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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
John Kierans

Ian Bailey keeping new home location secret after death threats, stalking and online abuse

Ian Bailey is keeping the location of his new home secret after being stalked, receiving death threats and being abused online.

The Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder suspect has made at least two complaints to gardai about threats against him from members of the public.

The 64-year-old Englishman has always protested his innocence and denied any involvement in the brutal killing of the French beauty on Christmas Eve, 1996.

Read More: Ian Bailey makes formal complaint to gardai about 'nasty' online troll abuse

He was arrested twice but never charged and then received a 25-year jail sentence in France after being convicted of her murder in absentia by a Paris court in 2019.

The trial was riddled with hearsay evidence that would never be permitted in an Irish court of law and his lawyer Frank Buttimer branded it a "kangaroo court".

Since Bailey split up with his long term partner, painter Jules Thomas, he has moved home twice.

During last winter, he was living in a log cabin in Glengarriff, Co Cork and was stalked by one individual.

Another person told him he would kill him online. Bailey gave the man's details to the gardai but hasn't heard anything back since.

He has now moved to a new home elsewhere in the county.

Today Ian Bailey said: "I have had to take my personal security very seriously. I am not stupid, I know I am at risk.

"There are people out there who hate me and no matter what I say will never believe that I did not kill Sophie.

"We all want justice for Sophie, myself included. As far as I am concerned the real killer is out there and getting away with it.

"Last year was a tough year, I split with Jules and then you had two high-profile documentaries highlighting the case.

"This all had an adverse effect on my life.

"But I am now busy, back writing and getting on with my life. I am very much out there proclaiming my innocence and doing my poetry readings. I am not hiding from the world because I have done nothing wrong.

"However, I don't think anyone needs to know where I live except those friends very close to me. I have to keep that private because of the security threats."

The former journalist-turned-poet has always feared the French authorities would send in mercenaries to try and snatch him and bring him back to Paris to serve the sentence.

Sophie Toscan du Plantier (Family Handout/PA Wire)

The Irish courts have refused to extradite him.

He recently sent a second letter to Garda Commissioner Drew Harris requesting a cold case review of Sophie's murder. An initial review of the case is due to be completed by the end of June.

In the meantime he has also started his own podcast, is making a third documentary himself on the case and has set up his own Facebook poetry page.

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