IT’S confession time. I’m guilty of having once committed much the same sin as Brian Cowen did this week with his drinking/little sleep/subsequent interview routine, but it’s not going to stop me from throwing a few stones at the Taoiseach nonetheless.

“OF course I did, I needed a story” was Ian Bailey’s response to what he thought was a joke when a news editor told him of the rumour that he had murdered Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

Ian Bailey took it as a black joke when a news editor said there was a rumour that he murdered Sophie Toscan du Plantier and he said at the time: “Of course I did, I needed a story.”

The newspapers who are fighting a libel action taken by English journalist Ian Bailey on coverage of the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier claimed today that the plaintiff confessed to killing the Frenchwoman with the words, "I did it, I did it, I went too far."