Gardai plan to meet Jim over new Sophie info
Cops will quiz film director on his research into 1996 murder
GARDAI are to interview awardwinning film director Jim Sheridan about new information he has on the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.
Officers have contacted the movie legend, who made the Sky TV series Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie, and are due to meet with him within weeks.
The Dubliner, 73, does not believe long-time suspect Ian Bailey killed the mum of one but thinks the answer to the riddle lies in France.
He and his research team have obtained new information that Sophie, 39, was followed in the afternoon before she died in Schull, West Cork, on December 23, 1996.
They subsequently identified the man trailing her from a photofit by witnesses as a European national who lived in Paris. He also had a link to Sophie’s late ex-husband Daniel.
Last night Mr Sheridan said: “The
gardai have contacted me as part of their investigation and I am more than happy to sit down and meet with them.
“I will fully co-operate and give them whatever information and help I can.
“We all want to find out who killed Sophie and for her to finally get justice.”
The director has spent more than seven years researching the French woman’s death.
He firmly believes the French side of the murder was never fully investigated.
Gardai originally went to Paris weeks after the brutal killing but never got to sit down and question her husband Daniel. Instead, it was left to French police to deal with him and gardai were given a written statement from M du Plantier. They never at any stage got to interrogate him.
Sophie’s husband didn’t come to Ireland to bring home her body and did not return to West Cork or their house until several years later.
Mr Sheridan said: “I have always believed there were many unanswered questions in France over Sophie’s death. I hope the gardai can go and track down the man we have identified and see what was he doing following Sophie in the hours before she died.
“It would also be interesting if gardai get his DNA. We believe this is a lead worth following.
“I have always said if the gardai looked at other possible suspects apart from Ian Bailey they might catch the killer. If you look at all the overall evidence, I don’t believe Ian Bailey did it.”
Officers found no DNA evidence linking Mr Bailey to the crime scene.
Mr Sheridan is hoping that huge improvements in DNA technology worldwide will help gardai solve the case.
Sophie’s body was found on a lane 100 yards from the front door of her holiday home. She was battered to death and struck around 50 times with a rock.
Gardai are investing huge resources into the murder inquiry between the ongoing probe and a cold case review, with a team based in Bantry, Co Cork.
Interpol has also been drafted in to help track down and interview witnesses abroad.
So far Mr Bailey has not had any contact from gardai investigating the case. He was arrested twice but never charged with the murder.
In 2019, he was found guilty and given a 25-year jail sentence in absentia by a French court for killing Sophie.
However, Irish judges have refused to extradite him since the French trial was based on hearsay evidence that would never be allowed in an Irish
court of law.