A Detective Garda said he was sending a "down and out" to journalist Ian Bailey's home to get Mr Bailey "drunk and high" and to "confess" on tape, a woman told a High Court jury.
"It was like something out of Miami Vice," said Marie Farrell.
Ms Farrell said from early 1997 she had several daily conversations over a period of months with Det Garda Jim Fitzgerald, during which they would discuss "everything", including personal matters and the Garda investigation into the murder of French film-maker Sophie Toscan du Plantier, whose body was found near Toomore, Schull, on the morning of December 23rd, 1996.
Ms Farrell said her relationship with Det Fitzgerald developed after she agreed in late January 1997 to make a statement saying a man whom she had seen near Schull around 2am on December 23rd, 1996 – hours before the body of Ms Toscan du Plantier was found – was Ian Bailey.
Mr Bailey was not the man she saw, but she agreed to say he was after gardaí told her they knew he had killed Ms Toscan du Plantier and might kill again if gardaí didn’t stop him, she said.
She believed gardaí when they said her statement would help put away a “real dangerous” man.
Gardaí told her Mr Bailey was dangerous and “weird”, would howl at a full moon and had sat in a rocking chair on Barleycove beach “with 10 lesbians dancing around him reciting poetry”.
Gardaí also told her not to worry about her husband's conviction concerning driving insurance and his appeal against that was later successful, she said. Statement
She was told she would never have to give evidence in court and, once Mr Bailey was charged, he would admit it, she said. She understood she just had to provide a “two-line” statement.
Det Fitzgerald would refer to Mr Bailey as “that long black bollocks” or that “English bastard”, she said. She was giving evidence in Mr Bailey’s continuing civil action against the Garda Commissioner and State who deny his claims including wrongful arrest and conspiracy arising from the investigation into the murder of Ms Toscan du Planter.
Ms Farrell said she went to Ballydehob garda station on February 14th, 1997, where she met a number of gardaí, including Det Fitzgerald. After she told gardaí there she was in a hurry, she said she was told they would write down what she told them. She stayed about half an hour and, before she left, agreed to sign between four and eight blank pages. “To be honest, I didn’t give it much thought really.”
When shown various statements with her signature on them, including statements the man she saw near Schull about 2am on December 23rd, 1996 was definitely Mr Bailey, she said she had not made those statements and believed they were made on the blank pages she had signed.
She made certain other statements later in 1997 and rehearsed what was to go into those beforehand with Det Fitzgerald, she said. Some of the material in those statements was accurate but other material was not.
It was “a mad time”, it was like she had her normal life and a life with the guards, it was “like something surreal” and she told Det Fitzgerald several times she wanted no more to do with it, she said.
In May 1997, she said, Det Fitzgerald rang her, crying, saying he was double-crossed by the down and out, “a guy called Graham”, whom he had earlier told her he was sending to Mr Bailey’s house.
Det Fitzgerald told her there was a photo of drugs being handed over to Graham by gardaí, the whole story was going to come out and his career was over, she said.
Det Fitzgerald later told her the Garda Press office had got the story “pulled”, she said. He said he and another Garda approached Graham when they were “wired”, “put the frighteners” on him, he had left the country and, if he came back, he would be found dead in a ditch.
Det Fitzgerald wanted to get Mr Bailey for that, Ms Farrell said. “That was when it started.”
She said she was later asked to make a statement about Mr Bailey’s partner, Jules Thomas, coming into her shop on June 8th, 1997 and asking her to come to their home and change the statement she previously made about seeing Mr Bailey about 2am on December 23rd, 1996.
Ms Farrell said she made that statement, but had “never spoken to Jules Thomas, ever”.
It was “all supposed to come to an end” via a plan to get Mr Bailey to come into her shop when she was to get him to “confess everything”, she said. She said she approached Mr Bailey in a bar in Schull in June 1997 and told him the gardaí were trying to set him up and arranged for him to come to her shop.
When Mr Bailey came into the shop, he told her he knew gardaí were trying to fit him up and showed her a poem he had written about that, she said.
Ms Farrell also said Det Fitzgerald had introduced her to Senator Peter Callanan who had told her, after she told him of her family's difficulties getting housing, those would be sorted. She later got a council house in Schull, she said. Recordings
Recordings of phone conversations between Ms Farrell and Det Fitzgerald, recorded at Bandon Garda station, were played to the jury including a conversation concerning an incident when Ms Farrell was discussing a prowler outside her house and a complaint by a man, accused of being the prowler, that he was assaulted by her husband.
Earlier, Ms Farrell said, when asked by gardaí in December 1996 to watch a video tape of a man reciting poetry at the Christmas Day swim at Schull pier, she told gardaí the man, whom she now knew was Mr Bailey, was not the same man she saw at 2am on December 23rd, 1996.
She had a personal difficulty about saying where she was that night as her husband did not know she was out with a married male friend, she said. She initially rang gardaí anonymously with the information of the December 23rd sighting, but believed they later realised who she was.
The case continues.
