Englishman charged with murder in France but never extradited dies

An Englishman who became the chief suspect for the murder of French woman Sophie Toscan du Plantier in 1996 - and was convicted in absentia in Paris - has died aged 66 in the Republic of Ireland.

Ian Bailey is reported to have suffered a suspected heart attack in Bantry, West Cork.

Passersby performed CPR on him for 15 minutes and he was then taken to hospital, but later pronounced dead, reported The Irish Times. He had previously had two other cardiac arrests that had caused damage to his heart, and from which he was still recovering last year.

Mr Bailey was born in Manchester, England, before moving to Cork, Ireland, in 1991. He worked as a freelance journalist, and reported on Ms Toscan du Plantier’s murder.

Ms Toscan du Plantier, 39, was found beaten to death near her holiday home in Toormore, near Schull on the southwest coast of Ireland, on December 23, 1996. She was married to the French cinema producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier (who himself died in 2003).

She was found by a neighbour, and had reportedly been attacked in her home before attempting to flee. She was found with her skull crushed, apparently by a flat stone and concrete brick.

Questioning and release

In February 1997, Mr Bailey was arrested and questioned in connection with the murder in Ireland, before being released. Just under a year later, he was arrested and questioned for a second time, but again released without charge.

In 2001, an Irish solicitor at the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) office reviewed the file and said there was not enough evidence to prosecute Mr Bailey.

Mr Bailey later filed libel action against several newspapers and brought a High Court action suing for wrongful arrest and alleged framing for the killing, but he lost all cases.

Conviction in France

Despite the Irish DPP’s conclusions, in 2019, Mr Bailey was convicted of murder in absentia in Paris. He was linked to the crime as he was the first journalist on the scene - he lived close by - and was also found to have scratches on his arms (which he said had happened as he cut down a Christmas tree).

A local resident also reported seeing a man matching his description near the scene.

The court sentenced him to 25 years in prison, and French authorities called for his extradition under European law. However, the High Court in Dublin refused this three times. Mr Bailey was, however, unable to leave the Republic of Ireland as he risked extradition if he did.

Ms Toscan du Plantier’s uncle, Jean Pierre Gazeau, has said that he fears that the Irish cold case review team will now be unable to continue its work into the case.

He said: “We are not at all happy at this news. First, because a human being has died, so we are sorry to hear that, but we are also sorry because we fear the cold case review team may not conclude its work.

“Ian Bailey was convicted by the French justice system, but we wanted him to remain alive so that the Irish justice system could also reach a final finding that he was the person who killed my niece.

“We have never had any doubt that Ian Bailey was the killer, but we had hoped that the cold case review team would get DNA and forensic evidence to prove it beyond any doubt.

“Now, our fear is that we will never reach the full truth of what happened so I would urge the Irish Garda [police] to continue with their investigation to be absolutely sure that Bailey was the culprit.”

The case once again came to popular attention after streaming platform Netflix released a documentary about the murder in 2021.

Innocence maintained to the end

Mr Bailey’s lawyer, Frank Buttimer, always maintained that he believed his client was innocent and the victim of an attempted framing by the state. He also said that the stress of the case had contributed to Mr Bailey’s death.

Mr Buttimer : “I first met Ian Bailey in March 1997 when he came into my office to ask me would I represent him if he was ever prosecuted for the crime he didn’t commit - the murder of Madame Toscan du Plantier. I felt immediately it was clear that he hadn’t committed the crime and that in my view, it was subsequently established by information I acquired, that he had been the victim of state persecution.

“There is no question in my mind that there is an association between his untimely death and recent ill health with what was done to him by the state in wrongly associating him with the murder,” he told The Irish Times.

Mr Bailey always maintained his innocence, especially as no forensic evidence had ever been found to link him to the murder scene.

Last year he told The Irish Sun: “For the past 27 years my life has been damaged by a false accusation that I was the murderer of Sophie. The false accusation has resulted in me losing my career, my partner and my health…

“My hope and my prayer is that the truth emerges before I die,” he said.

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