THE WRONG MAN? (MURDER AT THE COTTAGE - THE SEARCH FOR JUSTICE FOR SOPHIE )

Of all the murders that have taken place in Ireland, few have puzzled and fascinated the Irish public as much as the killing of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in West Cork.

A twice married French documentary filmmaker, she had fallen in love with the country in her teens while learning English.

After scouting Connemara in Co Galway on the west coast for a holiday home, she found her dream place instead in the remote village of Schull in Co Cork in the south, with a view of Fastnet lighthouse.

Schull is as isolated as you can get and she was a regular visitor to the farmhouse and a community whose many "blow ins" - a Cork phrase used to describe outsiders who settled in the village - included Colin Vearncombe, otherwise known as the 1980s pop sensation Black.

Wild and rugged, Schull has spectacular Atlantic coast views, particularly from Three Castle Head which earned its name because of its three towers dating back from the Norman era.

Schull, however, would in December 1996 become infamous in Ireland and France for one of Ireland's most shocking crimes.

Sophie Toscan du Plantier was brutally murdered on December 23 with a rock and then a concrete breeze block dropped on her head in a field near her home.

However it is the events surrounding the police investigation into the 39 year old's killing that have fascinated Irish journalists in particular, inspiring a podcast, an RTE radio documentary and two factual TV miniseries for Netflix and Sky.

The first of these TV documentary miniseries has surfaced on Sky Crime, with the Oscar nominated director of 'My Left Foot' and 'In the Name of the Father,' Jim Sheridan on board.

With such a high profile Irish figure front and centre of the show, 'Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie' has inevitably commanded huge media attention in Ireland in particular.

But how does it measure as a true crime documentary series in a genre that thrives on forensic detail and sensational twists and turns?

Sheridan is a big character who has always had a great gift for storytelling and a visual flair.

The 72 year old Dubliner has teamed up with the high profile Irish investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre, who produces the show, for a five part investigation.

But MacIntyre has opted not feature in front of the camera despite his own accomplished reputation as a reporter, letting the director take on that role instead.

At the start of 'Murder at the Cottage,' Sheridan theatrically arrives in Schull to retrace Sophie's movements and declare his intention to help her family get closure by getting to the truth.

What follows is a pretty detailed examination of an extraordinary investigation which has mostly focused on whether a flamboyant, eccentric English journalist Ian Bailey is guilty or not.

Sheridan and MacIntyre's big coup is gaining the trust of Bailey and conducting a staggering series of interviews with him and his long term partner, Jules Thomas.

But as the series unfolds, it becomes pretty clear that the presenter believes for 25 years the Garda Siochana (police) and the du Plantier family have focused on the wrong man.

It is easy to understand why they might have.

Initially, Bailey, acting as a stringer in Schull for a range of Irish newspapers, was the first reporter on the scene but as the media descended on the village, his penchant for attention saw him begin to display a detailed knowledge of the investigation that stunned many journalists dispatched to west Cork.

As the Gardai started to focus their attention on him, it emerged Bailey had attended an annual Christmas swim in Schull and recited a poem on camera, with the person shooting the footage noticing he was wearing a black coat and had scratches on his hand when he went to shake hands.

Sophie's clothing was caught in the brambles and on barbed wire in her last moments and was believed to have struggled with her attacker who investigators were convinced must have sustained scratches.

Despite Bailey and Jules Thomas' claims that he had sustained the scratches cutting the top of a tree, police couldn't corroborate how it could have given him those scratches.

Crucially, a witness Marie Farrell identified Bailey as having been in the remote area around the time of the attack while she was driving through it late at night.

Bailey admits he did leave his own home but claims it was to write an article in the dead of night in a building he uses.

Other witnesses, including a 16:year old boy, alleged Bailey later either boasted or tearfully confessed to having killed her.

His journals also contained violent and highly sexualised writing.

It also emerged he had violently assaulted his partner Jules while under the influence of alcohol.

However other things just didn't stack up.

A failure by the state pathologist of the time, Dr John Harbinson to move quickly enough and get to the scene of the crime by Christmas Eve meant vital evidence was lost as the body lay at the scene.

Bloodstains on a gate in the field and the door of Sophie's cottage did not match Bailey, nor was there any sign of struggle inside the cottage.

Significantly, Marie Farrell later recanted her evidence against Bailey, claiming Gardai leaned on her to make a statement placing him in the area.

Farrell, who claims she saw a different man following Sophie in the village earlier on the day of the murder, says she went along with the story at the behest of the Guards because she feared it would be revealed she spent time with a male friend unbeknownst to her husband.

Tapes made in Bandon Garda station in West Cork and unearthed during a civil action brought by Bailey for wrongful arrest discussed Farrell and also fed the allegation that a plot was hatched to get a former British soldier Martin Graham to befriend the suspect and secure a confession from him.

Graham would later claim the police offered him money and drugs and the taped phone calls certainly appear to corroborate claims of financial inducements.

The Director of Public Prosecutions in the Irish Republic was so unconvinced by the case compiled against Bailey that it has repeatedly refused to bring it to court.

However the du Plantier family has remained convinced of his guilt and in 2019, Bailey was tried and convicted in absentia by French prosecutors in Paris.

Should he ever set foot in France, he would be arrested for the murder and spend 25 years in jail.

According to Sheridan and MacIntyre, the threshold for prosecution in France is different than in Ireland with heresay evidence given much more weight.

During an extraordinary trial for a murder committed on foreign soil with the accused and his lawyers not taking part, little in the way of evidence was heard in court disputing the narrative of Bailey's guilt.

And that only compounds the sense that not only has Bailey been denied due process but the du Plantier family have been unfairly led down a path that will compound their grief.

The most remarkable aspect of Sheridan and MacIntyre's gripping five part series is the access to Bailey and how it documents his disintegration as he awaits the playing out of the French prosecution.

Not only do we see him drinking heavily but his relationship with Jules starts to fragment as she becomes increasingly irritated by Bailey's tendency to play up to the cameras with a flamboyant, garrulous persona.

While images of him drunkenly watching 'Claire Byrne Live' on RTE or getting sloshed at a birthday party for Jules feels a bit voyeuristic, the miniseries powerfully conveys the emotional toll on a family protesting their innocence.

However the programme makers also have a difficult balancing act, needing to be mindful of the sensitivities of Sophie Toscan du Plantier's grieving family.

Sheridan works hard to empathise with a family plunged into the worst grief imaginable - the grief of not really knowing the truth about the brutal murder of a loved one.

However, a falling out with the du Plantier family because of their concerns that 'Murder at the Cottage' is too sympathetic to Bailey has resulted in the removal of interviews with them.

And this poses a real problem for Sheridan and MacIntyre's programme.

The programme makers are forced to rely instead on archive footage of interviews by other filmmakers and journalists but the absence of contemporary footage of the family is a blow to Sheridan and MacIntyre's efforts.

Footage of Sophie's son from her first marriage, Pierre-Louis Baudey-Vignaud taking a camera crew on a tour of her west Cork cottage, which he visits every year, is poignant and powerful.

But it only partially makes up for his absence as an interviewee in Sheridan's documentary.

 

Likewise the footage of Sophie's elderly parents sombrely recounting their arrival in Cork city after reports of the murder reached France and the formal identification of the body.

While an archive interview with them reveals a stunning lack of empathy on the Garda Siochana's part by keeping the family initially cooped up in the city's Metropole Hotel on Christmas Day, you cannot help wishing you could see Sheridan probing a bit deeper into how that impacted them.

The absence of Sophie's husband at the time, the celebrated film producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier from much of the documentary is also keenly felt.

Ultimately, Sheridan's ambitious claim at the start of 'Murder at the Cottage' that he wants to help the du Plantiers achieve justice for Sophie falls woefully short of its goal.

It is frustrated partly due to a lack of irrefutable evidence in the case and also because of question marks around the credibility of some those he interviews.

Viewers may find themselves getting irritated, in particular, by Marie Farrell's spectacular about turn and her continued role in the story, wondering how credible she really is.

Bailey's exhibitionism also complicates matters.

And while Sheridan's prominent role as narrator and his occasionally hammy commentary may grate with some of those familiar with the case, it nevertheless serves a purpose - drawing viewers from outside Ireland and France into an extraordinary true crime story which most of them will be unfamiliar with.

As a true crime documentary series goes, 'Murder at the Cottage' understands the beats of the genre.

It is beautifully directed by Sheridan with stunning images and majestic, sweeping aerial shots of Schull and the west Cork coastline.

The miniseries is also impressively edited by Gretta Ohle.

To Sheridan's credit, he has delivered a gripping, complex study of the consequences of a brutal crime and an allegedly cackhanded police investigation into it.

'Murder at the Cottage' is also a devastating examination of the grief caused, the lives damaged and the time wasted.

While the aim of getting to the truth behind Sophie Toscan du Plantier's murder remains as elusive as ever, the miniseries raises important and disturbing questions about two states and the ability of their respective justice systems to properly unearth what happened.

Sheridan's factual miniseries is a tense and difficult watch.

But it will also have you ruminating on its many strengths and flaws for years to come.

('Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie' was broadcast on Sky Crime and made available for streaming on Sky+ and NowTV from June 20, 2021)

Lokasi:

Berbagi :