Judge: Request for Bailey files is a storm in a teacup
Convicted in his absence
A HIGH Court judge has said the issue of a request from French authorities to view the legal submissions on Ian Bailey’s objections to his proposed extradition is ‘a storm in a teacup’.
Judge Paul Burns said yesterday that he would disregard two pieces of correspondence from France seeking access to Mr Bailey’s submissions as they had not come from the issuing judicial authority.
Last week, Ronan Munro SC, for Mr Bailey, told the High Court that French authorities had made an ‘unprecedented’ and ‘unorthodox’ request to view the legal submissions on Mr Bailey’s objections to his extradition there.
The Englishman is facing a 25year prison sentence for the murder of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier, and a threeday
Fighting extradition: Ian Bailey hearing where he will contest the request for his surrender has been scheduled to commence before the High Court on July 15.
The 63-year-old denies any involvement in the mother-ofone’s death in December 1996.
During yesterday’s brief hearing, counsel for the Justice Minister, Robert Barron SC, said the State had brought the French correspondence to the court’s attention so it was aware of what was happening. Mr Barron said it was correspondence between two different states and that the Minister for Justice’s department was entitled to do with it how it saw fit.
In reply, Mr Munro, for Mr Bailey, said it was a non-justiciable issue as it had come from the head of the office for international mutual legal assistance in criminal matters and not the issuing judicial authority.
Judge Burns called the issue of the request by French authorities ‘a storm in a teacup’ as it had not come from the issuing judicial authority in France.
There was ‘no sinister element’ to the correspondence, he said, and it was of no consequence to the proceedings.
The judge said the correspondence was not addressed to the High Court and had been brought to his attention as a matter of caufurther tion. He said he would treat it that way until he was told to treat it differently.
He pointed out that the issuing judicial authority had not corresponded with the court, adding: ‘Obviously these matters should have been properly done with the issuing judicial authority and it has not been done in this instance.’
Mr Bailey was not present in court for yesterday’s hearing.
He was previously remanded on continuing bail until July 15.
Last week, Mr Munro explained that a request was received from French authorities to view the submissions from both the State and Mr Bailey ahead of the extradition hearing in July. He noted that the issuing of such documents seemed to be outside the statutory procedure. Mr Munro stated that he was not aware of any ‘free-wheeling’ statutory right which the issuing state had to ask for this.
Judge Burns said they seemed to be letters from the French authorities requesting submissions from both parties, which was nothing to do with the court.
This is the third time French authorities have sought Mr Bailey’s surrender in relation to the death of Ms Toscasn du Plantier, 39, whose badly beaten body was found outside her holiday home in Schull, Co. Cork, in December 1996. Mr Bailey, of The Prairie, Liscaha, Schull, was convicted of her murder in his absence in a Paris court in May 2019.
The three-judge Cour d’Assises in Paris accordingly imposed a 25year prison sentence on the Englishman in his absence.
He was arrested last December and remanded on bail after a High Court judge endorsed the third European Arrest Warrant seeking his extradition to France.