Jim
Sheridan, Ian Bailey and Cassandra Voices
1. Introduction
In the Cassandra Voices interview with Jim Sheridan, he discusses the relationship he developed with Ian Bailey, who was rightly found guilty in absentia of the 1996 murder of Sophie Toscan
du Plantier. The interview offers insights into the way Sheridan thinks.
It shows us why, while the thinking process may contribute to his award-winning
movies, it is not conducive to investigating this crime.
2. Where
I agree with Jim
One issue where I am in full
agreement with Jim Sheridan is that Bailey could not unequivocally prove he did
not murder Sophie. In law, Bailey was never obliged to prove he did not do it.
However, had he had an alibi this matter would have been settled decades ago.
Initially, he had an alibi, a false alibi, supported by Jules Thomas. A false
alibi is a lie or series of lies told to the Police to deceive them into
believing a person could not have committed the crime.
On February 10th,
1997 Jules Thomas said she could no longer vouch for Bailey being in bed with her
throughout the night. Once Thomas told the truth he was compelled to concede he
had lied. He went on to give many
conflicting versions of events. Bailey
tried to make excuses for his lie to AGS but it was a lie, a very serious lie.
3. Hitchens's razor
"what
can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without
evidence."
Christopher
Hitchens
The brutal murder of Sophie
Toscan du Plantier is a fact, not a literary exercise nor an upscale dinner
party game in which people share their favourite theories of the crime. In the
recent Cassandra Voices interview Jim Sheridan was speaking about his relationship
with Ian Bailey and explaining why poor Ian was ‘tortured’ for twenty-seven
years, and why he insists Bailey did not murder Sophie. The content was bizarre
and told us much about the workings of Sheridan’s thinking and very little
about the murder of Sophie.
Topics included a child
floating in amniotic fluid, the guilt felt by Jim’s mother for his
grandmother’s death, the famine, a landlord during the famine being called
Bailey, a tired old concept called tribal memory, scoring 180 in darts, the
misattribution of the Life of Brian sketch ‘what did the Romans do for us,’ to
the British, Michael Collins, the killing of Irish people in Clonakilty. I have
no legal expertise but I am certain none of that would have been raised by the
prosecution or defence in a murder trial for Sophie. It is irrelevant. It is a
complete distraction from the seriousness of the case. It is a grim joke.
Mr Sheridan could have thrown
in Freudian, Jungian, Lacanian interpretations, and a huge number of old sociological
or anthropological theories that could be tenuously applied to the murder. Why
not include astrology, tarot cards, and reading the runes for completeness?
All these types
of theories and random speculations should be subjected to Hitchens’s razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed
without evidence." There is no evidence here of any
value. Plenty of assertions without evidence regarding the murder. Such things
may delight an audience wanting a wistful mystical flight of fancy documentary
or drama. For such people getting hard evidence is low on the list of their
priorities. Sophie’s family, friends and
those people wanting justice, want tested evidence and facts.
The stream of
consciousness outpourings of Mr Sheridan are fascinating and offer insights
into his creative processes. However, finding the murderer of Sophie is about
evidence. Then it may lead to tightly reasoned assertions derived from the
evidence. There can be no room for the evidence-free assertions singled out by
Christopher Hitchens. Alas, this will not be the last time Hitchens’s razor
will be applied.
4. Strawman
If a criminal investigation
has little time for evidence-free assertions it will also find Straw Man
arguments a waste of energy. A ‘Straw man’ approach is one where a person
creates a theory or point of view so that they may quickly and effectively
demolish it. The straw man case is attributed to some adversary. The creator of
the straw man can then declare ‘see how I have disproven the arguments of the
other side….my point of view is the truth’. The implication being that the
point of view of the demolisher carries greater weight and validity. It is a
very popular and persuasive strategy. It is worse than useless when trying to
solve a murder.
“It
makes no sense to me on any level, that a man wandered up there in the hills
wearing a big black coat got rejected, didn’t sexually attack the person who
rejected him, and beat them on the back of the head with a rock “ J Sheridan
What
makes sense or does not make sense to Jim Sheridan on any level is very
important for his next fictional drama, it is irrelevant in finding Sophie’s
murderer. The description of the crime is one of many mooted scenarios. It is
one possible theory of the crime and one possible straw man. I think here Mr.
Sheridan has invented a ‘super straw man’. in this case, he presents a scenario
and just dismisses it for ‘ not making sense’. He does not deign to offer the
listeners any reasoning or any evidence. They must accept that ‘ Jim knows
best’.
Irrationality
and Psychopathy as a Strawman
When asked about the possibility
a murderer ( not named as Bailey by the interviewer) panicked and left the
scene of the crime Mr Sheridan replies:
“
You know The trouble with all this is
irrationality is always the way out
you know what I mean its kinda
like when you don’t know what to say you
say oh Bailey’s a psychopath so that
explains why he did this that and the other. That’s….they’re never good
explanations you know…..That’s like saying
in in drama the rule is never have somebody drunk cos yer like its just
not the person you can have them drunk
but it's boring”
What
the hell was all that about? No one has mentioned irrationality or psychopathy.
The questioner referred to panic. The segue into psychopathy in this instance
is another straw man.! This is becoming ludicrous. In an attempt to avoid the
possibility that Bailey murdered Sophie in a rage and then panicked we are
presented with a minor theatrical convention. This anecdotal point of view is
not evidence. While the case was being discussed in general terms Mr Sheridan
replied with reference to Ian Bailey.
Well-researched
behaviours such as Amygdala hijacking and narcissistic rage are subsumed by
Jim’s ‘rule of drama’. This is pitiful
fare. Sophie deserves better than this and Mr Sheridan is capable of better.
Once we look at well-established and understood psychological research the
behaviour of the murderer is easily understood. Tales of Jim's grandma,
amniotic fluid, famine, or tribal memories are not required.
5. One of Ian Bailey’s many confessions
Sheridan has dismissed each of
Bailey’s 10-plus confessions. In the podcast, he focuses on one described by a
senior journalist, Helen Callanan. Both she and
Bailey have given several statements about a confession to AGS. Mr Sheridan was
not present at that meeting. Mr Sheridan’s narrative is that Bailey learned he
was being sacked, and he responded by using heavy irony: as he was a master of
irony. Sheridan claims that the confession was ironic. He goes on to say when
Callanan told her boss, Matt Cooper, about the confession he did not believe her.
Second,
Sheridan insisted “ Bailey was English perfection in sarcasm and
irony.” That is Jim’s
opinion. It is an opinion that fits his Bailey never-confessed narrative. For a
teller of tales that will suffice, but we need more than assertions. Is it
true? What is noticeable about what Bailey has presented on social media, in
written articles, and said in countless interviews, Is that he is a man bereft
of irony. There is no perfection here. Indeed, with Bailey, there is evidence
to the contrary. There is no evidence supporting this assertion. He is dull
crude and infantile. The signed statements by Helen Callanan could not be
clearer. She saw no irony in what was said. We know she was present, that
Bailey was a liar, and Jim was not there…who to believe?
Finally, Mr Sheridan tells the podcast listeners that he
doubted very much Matt Cooper, Callanan’s editor, thought that Bailey had
admitted his guilt to Callanan, I have never seen a statement from Cooper to
that effect. We are not given any information about the alleged discussion
between Callanan and Cooper. When Mr Sheridan says he ‘doubted very much’ is
that an assertion without evidence or is there something more substantial?
In The Murder of Sophie, Michael Sheridan’s
brilliantly detailed book on the case, there is no mention of sacking nor Matt
Cooper. One can only hope that the source of these later iterations was not the
pathological liar, Bailey. As a story, Jim Sheridan's
narrative is engaging. It is both coherent and plausible. For a consumer of
fiction, it works. However, a good story is not grounds to dismiss the
observations of a capable journalist. If there is hard evidence to back his
narrative I hope Mr Sheridan will share it, if there is none he ought to
declare it.
Elsewhere Sheridan dismisses all the other confessions. The evidence shows there have been more than 10 confessions made. From a teenager through to older adults, male and female, people with a range of occupations. The confessions were made with Bailey sometimes drunk, sometimes sober, and in a variety of emotional states. They are made in different ways. They are not all attributable to Bailey’s non-existent irony skills. There is nothing to indicate any of the statements about Bailey confessing were made by dishonest people with a vested interest in Bailey being convicted. However, the tired and emotional Bailey was repeatedly a dishonest man in the statements he made to vindicate himself.
6. Scratches: The world according to Jim Sheridan
“he
does not seem to have any noticeable scratches and he does not seem to have any
on his head”
“the
scratches have been invented”
With
these comments made by Jim Sheridan we enter a parallel universe. Originally the
crux of the ongoing debate had been that Bailey , Jules Thomas, Saffron Thomas
and Virginia Thomas attested to him having scratches on his hands and arms on
the early evening of December 22nd 1996, before they went out for
the night. This was contradicted by 7 people in the Galley bar later that
night. Six of them saw no marks whatsoever on Bailey’s hands and arms, while
one person said he saw a single slight mark on one hand. In the well-lit bar,
Bailey had been dancing around with his sleeves rolled up and banging away on a
bodhran. Any cuts would have been easily seen.
Furthermore,
Jules Thomas said that when she went to bed with Bailey at approximately 01.30
on the morning of December 23rd,
Bailey had no cut or cuts on his head. When she saw him at around 09.00 that
morning she said he had a cut on his forehead. Later Bailey attributed the cut
to some ‘unspecified accident at an unspecified time’ involving a stick he was
carrying.
There
were several subsequent reports, including those from Garda officers, that Bailey
had noticeable scratches on his hands and arms from the 23rd through
to the 27th. The traditional point of contention was whether Bailey
got his cut and scratches before Sophie was murdered, or around the time she
was murdered. The former points towards a greater likelihood of innocence,
the latter of guilt.
Now there was the option posited by Mr
Sheridan, that the scratches had been invented. This would mean that the people
in the bar were correct. However, that
would mean the original four in the Prairie , Police officers, a guest at the
Prairie, the woman with the video camera, and several others were experiencing
some sort of mass hysteria. They were all ‘seeing’ invented scratches.
If
I was the sort of person who asserted any old idea without evidence then this
‘shared delusion’ may be due to a tribal, cultural or religious memory’. Could
it be the scratches somehow represented the cuts into the flesh of Jesus by a
crown of thorns? Perhaps it signified
the torture and misery experienced by the poor vilified Ian Bailey? It could I
suppose, but we can all see that it's B*****cks.
Let
us put down Hitchens’s razor for a moment and use Occum’s razor instead ( where
we look for the simplest, least complex explanation). Then we conclude that J
Sheridan is completely wrong when he suggests all these people invented the
scratches. The scratches existed. Time to move on.
7. The perennial resurrection of Marie Farrell with yet another story
She’s back! And this time she
and Mr Sheridan want us to believe her latest iteration as the undisputed,
gospel truth. Think again Marie, Think
again Jim. This woman has changed her story so many times. A woman whose later
tales have been roundly discredited more than once, A woman who stormed out of
the witness box because she ‘could not handle the truth’. This smacks of
desperation.
The relentlessly unreliable Farrell
is wheeled out to be Jim’s star witness. Exciting? Not really. In this episode
of Marie Farrell’s tales, she identifies a person she says was the ‘man in
black’ who followed Sophie in Schull on 21.12 1996.
How was this identification process managed? I assume that Farrell was presented with 8 photographs of ‘similar’ looking men and asked to pick out the man she saw. Furthermore, the person presenting Farrell with the 8 photos had no idea who Mr Sheridan believed to be the culprit. I would assume this was all filmed. Even with all those reasonable precautions we are left with the word of a discredited witness.
8. The case of the disappearing overcoat
In
the podcast, Jim Sheridan resurrects another strawman. This relates to Ian
Bailey’s clothing options. I will not dwell on this topic too long as it is
ludicrous. But not ludicrous enough for him to ignore the story. Listeners were
told about the coat being worn on Christmas Day, burned on St. Stephen’s Day,
and soaked in bleach. However, it is implied that the burning and bleaching
could not have happened because the overcoat was seen being taken by AGS in a
plastic bag at a later date.
The
thrust of the entire narrative on this topic is the assumption Bailey had only
one overcoat. It seems that while all sorts of crazy narratives will be given
house room, it has been impossible for Jim Sheridan and others to conceive that
Bailey had more than one overcoat. Thomas, who had to pay for Bailey’s clothes (he was unwilling to get a paid job and buy
his own clothes) was from a wealthy upper-middle-class family in which men
would have several coats. There is every possibility that he owned many coats. A
man with a few overcoats could easily wear one, bleach then burn another, and
then later see one be taken by AGS. Please Mr Sheridan and others, stop this
nonsense. Surely this straw man has seen his day, it’s getting embarrassing.
9. Recent reflections
“ A few things have struck me recently “
Halfway
through the second episode of the podcast Jim Sheridan thinks aloud about the
crime scene. He suggests that the murderer could have dragged Sophie’s dead
body twenty feet and hidden her in a place where Shirley Foster would not have
seen her. By hiding the body it may have gone undiscovered for days. He went on
to say that if the murderer had gone to the scene of the crime in a car he
would have put the objects used to murder Sophie in it when he left.
“If
he had a car he a put them in it, if he was walking he would have dragged her
away to give himself a bit more time not to be caught wouldn’t ya think?”
‘Wouldn’t
ya think?’ Well Jim, no. I would not
think that at all. The murder was not premeditated. It was most likely done by
a man in a rage. An attack that inflicted excessive wounds indicating overkill.
Sophie knew that she could not reason with nor fight off the man who killed her,
so she ran. He was not going to reason with her and wanted to shut her up,
permanently. He used weapons of opportunity and when he believed her dead he
fled. He did not hang around tidying things up.
It
is a pattern of assault that is recognisable to people who take the time to
review the literature. The research done on narcissistic rage and amygdala
hijacking offers meaningful insights into what happened that night. It
certainly explains what was found at the scene of the crime. Mr Sheridan may wish to have his researchers
review the literature. Those of us who
have taken the time to do the research better understand what happened that
night,
10. Why
the Police thought Bailey did it
“I don’t know how it came about that the
Police thought Bailey did it and pursued him with such zealotry.” J
Sheridan
First Ian Bailey knowingly gave the Police a
false alibi. He told them he was asleep in bed from 01.00 to 08.00 or 09.00 on
December 23rd. This was confirmed by Jules Thomas who later on
10.02.1997 admitted her original statement had been untrue and she could not
account for his whereabouts in the early hours of the 23rd. After this
admission, Bailey eventually conceded that his story had been a lie. He then
made dozens of changes in statements about what he did that morning. A false
alibi about the time of the murder plus dozens of contradictory changes is
enough in itself to move Bailey to the top of the suspect list. Why does Mr
Sheridan fail to acknowledge that?
Second on the 31st, Bailey told AGS he knew
exactly where he could find the deceased and drove straight there. For some
reason, Bailey immediately knew that a dead woman would be found at an obscure
difficult-to-find location. This was surprising as Bailey made no checks to see
if the French woman still owned the cottage in Dreenane. It was all the more
baffling because he says he had no idea that she was in residence at her
cottage a few days before Christmas. Despite that he jumped in the car and
drove straight to Sophie’s cottage. Want a bit more bafflement? Bailey’s
friends were immediate neighbours of Sophie. If there was a scene of crime
outside their door they would know it. However, Bailey did not telephone them
to check, he knew exactly where he would find the body. The signed statement
saying he knew exactly where to go would also push Bailey to the top of a
suspect list.
So, in Bailey’s case, we have two, not one,
highly significant reasons to suspect his involvement, but Mr Sheridan cannot
see that. Really?
He lied to the Police about where he was on
Saturday night (21st) and Sunday morning (22nd) claiming
he was at home when he was out drinking and stayed in Schull. He lied about
what he did the night of the 22nd plus the specifics of his journey
home after midnight on the 23rd. His statements were contradicted by
many other witnesses.
One is left wondering how many lies Bailey would have to tell AGS for Mr Sheridan to take the hint? Sheridan said “I don’t know how it came about that the Police thought Bailey did it..” We can see clearly how it came about. If Sheridan can’t them maybe he should pick another subject for a documentary.
11. 27
years of torture
‘27
years of torture unable to move unable
to leave branded a murderer without charge” J Sheridan
One
point driven home by Mr Sheridan is the suggestion that Ian Bailey was tortured
for twenty-seven years. That he was an innocent man, badly let down. We are
told his life was miserable. All the time it is implied that he was a victim.
Poor Ian.
Is
Mr Sheridan wilfully giving this foul-mouthed, child-sex-loving thug a free
pass or is he completely ignorant of what Bailey has been doing during the ’27
years of torture’? I pray that it is ignorance. Bailey has been the torturer
not the tortured. Only the slightest perusal of his conduct shows us that any
suffering he has experienced pales into insignificance compared with what he
has dished out. Let us take a look at poor little Ian.
·
He
inflicted severe beatings on Jules Thomas
·
Treated
the Thomas daughters in an appalling manner
·
Maintained
a sexual interest in girls
·
Tried
to groom at least one girl
·
Repeatedly
called women c***s for disagreeing with him
·
Threatened
women
Is
anyone feeling Ian’s pain?
·
Told
disgusting stories about women including that they had convictions for
prostitution
·
Lied
repeatedly about other people
·
Threatened
to hurt people
·
Called
upon his followers to confront people
·
Lied
about people to the press
·
Lived
as a lazy full on scrounger
Surely
now all the readers must be weeping for poor, poor Ian?
A
few more examples?
·
Refused
to get a job and let the people of Ireland support him
·
Did
not attempt to pay his legal fees while spending benefits on booze
·
Called
women short fat and ugly because they challenged his point of view
·
Sent
an unrequested photo of his penis to an account identifying herself as 15 years
old
·
Insisted
lots of underage girls came onto him at markets
·
Tweeted
about his enjoyment of a child masturbating on a Twitter video
There
is so much more. Yet some want us to get all teary for that sick misogynist.
Not me. The murderer of Sophie Toscan du Plantier also inflicted plenty of pain
on himself. No one held a gun to his head regarding alcohol and drug usage. He
could have eaten better food, washed his clothes, bothered to clean his
dentures, and bought the odd bar of soap. He could have got a job and paid his
way instead of bumming around. His choices, not torture.
Furthermore,
Bailey could not travel outside Ireland first and foremost because he
had no money. Despite his lies of being comfortably off he was skint. The
feckless fantasist had earned no money. He could not afford to travel. That is
not torture.
If
he had got some money and travelled outside Ireland, then he faced almost
certain extradition to France. Countries
with the best legal systems in the world would have sent him to France to stand
trial in the blink of an eye. That is not torture. Are we expected to believe
that dozens of long-established and estimable legal systems were conspiring to
torture poor little Bailey? Spare us
from this sanctimonious claptrap.
Perhaps
if Mr. Sheridan and his ilk could dig a little deeper than ‘tribal memories’, they
might choose to question why thuggish violent men violate and threaten female
victims. And why other men, often allegedly cultured, make excuses for these
male thugs and portray them as victims.
Conclusions
Flights
of fancy, a mix of disparate notions, evidence-free assumptions, and straw men
arguments do not help us to find the man who murdered Sophie. Thankfully a
well-put-together circumstantial case has already shown us who did it, Ian
Bailey. He was a despicable man. After 66 years his legacy was two appalling
books of ‘poetry’ some carved penis’s, a dump of a flat, a self-incriminating
car crash of a podcast, and zero friends.
In
the Cassandra Voices podcast, Mr Sheridan borrowed from Monty Python’s Life of
Brian. I will do likewise. Mr Sheridan appears to be saying of Bailey: “ He’s
not the murderer he’s a very naughty boy!”
The facts say otherwise. Jim got it wrong. Ian Bailey was a foul
malignant narcissist and he murdered Sophie Toscan du Plantier.
The
Pervert in the Hills: How Ian Bailey, the monster at the heart of the Netflix
documentary Murder in West Cork grew to hate me by J P Holzer on sale in April
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