At a Glance: former journalist dreamt of being ‘hunted like an animal’

Witness Ian Bailey spent the day giving evidence. He was examined first by his barrister, Martin Giblin SC, and, briefly, by Luán Ó Braonáin SC for the State.

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Mr Bailey described the circumstances of his arrest in April 2010 on foot of a European arrest warrant issued by the French authorities. Six or seven gardaí arrived at his home just before midnight, and he felt the timing – two weeks before his final exams in law at UCC – was a deliberate attempt to “discombobulate” him and prevent him from sitting the exams. Mr Bailey said he was brought to Mountjoy prison and put in a cell that “wasn’t fit for an animal”.

The arrest was “very, very frightening”, Mr Bailey told the court. “We thought [by then] we had weathered the worst of the storm.”

The High Court granted the extradition order, but this was overturned on appeal to the Supreme Court. The warrant remains in force in other countries, however, so Mr Bailey cannot leave the State for fear of arrest. He grew visibly upset as he described being unable to travel to the UK for his mother’s funeral in 2010. “I think that’s the cruellest abuse of this whole thing,” he said.

Asked by Mr Giblin why he took the present action, Mr Bailey said his objective was to clear his name and ultimately “to knock out this dirty, stinking, rotten lie” that had been “liberally perpetuated” by An Garda Síochána. He wanted to “establish once and for all that I had nothing to do with this murder and that there was a conspiracy for 18 years.” Later, he told Mr Ó Braonáin he had also taken the case to seek compensation.

In the mid-2000s, after he took a libel action against a number of newspapers, a group of eight men turned up outside Mr Bailey’s home one night with high-powered torchlights, he told the court. His partner, Jules Thomas, stopped him going out to these “vigilantes”, but went out herself and told them to leave. On other occasions, Mr Bailey said, paint was sprayed on the house and a dead rat was put through the letterbox.

Mr Bailey said that on one occasion he was accused by a garda of having threatened Marie Farrell, a Schull resident. However, at the specific time and date mentioned by the garda, Mr Bailey had been at the office of his solicitor, Frank Buttimer, in Cork city. “That was the first time I knew there was a conspiracy,” he told the court.

Mr Bailey described his recurring dream of being “hunted like an animal”. Whereas once he was “extremely sociable”, events since 1996 had left him isolated, distrustful and cut off from friends.

The State’s cross-examination began shortly before the court adjourned for the weekend. During a brief exchange, Mr Bailey agreed with Mr Ó Braonáin’s assertion that he was familiar with the workings and “machinations” of courts, having covered them in England as a journalist.

He agreed that he married a fellow journalist in 1980 and that the marriage ended four years later. His ex-wife’s parents were journalists who became wealthy property developers.