Ralph Riegel > Quotes

“Mr Bailey said that Mr Cassidy informed him that there had been a murder outside Schull and that it was understood to involve a person who was a foreign national. There was a suggestion that the person involved might be French – details Mr Cassidy would later insist he had not been aware of at that time.”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“GSOC was specifically asked to submit statements its officers had received from Mr Bailey, Jules Thomas, Marie Farrell and former British Army soldier Martin Graham. It was Mr Graham who claimed he had been offered drugs and cash by gardaí in return for agreeing to help secure incriminating statements against Mr Bailey.”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“In 2007 ASSOPH, in consultation with Sophie’s family and solicitors, Alain Spilliaert and Eric Dupond-Moretti, came to the realisation that, if Ireland wouldn’t sanction a prosecution for its own legal reasons, a French-led investigation could potentially lead to criminal proceedings against Mr Bailey in Paris. The association’s campaign was boosted by the calibre of the people involved. Sophie’s uncle, Jean-Pierre Gazeau, was the president of ASSOPH and a driving force in both its foundation and subsequent work. Mr Gazeau was a mathematician and physicist who specialised in quantum physics and came to rank as one of France’s top academics. Quiet, polite and fluent in English and Spanish, he brought the logic, planning and determination of an academic to the work of ASSOPH. It also helped that Mr Gazeau was well versed in international negotiations. As one of the top physicists in France, he was a visiting consultant and researcher with science foundations and universities in the United States, Japan, Canada, China, and even Iran.”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“I am a poet and Frank said to me that I couldn’t say certain things, but if I put it in a poem?’ He then agreed to recite his poem aloud for the pair: ‘There is a full force hurricane, storming, circulating, swirling, angry, aggressive and vengeful, around the outside of my head. Yet because of beauty and love and thoughts of you, I remain calm in the eye of the hurricane. And in the bonfiring of my dreams, at that final moment, between the laughter and the tears, at the tumult of my fears, with thoughts of beauty and love and you, I am able to stay as calm as the stilled mill pond.’ Concluding the poem, he said it perfectly captured where he was at that precise moment in time. ‘That is from the heart. I am not acting calmly in a hurricane–I am.’ He acknowledged he was a ‘bit worried about herself’, in reference to his partner, Ms Thomas, who was not participating in the interview but who was painting in her studio just a few metres away. ‘She is a bit shook,’ he said. The poetry dominated coverage of the case over the coming days, most likely as intended. The striking photograph taken by Mark Condren, a multiple winner of the prestigious Irish Press Photographer of the Year Award, dominated the front page the following day. Such was the impact of the image it was reproduced several times over the coming weeks for use with various updates on the Paris trial and verdict.”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“Critically, the French investigative team would also be given whatever support they required in Ireland, including full access to the original garda murder file. This ensured that the French investigators would have access to all witness statements, forensic reports, the crime scene photographs and the post-mortem examination file of State Pathologist Professor John Harbison. If the French police team had not had access to the Irish files, an investigation would be fatally compromised from the outset. This granting of access was unprecedented. It also confirmed, beyond any doubt, that no action would ever be taken by the DPP over the garda case file in Ireland. Any such action would be critically undermined from the very start by the fact that access to the file had been given to someone outside the Irish judicial process–and would open any future prosecution, even one taken on the basis of new evidence, to an immediate legal challenge based on a breach of process. While it was never confirmed, the astonishing level of access granted to Magistrate Gachon and his police team was clearly the result of consultations between Paris and Dublin at the very highest levels. Even allowing for existing European judicial and police cooperation protocols, journalists covering the case–including myself–felt the level of access given to the French was astonishing.”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“Mr Buttimer was pointedly referencing the original 44-page report of the garda investigation into Sophie’s killing that, in 2001, was central to ruling out a prosecution in Ireland. That report by the DPP had clearly carried enormous weight with the Supreme Court judges. Prepared by a solicitor in the DPP’s office, Robert Sheehan, the report didn’t just criticise the garda investigation as much as demolish it–and erase any suggestion that Mr Bailey might be charged. In a hammer blow to the original garda investigation, it had described the west Cork probe as ‘thoroughly flawed and prejudiced’.”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“Even though Mr Graham was a fascinating witness, the High Court hearing–just like the Cork Circuit Court libel action before it–suddenly began to revolve around Marie Farrell. The former west Cork shopkeeper, who had since relocated to her native Longford, was a core strategic element of Mr Bailey’s case. Her claims about making statements to the 2003 libel hearing under garda duress had been hugely damaging to An Garda Síochána. The High Court action would now hear precisely what she had seen on 23 December 1996 at Kealfadda Bridge–and why she had given evidence at Cork Circuit Court that she had later recanted. Mrs Farrell was called to offer evidence in December, just two weeks before the High Court suspended its hearings for the Christmas break. Her evidence was nothing short of extraordinary. She claimed a garda had exposed himself to her, that another garda had stripped naked in front of her and asked for sex, that gardaí had put her under unrelenting pressure to support an incriminating statement that undermined Mr Bailey’s key alibi–and had threatened her with arrest if she did not comply.”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“The core of Mr Bailey’s evidence was that gardaí had tried to frame him for the killing and that he should never have been arrested in 1997 and 1998, with his detentions amounting to wrongful arrests.”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“profile murder inquiry–including a claim that at least one garda offered cash, clothes and drugs to a vulnerable drug user in exchange for information about Mr Bailey. The report also criticised garda for arresting Jules Thomas despite a specific instruction from the DPP not to do so.”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“It detailed a total lack of forensic evidence against the Englishman and what one DPP official called the ‘unsafe practices’ that some gardaí engaged in during the high-”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“The complaint was lodged by Daniel du Plantier as well as Georges and Marguerite Bouniol before the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris on 17 January 1997, just 25 days after Sophie’s death. Such complaints can serve another long-term purpose: under France’s Napoleonic Code, it was possible for French authorities to conduct a domestic investigation into a crime that had occurred outside their jurisdiction. All that was required was that the crime involved a French citizen. It did not matter that the suspect was not on French soil or that the bulk of witnesses were outside French jurisdiction. It also did not matter that the original investigation was not carried out by French police. The Napoleonic Code–amended under further French statutes in the 1960s–provided France with all the legal powers required to conduct a full investigation and, if necessary, a prosecution.”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“On 17 September Mr Bailey finally appeared before Judge James O’Connor at Skibbereen District Court. The journalist, who was by now 44 years old, admitted the assault on his partner of 10 years. Ms Thomas was not in court for the hearing. Judge O’Connor was told that Ms Thomas feared for her safety because of the attack. Having heard an outline of the facts, and that Mr Bailey had already spent more than three weeks in custody, the judge imposed a three-month”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“Almost immediately it was confirmed that Assistant Commissioner Ray McAndrew would review the allegations made by Mrs Farrell and, in particular, her claims in respect of the behaviour of key officers involved in the du Plantier investigation over the previous decade. The review would involve interviews with all key players involved. But, critically, there was no indication at the outset that the report would ever be published. Instead, the McAndrew Report would be submitted to the garda commissioner on its completion in 2007. It comprised interviews with almost 100 people, around 50 of whom were either serving or retired gardaí and detectives. The Minister for Justice would also be briefed on its findings and recommendations. But it wasn’t just the garda commissioner and Minister for Justice who examined the McAndrew Report. It was also submitted to the DPP’s office for consideration. To the surprise of no one, it subsequently emerged that no prosecutorial action was recommended on the basis of the report or its findings. That report has never been made available to the public–and has never been fully referenced in any of the court proceedings either in Ireland or France. The McAndrew Report was not even discussed in detail in the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) report, which would be painstakingly compiled over eight years following”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“In October 2005, this startling development also threatened to have implications for the gardaí, Mr Bailey’s pending High Court appeal and even the Irish government. On 13 October, TV3’ s southern correspondent, Paul Byrne, broke the story that Marie Farrell, the so-called ‘star witness’ of the Circuit Court libel hearing, was now retracting all her statements. The Schull shopkeeper, in a truly astonishing TV interview, claimed not only that her evidence was false but that it had only been offered after she had been put under extreme duress by gardaí to incriminate Mr Bailey. The interview dominated the news headlines in Ireland for days.”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder

“By early 2014 there were sufficient indications that the High Court action would prove extraordinary by Irish legal standards. It had emerged that a telephone system that handled emergency calls, which had been installed in garda stations across Ireland in the 1980s, had a recording function. Such a recording function posed fundamental problems at a garda station–not least for some conversations between gardaí, which should have been treated as confidential. This system with a recording function was discontinued in November 2013. The garda commissioner at the time, Martin Callinan, had alerted the Department of Justice in March 2014 to the fact that the recording system had been in place. So seriously was the matter taken that it was immediately brought to the attention of Taoiseach Enda Kenny and discussed at a full Cabinet meeting on 25 March. By that time, the retirement of Commissioner Callinan had been confirmed in the wake of the controversy over the treatment of the so-called garda ‘whistle-blower’ Maurice McCabe. Bandon Garda Station, the centre of the du Plantier murder investigation, had such a telephone recording system and it had been in operation between 1997 and 2003–critical periods for the du Plantier investigation.”
― Ralph Riegel, A Dream of Death: How Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s Dream Became a Nightmare and a West Cork Village Became the Centre of Ireland’s Most Notorious Unsolved Murder