A British journalist who was found guilty in French courts of the brutal murder of a film producer in Ireland never faced a day in jail before his death as a recluse in western Cork.
Ian Bailey, who has died aged 66, was one of the first to report on the death of 39-year-old Sophie Toscan Du Plantier when she was murdered in 1996 outside her holiday home in a rural part of West Cork in Ireland.
Despite being found guilty of murder, Bailey remained a free man his whole life and continued to live in the community that was rocked by Sophie’s murder until his death
In 2019, he was found guilty in France, where he was tried ‘in absentia’ and sentenced to 25 years behind bars.
But Ireland’s High Court rejected an attempt by French authorities to have him extradited. He was never tried for the murder in Ireland, despite being arrested twice.
Bailey, who would have turned 67 next week, collapsed and died in the street in in Bantry, West Cork last week, meaning he will never face jail.
He maintained his innocence, continued to live in West Cork and work as a poet, and bizarrely has built a TikTok following and made his own true crime podcasts.
Just months before his death, he took to TikTok to share his hope new DNA evidence would prove he had no involvement in the case.
Ian Bailey, who has died aged 66, was one of the first to report on the death of 39-year-old Sophie Toscan Du Plantier when she was murdered in 1996 outside her holiday home in a rural part of West Cork in Ireland
Despite being found guilty of murder, Bailey remained a free man his whole life. Pictured with partner Jules Thomas in 2012 at the Supreme Court in Dublin
Sophie Toscan Du Plantier (pictured) was murdered in 1996 outside her holiday home in a rural part of West Cork in Ireland
Bailey has died of a reported heart attack. A local first aider reportedly provided CPR for 20 minutes until the emergency services arrived, but Mr Bailey was unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene.
He had previously suffered up to three heart attacks and had been admitted to both Bantry Hospital and Cork University Hospital, where in the latter he had a procedure done on his heart.
Despite various locals revealing that Bailey had confessed the crime to them, he has always denied any involvement in the horrendous murder, saying his confessions were ‘a joke’.
An integral part of French 90s showbusiness culture, Sophie was the wife of Daniel Toscan du Plantier, a famous Parisian film producer – and a friend of Jacques Chirac.
She was also mother to Pierre Louis, her much adored son from a previous relationship.
Sophie had loved to retreat from the spotlight and social whirl of Paris to the rugged beauty and solitude of the wind-blown Irish coast, where she could be alone to think, write and walk.
Three years before her death she had bought a bleached white house in West Cork, over the churning Atlantic Ocean.
In December 1996, she returned for a short pre-Christmas break, intending to head back to her husband and son in Paris for the festive celebrations. She never made it.
Despite various locals revealing that Bailey had confessed the crime to them, he has always denied any involvement in the horrendous murder, saying his confessions were ‘a joke’. He is pictured in 1996
At the time of her murder, Sophie was 39, and the wife of Daniel Toscan du Plantier, a famous Parisian film producer, and mother to Pierre Louis, her much adored son from a previous relationship
Sophie’s body, battered almost beyond recognition, was discovered lying face-up in the grass verge of a lane, 100 yards from the house she loved in Toormore, a tiny outcrop, six miles West of the nearest town, Schull. Pictured is her home
Sophie’s body, battered almost beyond recognition, was discovered lying face-up in the grass verge of a lane, 100 yards from the house she loved in Toormore, a tiny outcrop, six miles West of the nearest town, Schull.
She was clothed in white pyjamas and was wearing hastily laced-up boots.
A large rock and concrete block, both spattered with her blood, had been used to strike her repeatedly on the head and body. The coroner’s report noted she had 50 separate injuries.
At the house itself, there were no signs of struggle or break in. In her bedroom was an anthology of Irish poems open to W.B. Yeats poem, A Dream of Death. It begins, ‘I dreamed that I had died in a strange place/Near no accustomed hand.’
Just five days after the murder, Bailey had an article published in the Irish Daily Star, which referred to her ‘tangled love life’ describing Sophie as French temptress.
While reporting on the case for newspapers across Ireland and the UK, Bailey delivered food to Sophie’s neighbour’s house – and saw this as an opportunity to look at the crime scene.
Bailey, who worked as a journalist covering the case, continued to live in the community that was rocked by Sophie’s murder until his death
Many locals claim Bailey had confessed the crime to them.
In a Netflix documentary released in 2021, Bailey, speaking from his home in Schull, explained he moved to Ireland from England to ‘quit the f****** rat race’ and once there reached out to newspaper editors about doing freelance work, while also writing poetry and doing gardening for money.
‘The victim’s house is about three miles down the road, or about a mile as the crow files,’ he said.
‘I’d done some work for her neighbour, Mr Alf Lyons, I was never introduced to her, but I was aware of her but I didn’t know her name.
‘It was alleged, unexplainedly, that a lady seen me down at Kealfadda Bridge in the early hours of the morning. It wasn’t me, it’s completely untrue, at the time I was asleep in the prairie cottage.
Marie Farrell, who lived in Schull with her husband and children in 1996, placed Bailey at the scene at 3am on the night of Sophie’s murder, making him the prime suspect.
However, in 2020, Ms Farrell retracted her comments in a documentary, saying the man she saw at the scene was too short to be Bailey.
Sky Crime’s Murder at the Cottage, passed on evidence to the Irish police, that said that Ms Farrell, a former shopkeeper in Schull, and former Gardai key witness in the murder probe claims she can identify a man in a black coat seen outside her shop a few days before the December 1996 murder, saying it to be a man known to Sophie’s husband.
Sophie had one lover – Bruno Carbonnet – who was known to her husband, they had split acrimoniously in 1993. He was a suspect in the early investigation but was able to prove he was in Paris at the time of the murder.
Ian Bailey, who was convicted of the 1996 murder, collapsed in the street in Bantry, West Cork
Mr Bailey was one of the first to report on the death of 39-year-old Sophie Toscan Du Plantier when she was murdered outside her holiday home in a rural part of West Cork
In Netflix’s 2021 documentary, Sophie, A Murder in West Cork, locals discuss how Ms Farrell was threatened by Bailey after coming forward to the police. While Bailey was never tried in Ireland, she gave evidence in a 2003 libel case saying she saw Bailey on the bridge.
But in 2015, she gave evidence on behalf of Bailey in his wrongful arrest civil case, and since identified the man she believed to have seen on the night of the murder as a Frenchman known to Sophie’s family.
Nearly three decades on, there are still many unanswered questions surrounding the case.
Bailey, who took to TikTok to share poems and updates about the case in the months before his death, always maintained his innocence.
Some locals say Bailey was ‘desperate for notoriety’ with many in the close-knit, inclusive, bohemian society they were ‘scared of him’.
In December, he shared a video to TikTok, writing: ‘So just hoping the truth comes out after 27 years of a dirty rotten stinking lie #TheTruth#Sophie Toscan De Plantier#GardaCorruption.
Speaking in the clip, he said: ‘Hello there friends, fans and followers
‘My life has been plagued by a terrible crime, I was a reporter in the case.
‘For 27 years of my life, and my partner’s life, it’s been made a living hell.
‘There’s now been DNA found, I’m just hoping that the truth comes out, for my sake, for her sake’.
Sophie was among the social elite in Paris and ‘the best mother in the world’ according to her son Pierre-Louis, who lived with her after his parents’ divorce and was ‘very close’ to her
Ian Bailey, pictured in July 2010, was found guilty of killing Sophie Toscan du Plantier, 39, in 1996, in his absence at a French court
In 2022, he claimed that ‘alien DNA’ could be on the body.
Speaking on the Opinion You Didn’t Ask For podcast, he said: ‘There was alien DNA, that is to say not the victim’s DNA and certainly not mine, found on part of her body, on part of her clothing, a shoe.
‘There is a viable suspect… and really all it would need is for that person to be visited and a DNA sample taken and tested against the DNA that was found on her shoe.
‘They are still alive, apparently there is cooperation. The French authorities are now apparently cooperating with the Irish authorities.’
Netflix’s Sophie: A Murder in West Cork speaks to locals living who were in the remote ex-pat community of Cork at the time of the murder, as well as her parents and son – and the prime suspect Bailey.
Bailey, who still remains a prime suspect by the Gardaí slammed the Netflix documentary as ‘poisonous propaganda’.
Sophie, who was married to celebrated French film producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier, a friend of Jacques Chirac, was found dead on an isolated hillside after being beaten over the head with a concrete block
Mr Bailey had previously suffered up to three heart attacks and had been admitted to both Bantry Hospital and Cork University Hospital
The documentary explains how Bailey wrote stories about Sophie having a string of lovers and having parties with ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’ which locals blasted as ‘ridiculous’.
‘It gave the impression he knew a hell of a lot’ Michael Sheridan, an Irish Independent journalist explains in the documentary.
‘He said that Sophie had been killed by blunt force trauma, he also mentioned that there were two wine glasses on the draining board and sink.
‘And he also added that he had not been sexually assaulted.
‘One had judged that he had friends within the investigation.
Bailey also told people of theories that he thought Sophie’s husband Daniel, who died in 2003 aged 61, may have sent a hitman to kill Sophie, as a divorce would lead to a loss of half of his estate, adding that he had a large life insurance premium on her.
Speaking in the documentary, Michael slammed the theory as ‘absurd’ saying no paid assassin would travel to a remote part of Ireland and then rely on weapons of opportunity.
Ian found a following on TikTok where he would post videos about his evidence
The former journalist would also post about his poetry and live shows to TikTok
He added that the murderer would need to know the area ‘very well’.
Bailey also contacted the Gardai to say there was a French connection to the murder.
While many have dismissed this theory, another documentary, The Parisian man is now in his fifties and known to some of Sophie’s family, and was allegedly spotted buying a copy of French paper Le Monde in Schull.
Speaking of becoming a suspect, Bailey told Netflix filmmakers: ‘One day I went into the paper shop and I notice there was a local guard I knew and detective from Bantry.
‘They were scrutinising me. I thought ‘”what’s that about then?’.
‘Then I walked down Schull high street, popped my head around the street and what did I observed but the same two police officers following me.’
‘At the end of January to early February, things started to become very strange.
‘I was putting stories through to the Sunday Tribune, and I was talking to Helen Callanan, who was the news editor.
‘She said to me “do you know what they’re saying up here Ian”. I said “no”. She said, “they’e saying, the word is, you murdered her”.
In May 2019, Bailey was convicted of murder by the Cour d’Assises de Paris and sentenced to 25 years in prison however the following year, Ireland’s High Court ruled that Bailey could not be extradited
Bailey shared TikToks until the month before of his death, often talking about the murder and denying his involvement
‘It was just so ridiculous, she was telling me this, I was hearing this for the first time from her. I now know it’s out there, and someone else is putting out the false word that I murdered her.’
Bailey, who had a history of domestic violence, also had scratches on his arm and forehead, which he claims are from gardening and rearing turkeys and not defensive wounds.
Many locals reveal in the documentary that Bailey confessed the crime to them, including one who said he their told a 14-year-old he ‘bashed Sophie’s head in’ and another who said he told an elaborate story about ‘seeing her tight a*** and wanting to f*** her’.
Despite often being in a state of tears or fit of anger when making these confessions, Bailey later dismissed this as ‘black humour’.
Bailey had lived in West Cork since the mid-1990s after quitting his career as a journalist and turning his hand to poetry and making ends meet as a gardener.
After one assault for which his partner had to be hospitalised, he wrote in his diary: ‘I feel sick reading my own report of the events that night – I really wanted to kill her.’
A psychiatrist’s report prepared for the murder trial concluded he had a ‘personality constructed on narcissism, psycho-rigidity, violence, impulsiveness, egocentricity, with an intolerance to frustration and a great need for recognition.
‘Under the liberating effects of alcohol, he had the tendency to become violent’.
He was arrested and questioned in February 1997 and again in 1998, but never charged since police could find no forensic evidence linking him to the crime.
The case has taken many twists and turns over the years, including Bailey bringing a successful a libel case against six newspapers.
During the trial in 2003, Cork Circuit Court heard Bailey had confessed to the murder of Sophie to a 14-year-old schoolboy with the words, ‘I bashed her f****** brains in.’
A local man, Ritchie Shelly, also told the court that Bailey had confessed to the murder on New Year’s Eve 1998, saying: ‘I did it, I did it. I went too far.’
Several other witnesses claimed that Bailey, who had worked as an investigative journalist in London before moving to Ireland when his marriage ended, admitted to them that he was the murderer – hearsay evidence that was submitted during the French trial.
During the trial in 2003, Cork Circuit Court heard Bailey had confessed to the murder of Sophie to a 14-year-old schoolboy with the words, ‘I bashed her f****** brains in.’ He is pictured in a TikTok video
Sunday Tribune News Editor, Helen Callanan – to whom Bailey had reported on the killing – said she asked Bailey in early February 1997 about rumours he was a suspect and he replied: ‘It was me, I did it. I killed her. I did it to resurrect my career.’
Frustrated by the lack of progress in Ireland, the French authorities started their own investigation in 2008 – even exhuming Sophie’s body in the hope of finding further forensic evidence.
During the trial held at France’s highest criminal court in 2019, presiding judge Frederique Aline said there was ‘significant evidence’ of Bailey’s guilt.
‘I don’t feel sorry for myself,’ he told the Daily Mail in 2019, after French courts found him guilty.
‘I think about people tied to the stake in the Middle Ages and old Irish heroes who were put up against the wall and shot. How must they have felt?
‘Obviously they don’t have the guillotine in France any more, but . . .’
‘No, no, strike that out! I can’t be seen to be too whimsical. I am just trying to be resilient and philosophical about this.’
At the time, Bill Fuller – one of only two original witnesses to give live evidence – said Bailey had recounted him a scenario of the killing the day after Sophie’s body was found.
Mr Fuller said Bailey turned to him and said: ‘You did it … you saw her in Spar and she got you excited as she walked through the aisles with her tight a***.
‘You went to her place to see what you could get, but she wasn’t interested so you attacked her. She tried to escape and you ran after her. You threw something at the back of her head and you went further than you planned to.’
Sophie was well-known in France and friendly with Jacques Chirac
Daniel Toscan du Plantier and wife Sophie Toscan du Plantier in 1996
Bailey first claimed he had spent the entire night at home in bed next to his partner Jules Thomas, but later revealed he had left in the early hours of the morning to walk to his studio about 300m from the house.
He said he had wanted to finish an article.
Public prosecutor Jean-Pierre Bonthoux branded Bailey a ‘coward’ for refusing to face justice and replying only in the media, accusing him of mocking the French court.
Speaking about Ms Farrell, he said: ‘There was nothing between her and Mr Bailey, no animosity. She understood (her evidence) was important.’
At the time, Bailey branded the case in France a ‘show trial’.
Ireland has twice refused to send him to France to stand trial, saying police had questioned him twice about the killing but failed to find any substantive evidence.
Bailey has been in and out of court several times over the years
Bailey’s partner Jule Thomas has stuck by him
It has also cited the lack of an extradition agreement with France.
Only due to a quirk of France’s Napoleonic law that allows crimes against French citizens to be tried in their own courts, no matter where in the world they were committed, was Bailey able to be tried.
In May 2019, Bailey was convicted of murder by the Cour d’Assises de Paris and sentenced to 25 years in prison however the following year, Ireland’s High Court ruled that Bailey could not be extradited.
Sophie was among the social elite in Paris and ‘the best mother in the world’ according to her son Pierre-Louis, who lived with her after his parents’ divorce and was ‘very close’ to her.
She bought the cottage when Pierre-Louis was eight, having fallen in love with the rugged Irish countryside and the sense of escapism it offered her.
The pair travelled there twice a year, with Sophie keen for her son to learn English.
The year she was killed, Pierre-Louis, then 15, was spending Christmas with his father.
They only realised something was wrong when news reports emerged about a woman being killed in Ireland.
