The solicitor of Ian Bailey has said he believes his late client’s name could be definitely cleared of murder, following the emergence of new evidence.
In 2019, the West Cork resident was convicted in absentia by a Paris court of murdering French woman Sophie Toscan du Plantier, who was killed while on holiday in Ireland in 1996.
Bailey always denied he had killed the 39-year-old mother of one and was never charged in connection to her death by Irish officials - who declined to extradite him to France following his conviction.
Sophie Toscan du Plantier. Picture by: PA Media. Still, doubts about him lingered and following his death in 2024, then-Tánaiste Micheál Martin described him as a "violent man" against whom the evidence was "broad and deep".
Now it has emerged that DNA traces of an unknown male were found on Ms Toscan du Plantier’s boot - something that judges in Bailey’s trial were not made aware of.
On Newstalk Breakfast, Bailey’s solicitor Frank Buttimer argued the evidence could have changed the verdict at his trial.
“Information that may have been available to be produced at the criminal trial in France was actually not produced, may have been withheld, possibly consciously and deliberately, although that requires to be established,” he explained.
“If that is the case, then it may give grounds to his sister, being a surviving family member, to make the challenge.”
Ian Bailey outside the High Court in Dublin. Picture by: PA.Former DPP solicitor Robert Sheehan has written to the French Department of Justice, raising concerns that Bailey might be a victim of a miscarriage of justice and urged them to re-examine the verdict.
“He's done an amount of research in relation to this matter and he has supplied me with information which is to that effect,” Mr Buttimer said.
If Bailey’s conviction for murder was overturned by French officials, Mr Buttimer doubts there would be any compensation, adding it would be “just a personal thing” for his surviving sister.
Still, he expressed scepticism about the probity of the French justice system.
“Ian didn't participate in the criminal process in France, and rightly so - he was advised against it,” he said.
“The whole thing was a charade in any event; the material which was considered would have been absolutely rejected out of hand in the Irish courts.”
Main image: Ian Bailey with his solicitor Frank Buttimer in October 2020. Picture by: RollingNews.ie.
