Domestic abuse my eternal shame: Bailey

Ian Bailey has told a High Court jury that to his “eternal shame” he was involved in domestic violence in the past against his partner Jules Thomas.

“I wasn’t the only person in West Cork who engaged in domestic violence when drink was involved,” the 57-year-old Englishman said on the sixth day of his damages action against the State for alleged wrongful arrest during the investigation of the murder of the French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

Mr Bailey, of Prairie Cottage, near Schull in West Cork, accepted Ms Thomas was hospitalised after a May 1996 incident and was hit with crutches in a 2001 incident. While he could not recall another incident in 1993, he was not disputing that happened, he added.