Bailey won’t go to France says his lawyer

IAN Bailey’s solicitor Frank Buttimer has said there are ‘no circumstances in which Ian Bailey will be going to France on any form of invitation from the French authorities.’

Mr Buttimer was responding to comments made by the French President Emmanuel Macron, who told reporters at a press conference in Dublin last Thursday, that ‘a new trial could be organised.’

President Macron’s comment came in reply to a question about the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in 1996.

He said the French court is now considering ‘what to do next.’

‘It’s leaving a window, a period of time, for the Irish and French courts to decide what to do next,’ he said.

According to Mr Buttimer, whose client has consistently denied any involvement in the murder of the French film producer, ‘There is no basis in reality to the comments of President Macron.

‘He says that the Irish courts have a role to play in the matter of Mr Bailey’s return to France without seeming to appreciate that the role of the Irish courts has finished since the decision of the High Court in October 2020.’

Last October, the High Court rejected an attempt by French authorities to extradite Mr Bailey in relation to the murder.

It ruled that Mr Bailey would not be surrendered to France following a European Arrest Warrant that was issued in 2019.

Sophie’s son, Pierre Louis Baudey-Vignaud will be a guest on the first Late Late Show of the season on RTÉ One  on Friday night.

He will talk about the impact his mother’s brutal death has had on his life and why he still visits her home near Schull where she was murdered in 1996.

Meanwhile, Ian Bailey is writing his life story – Ian Bailey In His Own Words – as a series of several articles for the Big Issue magazine.

The first in the series has already appeared online. It recounts growing up in the UK and working as a journalist before he moved here.