French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier was beaten to death near her holiday home in Cork in December 1996.
Ian Bailey was convicted, in absentia, of the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier by a French court. However, a new true-crime series outlines how there is a distinct lack of evidence to support such a conviction.
Director Jim Sheridan. Photo: Fergal Phillips
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French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier was beaten to death near her holiday home in Cork in December 1996.
Pat Stacey
THE big news just before the release of Jim Sheridan’s true-crime series Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie (Sky Crime Sunday; all episodes available on demand) was that the family of Sophie Toscan du Plantier had requested their contributions to the documentary be removed. Sky complied.
Her parents, Georges and Marguerite, and her son, Pierre-Louis, were interviewed on camera. When they agreed to do it, they said, they believed Mr Sheridan was making a series about justice being done for Ms du Plantier, the 39-year-old French film producer who was beaten to death outside her holiday home in Schull, Co Cork, in December, 1996.
As it happens, all three do appear in the series, but only in undated archive footage from other sources.
Apparently, their objections relate mainly to how, as they see it, the series portrays Ian Bailey – who was convicted, in absentia, of voluntary homicide by a French court and sentenced to 25 years on the flawed “evidence” discovered by gardaí – and his former partner Jules Thomas as victims of a conspiracy.
Mr Bailey and Ms Thomas ended their long relationship last February, weeks after filming ended.
Ian Bailey was convicted, in absentia, of the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier by a French court. However, a new true-crime series outlines how there is a distinct lack of evidence to support such a conviction.
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Ian Bailey was convicted, in absentia, of the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier by a French court. However, a new true-crime series outlines how there is a distinct lack of evidence to support such a conviction.
None of us can comprehend what Ms du Plantier’s family have gone through. That said, it’s unfair to suggest Mr Sheridan, who’s been working on the series since 2015, has anything other than exemplary motives.
The last thing he does is disrespect the memory of Ms du Plantier, or downplay the horrific nature of her murder. At the same time, you can understand why they were upset. Mr Bailey unquestionably dominates the series.
The true-crime genre is a surprising direction for the Oscar-nominated director of My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, In America and more, to take. But Sheridan puts a highly personal stamp on it, weaving himself and his 25-year obsession with the case into the narrative.
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It doesn’t always work; sometimes the feature film director in him overpowers the documentary-maker and pushes the series to the edge of Gothic overload. And yet, it’s preferable to the lurid bombast you tend to find in this kind of series. The tone throughout is one of mournfulness for a life viciously cut short and for so many other lives destroyed – yes, including Mr Bailey’s.
This is not to say Mr Sheridan believes Mr Bailey, who was questioned twice by gardaí and released without charge, is innocent. But he doesn’t assert he’s guilty, either. Like the rest of us, he doesn’t know for sure.
Well, not ALL of the rest of us. The gardaí who conducted the scandalous fiasco of an investigation, which included pressuring their “star witness” into lying (she later retracted her statement), decided from day one that Mr Bailey was the killer, without a speck of evidence. No fingerprints, no DNA – nothing. The ones interviewed here don’t appear to have changed their minds, despite the investigation being discredited.
There are ifs, buts and maybes. Spurious assumptions first trotted 25 years ago are repeated as indisputable fact. Except, of course, they’re easy to dispute. One detective blithely says Bailey burned a black overcoat he supposedly wore while killing Sophie.
There’s one problem with this: the files show the gardaí took the coat away for forensic examination. It’s outrageous, really.
Murder at the Cottage is fine as a solid recounting of events already known to the public, including Mr Bailey’s failed libel case against the media, which turned into an unofficial murder trial when the often disturbing contents of his personal diaries were made public.
But what makes the series an extraordinary piece of work is its rawness. Mr Sheridan’s camera captures Mr Bailey in all his moods. A lot of the time they’re not pleasant. Especially when he’s drinking heavily, which is a lot of the time.
It was the drink, says Ms Thomas, that led to him violently assaulting her. We see the pictures; her injuries were appalling. Domestic abuse is a heinous crime. You would have to spin hard to make Mr Bailey appear sympathetic. He frequently seems self-absorbed, even narcissistic.
But that doesn’t make him a killer. Only evidence would do that, and there is none. As Mr Sheridan says at the end, there are no winners here. Only victims of some sort.
