Contents of calls may help both Bailey and Garda in civil action

Secret recording of phone calls relating to the Garda investigation into the murder of

Sophie Toscan

du Plantier may contain material which

could assist both Ian Bailey and An Garda Síochána in a civil action that he is bringing for unlawful arrest, The Irish Times has learned.

This newspaper understands that the recordings include phone calls made by a key witness in the case, Marie Farrell, to Bandon Garda station throughout 1997 after she contacted gardaí anonymously on January 11th, 1997, to offer them information she believed would assist them.

Alias
Using the alias "Fiona", Ms Farrell rang Bandon Garda station from a public phone box on Cornmarket Street in Cork to say she had seen a man at Kealfadda Bridge outside Schull in the early hours of December 23rd, 1996, the night Ms Toscan du Plantier was murdered.

Ms Farrell later made a second phone call from a public phone box in Leap in west Cork. When she made a third phone call from her home at Crew Bay in Schull on January 27th, 1997, gardaí traced the call and approached her, and she confirmed that she was “Fiona”.

Ms Farrell was interviewed by gardaí. She later identified the man she saw at Kealfadda Bridge as English journalist Ian Bailey who, along with his partner, Jules Thomas, was arrested on February 10th, 1997, at their home at the Prairie, Liscaha, in Schull.

Released
Both were later released without charge but 11 months later on January 27th, 1998, Mr Bailey was rearrested for questioning about the killing.

He was again released without charge and has always denied any involvement in the murder of Ms Toscan du Plantier.

The Irish Times understands that the secret recordings made at Bandon Garda station include those of several calls Ms Farrell made in 1997 seeking to make contact with a particular officer in Bandon who was involved in taking a number of statements she had made.

The recorded calls include one on December 19th, 1997, which The Irish Times understands corroborates allegations she later made in a 2003 libel action brought by Mr Bailey that he was intimidating and threatening towards her after she made a statement incriminating him.

Unreliable witness
In November 2001, a solicitor at the DPP's office, Robert Sheehan, referred to Ms Farrell's statements in an analysis of the case against Mr Bailey and said she was an unreliable witness before concluding that the evidence did not warrant a prosecution against Mr Bailey.

Contacted by The Irish Times yesterday, Ms Farrell declined to comment. However, in 2005, she retracted her statement incriminating Mr Bailey, saying she had been coerced by gardaí into making a false statement to identify him as the man she had seen at Kealfadda Bridge.

This newspaper understands that, in addition to the aforementioned calls made by Ms Farrell, there are also recordings of some calls between gardaí about her in relation to efforts to resolve an issue they feared might jeopardise her co-operation with the investigation.

An informed source said that, while the recording may appear damaging to the Garda case, it should be pointed out that the call between two officers was made after and not before Ms Farrell made her original statements incriminating Mr Bailey.

“It was Marie Farrell who first contacted gardaí, and not the other way around, and she had already made her statements when these two officers had a discussion about whether anything could be done to resolve this other matter,” said the source.

Contacted about the controversy, Mr Bailey's solicitor, Frank Buttimer, declined to comment, saying it would be inappropriate to do so given that matters were at a delicate stage and the case was under active review by the High Court with a review date for next Friday.