Sophie’s son: Bailey will never be able to ‘confess’
Family’s lament at death of suspect as her uncle tells Mail he would contact them
MURDER victim Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s son last night expressed his regret that Ian Bailey will never be able to confess to the killing of his mother.
Pierre-Louis Baudey-Vignaud, who was 15 at the time of the killing, has vowed to continue his fight for justice.
‘With Bailey’s death, Sophie’s family will never be able to obtain a confession from Ian Bailey,’ he said yesterday.
‘We continue our fight for truth and justice… An investigation is still under way in Ireland and we’re confident that the discovery of new elements, the hearing of new witnesses and the revelation of possible complicity will enable Irish police to close the case finally, 27 years after my mother’s murder,’ he told RTÉ News in a video statement.
Mr Baudey-Vignaud, 43, added that Bailey had refused to answer questions from French investigators ‘entangling himself in lies and contradiction, provoking and
‘We got messages from Bailey’
taunting the police, the judiciary and the media’.
The uncle of murdered Ms Toscan du Plantier has said his family refused to speak to chief suspect Bailey, who would leave ‘strange messages’ on his answering machine in an attempt to contact her family.
Jean Pierre Gazeau, 70s, an acclaimed physicist, told the Irish Daily Mail that Bailey, who died on Sunday aged 66 after a heart attack, had tried numerous times over the years to engage with him and his relatives.
However, none of them ever wished to form a relationship with the former journalist as it was always their belief he had murdered Sophie on December 23, 1996, in West Cork in a case which remains unsolved. ‘We got messages from Bailey on a number of occasions, but always refused to speak with him because we weren’t interested in having direct contact,’ Mr Gazeau said.
‘He would send an SMS or a strange message on my answering machine… He was found guilty in France and determined that he killed Sophie so why would we want to connect with him?’
Yesterday, Mr Gazeau expressed his hopes that the gardaí would con- tinue their cold case review into his niece’s murder, despite the death of the chief suspect. ‘We were expecting Bailey didn’t have a lot of time left because we knew his health was very bad,’ continued Mr Gazeau.
‘But I was hoping the gardaí would have finished their investigation before he died, but unfortunately not.
‘It’s very important that the investigation into Sophie’s death will continue despite this. We need to know the truth even if it doesn’t come in the form of a confession from Bailey himself.
‘We would have liked to see Bailey before the courts where he would have had to answer precise questions during the trial.’
On Monday, a Garda spokesman confirmed the investigation into murder of Ms Toscan du Plantier remains ‘active and ongoing, as does assistance from the Garda Serious Crime Review Team’.
If the cold case review did not yield any results, the family of Ms du Plantier had expressed their intentions of launching a civil case against Mr Bailey. Sophie’s uncle added that there still remains a lot of unanswered questions into the near three-decade long case.
‘Bailey was a liar and used to change his past a lot when it suited him,’ he said. ‘However, he wasn’t the only person who told lies – there were people around him [in Schull] who didn’t tell the whole truth to gardaí.
‘This is why it’s crucial we continue our fight for the truth.’
An association, set up by Mr Gazeau, to find the truth behind the 1996 murder, met last night to discuss its next course of action.
He added that Sophie’s parents, Georges Buoniol, and Marguerite, who are both aged in their 90s, were still not aware of Bailey’s death as of last night.
He previously told the Irish Daily
Mail that their final wish is to find out who killed their daughter and see justice served.
‘They are so heartbroken that they still cannot move on with their lives,’ he said two years ago.
‘They’ve been waiting so long for justice and know they will not be around forever. It’s their wish that they will see a successful end to this investigation so they can live the rest of their lives in peace.’
Mr Gazeau visited Schull on the 25th anniversary of his niece’s death to lay flowers at the site where she was murdered and to express his gratitude to the local community for their support.
Funeral arrangements for Bailey, a native of England, have yet to be announced. Speaking to the media
last month he had claimed his situation is comparable to those of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four who were wrongly convicted of murder during the 1970s.
Mr Bailey was arrested twice in Ireland in connection with the French filmmaker’s death, but was never been charged.
However, he was tried for her murder in absentia in a French court, which sentenced to 25 years in prison, but the Irish Government refused to extradite him.
Bailey said in December: ‘For 27 years my life has been seriously damaged by a false accusation. I’m still sympathetic to her family who believe
I had something to do with it, and I can’t change that. There’s a cold case review going on which I called for when I wrote a letter to Drew Harris [the Garda Commissioner].
‘I can only hope and pray that this will ultimately prove I had nothing to do with what happened,’ he said.
‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be exonerated but I can only hope that the truth will come out and that the true identity of the murderer canbe established,’ Mr Bailey said. ‘I gave hair samples to the gardaí prior to my first arrest and when I was arrested I gave a blood sample because I had nothing go to do with it.
‘There was also alien DNA found on her shoe, which was not mine.’
The former journalist, who also suffered two heart attacks last year, said he’d need to undergo major surgery.
Mr Bailey added that he never intended on leaving West Cork in spite of the accusations that followed him.
‘I’ve never thought about leaving [West Cork] because I’ve fallen in love with the people and culture and I get a lot of support,’ he said.
‘I’m lucky that I have my own creativity and I practice meditation. I’m a Christian and I forgive those who trespass against me and I think that’s what’s allowed me to persevere for over a quarter of a century,’ he said.
The case remains unsolved and back in 2021, Mr BaudeyVignaud pleaded for help, remarking: ‘My mother was found dead with the complete body destroyed... Her face was … destroyed by stones. She was almost naked in the land, with scratches on the face and on the body.
‘Please for you, for me, for my mother, for the justice – for all the women who are living in this country, we must end this – please call me, send me an email or go to the gardaí, for sure, you [who] know something.’
‘I hope that the truth comes out’