Ian Bailey solicitor: 'France mocking Irish law’

Ian Bailey solicitor: 'France mocking Irish law’
Ian Bailey at the Country market in Schull, Co. Cork. 

FRANCE has “no respect” for Ireland’s legal system, according to Ian Bailey’s solicitor, Frank Buttimer.

Next week, Mr Bailey will be charged in absentia at a trial in Paris with the 1996 murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier

Mr Bailey, who has never been charged in Ireland and who has been protected from extradition by the Irish courts, will not be co-operating with the French trial.

Meanwhile, the son of Ms Toscan du Plantier, Pierre-Louis Baudey Vignaud, was in Goleen yesterday, where he urged witnesses to travel to Paris to testify at the murder trial, which is set to begin next Monday.

Pierre Louis Baudey-Vignaud the son of murdered Frenchwoman Sophie Toscan du Plantier in Goleen, West Cork, for the mass for his mother at the Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea and St Patrick. Picture Dan Linehan
Pierre Louis Baudey-Vignaud the son of murdered Frenchwoman Sophie Toscan du Plantier in Goleen, West Cork, for the mass for his mother at the Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea and St Patrick. Picture Dan Linehan

Speaking to RTÉ, Mr Buttimer called it a “show trial” that undermines the Irish courts.

“It is one jurisdiction telling another jurisdiction that its criminal justice system isn’t up to standard, and that it is the standard that is measured by the other jurisdiction, where I personally think that their system isn’t up to the standard that we have, but we respect their system. They clearly have no respect for ours,” he said.

Mr Baudey Vignaud told mass-goers in Goleen that the people of West Cork must “stand against violence”.

“My mother, Sophie, is not a ghost,” he said. “She is the victim of human cruelty and violence, which has no place here. This is a trial of a crime that does not fit with what Ireland is like and does not fit with what you, Irish people, are.”

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