‘Seeing Bailey in a shop was like a freezing shower,’ says Sophie’s son
SOPHIE Toscan du Plantier’s son has said that seeing Ian Bailey for the first time in a west Cork shop was “like a freezing shower”.
Pierre Louis Baudey-Vignaud has retained his mother’s beloved holiday cottage at Toormore despite initial calls by some within his family for it to be sold.
His mother was found battered to death by the side of a laneway leading to the isolated cottage at around 10am on December 23, 1996.
He now holidays there three or four times a year with his wife, Aurelia, and his two children.
His eldest daughter was named Sophie after her late grandmother.
Mr Baudey-Vignaud still keeps his mother’s old duffel coat hanging on a hook by the back door.
“We chose to leave it here,” he said. “But it [the house] is not a museum.”
Justice
The father of two admitted that seeing Mr Bailey in west Cork for the first time was very difficult. French authorities are prosecuting Mr Bailey over Sophie’s death.
He spotted him once while shopping in a local Schull store.
“He did not recognise me but it was like a freezing shower [for me]. I had a bad evening and we flew back to Paris the next day,” he said.
The young man said his family would never give up their campaign for justice.
“It is like the train – when the train is late. Then the train arrives, so it is a matter of time.”
He also added that his family “love Ireland” because it is a place that his mother loved.
His comments came in the eagerly awaited Amazon podcast series ‘West Cork’, on the murder of the French film executive at Toormore outside Schull in 1996.