled-up sleeves.

[Dwyer] Bailey was seen
by two members of our force,

and his arms and his hands
were all scratched.

Serious scratching, now.

[suspenseful music plays]

I chopped a Christmas tree down
to save a bit of money

because Christmas trees are expensive.

I climbed up to the top of a pine tree,
a Sitka spruce, in fact.

I sawed the top off,

and then
I had to pull it down through the tree,

and got a little bit of light scratching
on my hand… hands and arms.

You'd hardly notice them.

Now, you'd think, wouldn't you,

if I had have had anything to do with it,

which I didn't,

you'd think, wouldn't you,
that I would have…

[chuckles] And the scratches had come
from briars, which they didn't,

you'd have thought I'd have…
I wouldn't have been working bare-armed.

[Eugene] Normally, the photographer
would have taken basic photographic shots.

Back then, normal cameras wouldn't be
quickly available for a guard,

and a drawing…
a drawing would be acceptable.

[tense music plays]

[Ian] A drawing was done

by Barth O'Leary

who you could quite clearly see

didn't have an ounce
of artistic integrity within him.

[Barry] Surely it would've been easy
to send the photographer out

to photograph his hands.

It just seems a no-brainer at this stage.
Why not take a photograph of him?

You can't be going round with a camera
photographing people and that.

If you did, you'd be in more trouble.
He wasn't arrested or anything.

[Ian] I'm gonna let the chickens out,
so stand back.

Come on out.

Buck-buck!

[chickens clucking]

He also had a nick on his forehead,

which he said
he got from k*lling three turkeys.

[Ian] We used to rear turkeys,

so on the Sunday, 22nd December,

my job was…

And the turkeys were in the shed.

…was to go in, uh, and… and to k*ll them,

and in the process…

Well, I… The way I did them,
I strung them up by their feet,

and then, you know, um…

It sounds cruel, but it has to be done.
Somebody had to do it.

Uh, I broke the neck,

and in… in the process
of doing this with three turkeys,

I…one of them, as I was holding the feet,

one of the legs sort of came free

and just scratched, actually, my hairline,

just a tiny, little… It wasn't…
Again, it wasn't a blood scratch.

And subsequently
that got blown out of all proportion.

They said, "Ooh, you got that

in… in the process
of murdering Madame du Plantier."

[people yelling gleefully]

[Florence] The Christmas swim
is always, you know,

a wonderful social occasion
for the community.

So I just went down to the swim
where I saw Ian,

a very striking person,
a very tall, strong man.

I shook hands with him,
and I noticed markings on his hand,

kinda parallel lines,

maybe four or five or six
across the back of his hand.

There was a uniformity to them,
is what I would say.

The time frame…
caused me to wonder. That's all.

I just thought it was a curious thing,
is what I would say.

I told my family,

and I just sort of wondered aloud,
shall we say? That's all.

[tense music plays]

[doorbell rings]

[Ian] Towards the end of January 1997,

I had a visit from a man

who introduced himself as
Detective Superintendent Dermot Dwyer.

He came to the house. Jules was out.

I invited him in.

Ian Bailey's about 6 ft. 3.

He was a very imposing man,

full of confidence,

and he was a very good speaker.

We sat down.

I made him coffee.

He made very good coffee too
as a matter of fact.

[Ian] I think we still had
mince pies left from Christmas,

so I offered him Christmas pies.

[Dwyer] Oh, I would, look…

Yeah, he was. He told
the fricking country the day we left.

Eating two mince pies… [chuckling]

He seemed quite reasonable
to me at the time,

and I was…
I… I was very happy to assist if I could.

I was fascinated,
everything I heard about him.

[clock ticking]

He was sizing me up,

and I was sizing him up.

Kind of a friendly conversation,
but it was probing on both sides.

Bailey's a complex character, you know.

He's a complex character.

And I said,
"Ian, we'd better talk about this m*rder."

[tense music intensifies]

[Viv] Ian married in the '80s

in Gloucester.

She was called Sarah, and they bought
this great big house in Gloucestershire.

Perhaps he'd landed on his feet,
hadn't he?

I'd say they both had an edge to them.

And I think something is going wrong
when they moved into the house,

and they eventually split up.

And then, you know,
everything crumbled around him.

He was completely different
after the marriage had gone.

Ian was left with nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

He was someone
who'd slightly lost his way.

A huge contrast to this amazing,
energetic man in his twenties

who I met in 1975.

And then he disappeared.

I think he saw Ireland
as a sort of nirvana.

[wind howling]

I can remember
the first time I ever laid eyes on him.

He came through that door there.
A looming presence. Big man.

[Wassell] A striking-looking man,
looking a little bit like a buccaneer

'cause he had black hair
drawn into a ponytail.

He presented his card.
He was very self-assured.

Uh, and the card read "Eoin Bailey."

He was in Ireland,
so he changed his name to Eoin.

I had a sense of him being a chameleon.

[Billy] He was another one of these people

that'd come over from England
to have a relaxing life

and start something new, you know?
Although he was a bit strange with it.

The big, long jacket on, he had a book
under one arm and a staff under the other.

He certainly made an impression.

Whether he made a good
or a bad impression is the question.

Once I got to know him, I was quite happy

if he did not come in here.

Overly confident.

A bit theatrical.

Aggressive.

An absence of kind of ordinary modesty.

And then suddenly
he'd start to recite a poem, you know?

He'd call the pub to order,
stand up in the middle of a thronged bar.

Demanded attention. Big, booming voice.

And reamed out a load of drivel.

Do you want a poem?

[chuckles]

"In the halls of Skibbereen…"

That's all I can remember! [laughs]

He'd give a background to what this…

each poem he would recite.

No, "in the markets of Skibbereen."
It was a poem about the market.

Nobody could even
fathom out the background,

let alone the poem. [snickers]

I'm sitting on the rock on Dunmanus Bay

Calling for the dolphins to come and play

A big pod, please
Swimming in perfect harmony

Because I have many questions
To ask of the dolphins…

He wrote, um…

Oh, it sounds very harsh
to say "doggerel,"

but it certainly…
They were not well-developed poems.

Questions about this, questions about that

Questions about what has happened
And what has not happened yet

Questions about this
And questions about that

I want my questions answered
By the dolphins of the west

It's a simple poem, observational poem.
The bay sometimes fills up with dolphins.

Writing is hard.

It's not the work that mattered to Ian.

I think it was
the image of himself as Irish poet.

You know, appropriating Irish culture
and Irish language

to serve some grandiose image of himself.

He just annoyed the hell out of people,
just naturally. I just… [chuckles]

[Wassell] Who was he,

the strange character of Ian Bailey?

Clearly, he was hungry for admiration,

even notoriety.

We were talking in the kitchen,
and he said, did I play poker?

And I said, "No, I don't."

And he said, "You should."

I thought, "Strange thing to say."

"I don't play poker,
but I know it's a game of bluff."

Did I ask him, did he play poker?

Not at all.

I didn't ask him that in the…
because I don't play poker. Do you get me?

And he said to me,

"I'm gonna place you at Kealfadda Bridge

in the early hours
of the morning of the 23rd."

I said,
"That's ridiculous. That's nonsense."

He said, "We'll see."

[Dwyer] That was not true.
Why would I say that?

"I'll place you…" That was the words.

"I'll place you at Kealfadda Bridge,

uh, at three o'clock in the morning."

As if.

Why would I tell him that?
I didn't tell him that at all.

'Twas a good story by him.

I said, "Who do you think did it?"
And he said,

"It was a professional hitman."

"A stranger from Paris

on behalf of Daniel Toscan du Plantier."

[chuckling] He said to me,
"Who do you think did it?"

I said… I don't know
if I should even be saying this now,

I said,
"Look, Ian, do you know what I think?"

I said, "The man that did it is local."

"He's a headcase,"

and so on.

And I said, "I've a good idea who that is,

and I think you've a good idea,"
and I left it like that.

[Ian] I realised that this guy was a…

I believe to be actually
a psychopathic criminal

wearing the blue uniform
of An Garda Síochána.

Look, there was about
ten different cops interviewed him.

He doesn't know the name of one more.

He knew me, and every problem he has now…

[chuckling] …I'm the cause of all of it.

[Claire] I think
a lot of people were scared of him.

[Len] He'd be ranting and raving,

banging his hand.
"So-and-so treated me like this,

my ex-wife treated me like that."

[Claire] He was a powerful,
aggressive figure.

[Wassell] I don't like him.

Many of the neighbours didn't like him.
But it doesn't make him a m*rder*r.

[typewriter keys clicking]

[Ian] I was typing,

and I noticed two gentlemen
coming round the back of the studio.

Came to the back door.

They were pretty austere.

One of them said, uh,

"You can take those off,"

pointing at my wellingtons.

"You're not gonna need them
where you're going today, boy,"

something like that.

Next thing, I was cautioned.
"You have the right to remain silent."

"We're arresting you for the m*rder
of Sophie Toscan du Plantier,"

and I was handcuffed.

It's a very serious matter,
to arrest somebody for m*rder.

[tense music plays]

[Ian] I was driven off to Bandon,
and immediately we're on the road,

the atmosphere in the car
became very threatening and menacing.

I had Culligan next to me.
He was jabbing me in the ribs, saying,

"You're the m*rder*r.
Everybody knows you are."

One of them said,

"Even if we don't pin this on you,
you're finished in Ireland."

"You'll be found dead
with a b*llet in the back of your head."

All these allegations
were put to the two guards concerned.

They said they didn't do it.
Bailey said they did.

[in French] On the m*rder
of Sophie Toscan du Plantier,

the police arrested
a suspect this morning.

[reporter 2] A man of about 40
has been arrested by the Irish police.

[reporter 3]
According to unconfirmed local reports,

the man being held
claims to be a journalist.

In February, we learned
that a suspect had been arrested.

[Bertrand] Until then,

we knew almost nothing
about the Garda investigation.

They called to say, "We have a suspect."

"We're going to question him."

They were sure enough
in their conclusions to say,

"Yes, it's him. We are sure it's him."

[in English] He was arrested under
Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act,

which allows Gardaí
to hold suspects for 12 hours.

[reporter 4] A decision will have
to be made about eleven o'clock

whether to charge or release him.
The man is believed to be in his forties…

[Ian] My details were taken down.
Height, weight, fingerprints.

I was made to strip
in front of three or four people,

down to my underpants,

and I answered questions
that I was asked in successive waves

by successive teams of detectives
who came in.

"No, I wasn't there."
"No, I didn't do this, didn't do that."

[Dwyer] We had very good grounds

for arresting Bailey as a suspect.

[Michael] It was an accumulation
of various factors,

including the scratches on his hands.

[tense music plays]

Also, there were a number of his movements

around the time of the crime

which didn't add up.

[reporter 5] Gardaí in County Cork
are treating as suspicious

the death of a woman
whose partly clothed body

was found this morning near Schull.

The whole issue of timing was crucial
in this. Who knew what when?

[reporter 6] She was discovered
this morning around 10 a.m. At the moment…

It was in the two o'clock news.
So everyone knew at two o'clock.

[Michael] Bailey said
he got a phone call at twenty to two…

[phone rings]

…from a guy called Eddie Cassidy,

editor of The Cork Examiner.

Eddie Cassidy was very honourable.

[Barry] Cassidy's version is
he said there'd been a k*lling,

but he didn't say she was French,
just that it was a foreign national.

[Michael] West Cork
was a cosmopolitan society

of a lot of foreign people.

But Ian Bailey and Jules Thomas

then drove straight to the crime scene

without any information whatsoever
on the identity of the victim.

Ian Bailey would say that
Eddie Cassidy did say that she was French

and he knew there was
a Frenchwoman living near Alfie Lyons,

for whom he previously
had done gardening work.

But the question
the Gardaí were focusing on,

did he know about her
prior to when Eddie Cassidy rang him?

Subsequently, a woman who was living
in Skibbereen, Caroline Leftwick,

said that Ian Bailey rang

sometime between half eleven
and twelve o'clock

to say he couldn't come
because there had been a m*rder.

She asked would she know the victim.
He said, "No, it's a French lady."

Then Ian Bailey was due to deliver
a turkey to a man called Paul Ó Colmáin.

He thought it was around half eleven.
Bailey rang to say, "I can't deliver."

"There's been a m*rder."
He said Ian Bailey sounded quite excited.

[Dwyer] At half ten or eleven
in the morning,

Jules went into the local village.

A husband and wife said, "Where's Ian?"

She said,
"He's gone off investigating a m*rder."

At that stage,
no one knew anything about a m*rder.

[Michael] There was no digital system
in operation at that time.

You've got to rely on
whatever a person says,

and naturally
there's gonna be disputes about that.

[Barry] He's denied all this,

and that's completely
at odds with his version

that he didn't know about it

until twenty to two
when Eddie Cassidy rang him.

At twenty past two,
he appeared at the crime scene.

Martin Malone, one of the Gardaí there,
thought he was acting somewhat strange.

He didn't stay long. He found it strange
that he didn't ask any questions.

[Michael] This was most unusual
for a journalist,

to arrive at this historic,
catastrophic event,

and then immediately disappear.

It's just very hard to reconcile
his version of events

with the witnesses
who've given statements to the Gardaí.

[mysterious music plays]

[Ian] One guy,
Detective Sergeant Callahan, I think,

said, "You f*cking b*stard!
You f*cking b*stard!"

And came at me like that.

Made a fist. Sorry if I…

You know, as though he was gonna hit me.

I've no doubt in the world
that they didn't.

None whatsoever.

[Ian] They were aggressive.
They used a lot of expletives.

They seemed to me
to be very unsophisticated.

They'd never met somebody like me.

An English person
with a bit of an education

and a bit of experience in life.

[interviewer] Bailey said, "They'd never
met anyone quite like myself,

used to dealing with
a less-educated person."

[laughs] That's vintage. God help us.

[chuckles]

And, uh…

And then he stood up. He said, "You…"

He started muttering,
calling me all sorts of names,

and I was a murdering b*stard,

and this mantra, "You did it,
you did it, you did it" started.

If you're interviewing a fella,
there's only a certain subject.

You are going to repeat yourself.
But I don't think that would be like,

"You did it, you did it,"
and kept that going.

[Michael] While Ian Bailey
was being interviewed

in Bandon Garda Station,

members of the Technical Bureau went

to examine the house and the studio,

looking for
incriminating forensic evidence.

I got a phone call
from the investigation unit

to go down
and look at a premises where he lived.

We had to get the keys
for the premises from the owner.

I was given a list of garments

that he was believed to be wearing
and was seen wearing.

If you go to a suspect's house,

the evidence gained,
we could do something with it.

But unfortunately, there was nothing
we could find or saw that was evidential.

So then we went to the studio.

[siren bleeps]

[Ian] At some point in my interrogation,
Dermot Dwyer came in.

I was told that somebody had seen me
down at Kealfadda Bridge

in the early hours of the morning.
I said, "That's nonsense."

Then I remember that thing
that Dwyer told me prior to the arrest.

He was gonna place me at Kealfadda Bridge.

I did tell him that he was…

seen at Kealfadda Bridge.

I said to him,
"Look, these are the facts."

I told him a certain amount
of evidence was against him,

and I said, "Ian, you're in trouble."

[Eugene] We were told
to look for a dark blue or black overcoat,

a hat, and big boots.

[suspenseful music plays]

At the back of the studio,

we found…

a fire scene.

-[reporter 7] Can you introduce yourself?
-Um… My name is Louise Kennedy. I'm, uh…

I live in Liscaha.

Louise Kennedy
was out walking on the 26th,

four days after the m*rder.

I went for a walk on 26th December,
St. Stephen's Day,

and I saw a fire burning
behind the studio.

[Barry] There wasn't anybody there

but she saw the remains of a bonfire
and a mattress burning.

[Louise] I just thought it was unusual.

I thought he was burning… [scoffs]

…maybe getting rid of evidence.

I mean, I can't say that.
I'm not 100% sure. I…

But that's what I thought.

That's why, I suppose,
I told the guards, maybe.

[Michael] Ian claimed
that there had been some fire

earlier in December,

but there was no fire
on, um, St. Stephen's Day.

[Eugene] The bonfire site would have been
two, three metres across, diameter.

It was a major fire.

I had a big old spoon,

and I literally went through all the ash

to see what was remaining

within that fire scene.

We removed big items,

including, uh, mattress springs.

Then I found small items from clothing.

Buttons.

Coat buttons.

Jeans. Boots. There was…
There was… There was even boots.

All the clothes that we thought
he would be wearing that night,

they were burned.

[Eugene] My view at the time,

why do you burn the beds, the bedding,

your own clothing
just outside your back door?

And it was a fresh fire.

But unfortunately, DNA, blood evidence,

the whole thing was gone.

No hard evidence.

Very disappointing,
but certainly it was a deliberate act.

There's no doubt about that.

[tense music plays]

[reporter 8] The m*rder
of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

Two people are detained for questioning.

[reporter 9 in French]
Hours after the first arrest,

a woman was taken in for questioning.

[reporter 10]
A woman was also arrested at midday.

[in English]
The man was arrested this morning.

The woman was detained this afternoon.

[Ian] My partner, Jules,
was also arrested.

The story was
she had something to do with it.

His head at this stage was gone.

That's the way I see it.

And she'd be far more put together
than he would.

She'd know what to do.

Did he bring home something?

What did he do with his clothes?

They were under the impression
that he exercised

a coercive control over her,

he manipulated her.

So she, eh, would be questioned

separately from Ian Bailey.

Jules said they'd been in the Galley Inn
in Schull on the night of the 22nd

and left there
at the latest about 12:30 a.m.

On the way home,
they stopped at Hunts Hill.

There's a nice view from there.
Ian got out of the car

and commented that lights seemed to be on
across the valley in Alfie Lyons' house.

[Michael] He could also see
the gable light

on Sophie's house.

Jules said Ian was suggesting
they might call over to Alfie's,

that there might be a party going on.

[Dwyer] And he said to Jules,
"I get the feeling

there's something bad
going to happen here tonight."

That was a peculiar thing.

She said, "Will you get in the car
and we'll go home?"

And they went to bed.

[actor reads] I went to bed.

I stayed in bed all night
until the next morning.

I never left the house that night.
Jules will tell you.

[Michael] Jules Thomas gave
the same story,

but she was quite nervous
during the interview.

Then she finally admitted

that Ian may have got out of the bed.

She had a good sense
that Ian was tossing and turning.

[actress reads]
…and then he got up from bed,

and I would estimate
that he got up about an hour later.

She didn't see him again

until he came in that morning
at about 9 a.m. to give her coffee.

He had a fresh wound on his forehead.

[actress reads] I have no recollection

of seeing the scratch
on his forehead on the Sunday.

[reporter 11] French television, radio,
and newspaper reporters

were amongst the crowd

as the Garda decision was awaited.

[reporter 12] The questioning
of the woman, how's that going?

Well, it's…

going.

[Lara] He and Jules
kept changing their testimony

every time they were questioned.

It came out that, actually,
he got up in the middle of the night

and disappeared for a few hours.

[actor reads]
Sometime after going to bed, I got up.

Did a bit of writing in the kitchen.

I then went down to the studio.

-[interviewer] He changed his story.
-[Dwyer] He did!

He admitted that he got up
and he went out.

That was the first time he admitted that.

[Barry] Ian said
the studio's directly beside the house.

It's not.

It's 250 yards away.

I said I was in,
but you asked more questions,

and I remembered
that I'd got up to do some writing

that Sunday-into-the-Monday night.

And I told them that.

It was a significant admission
that he got up and went out.

[Michael] Jules said in her statement,

"From what was said at Hunts Hill,
that he was going over to Alfie's,

the mark on his face,
and now he's put at Kealfadda Bridge,

my concluding remark is
there's strong evidence

to link him
to the m*rder of the French lady."

Bailey now had been stripped of an alibi.

[reporter 11] Bandon Garda Station
was the centre of national

and international media attention
last night as time ran out

for the holding of the two people
detained for questioning.

I think they felt
that they would get an admission.

[Daniel in French] At 10 p.m.,
Noel Smith came out

and told us,

"Mr. Bailey has left, free."

[camera shutters clicking]

[reporters chattering indistinctly]

[reporter 12 in French]
The lead investigator

told dozens
of French and Irish journalists

no admission, insufficient evidence…

[Dwyer in English] All we had was
circumstantial evidence.

He didn't admit anything.

[reporter 13 in French]
After 12 hours, they were released.

[reporter 14 in English]
He's been released.

Is it a possibility that he could be
arrested again when he leaves the station?

I wouldn't like to comment on that

in view of the fact
a file is being submitted to the DPP.

It necessitated further work

and going back to witnesses
and all that, everything.

[reporter 15] Does it mean that you start
the investigation at the beginning?

No.

It was made absolutely certain to me
by all my interrogating officers

that I was the m*rder*r.

They had no doubt. They knew it was me.
They just needed me to confess.

But I can account for all of my movements
during the period.

-Are you someway disappointed?
-[Smith] Not a bit, dearly. Not a bit.

You thought I was gonna be
carrying the head out, I suppose.

If they had evidence,
I wouldn't be here talking to you.

-I wouldn't have been released.
-[reporter 16] Yeah. Well--

I know I'm innocent.
I have nothing to do with this k*lling.

All right. Pubs are closing at 11.
You better hurry. [chuckles]

Good night.

[flash bulbs going off]

A photograph appeared the following day.
Ian was named in it.

[Ian] So there was a cameraman
waiting at Bandon when I went in,

and he got me,
and I was all over the f*cking newspapers.

[Len] You know, is this really true?

You know? I mean… God.

Did he do it?

You know, could he have? Why?

[Frédéric in French] The next day, we saw
Ian Bailey's face in the newspapers.

That's when
Ian Bailey erupted into our lives.

[Pierre-Louis] It's not for me to say
whether or not it's Bailey,

but justice has no time limit.

The person who did this

will have to take responsibility.

The number one suspect in the m*rder
of Sophie Toscan du Plantier

still proclaims his innocence.

[reporter 17 in English]
Did you know Sophie Toscan du Plantier?

I didn't know her
inasmuch that I'd never met her.

[Viv] Journalism has followed him around
his whole life,

but he's now the subject.

He's so wrapped up in being the story

that he can never really be
a journalist again.

[Claire] He's a complicated,
complex character.

But that still
doesn't make him a m*rder*r.

[reporter 17] You're saying
you didn't k*ll Sophie du Plantier.

I am saying I didn't k*ll her,
I had no knowledge of the k*lling,

and I'm an innocent man.

[video camera whirring]

[Ian] People will choose to believe
what they want to believe,

and that's fine.

All I would hope is that those decisions
and their thoughts that they have

are actually based on fact.

And truth.

[interviewer] So why did everyone
still think he was the m*rder*r?

Because he told people that he'd done it.

[chuckles]

[Irish folk music plays]