Farrell: I lied during 2003 Bailey libel case

Marie Farrell has told the High Court she lied during the 2003 hearing of libel actions by Ian Bailey after gardaí "told me to stick to the story".

Those lies included claims she saw Mr Bailey about 2am on a road near Schull on December 23, 1996, hours before the body of Sophie Toscan du Plantier was found, and had been harassed and intimidated by Mr Bailey on several occasions, she said.

After her evidence to the libel trial, Det Supt Dermot Dwyer told her she “did very well” and shook hands with her and she felt something, but only realised outside he had put €20 into her hand, she said.

“I just felt awful, because it was like giving a child money for being good.”

In continuing evidence in Mr Bailey’s civil action against the Garda Commissioner and State over the investigation into the murder of French film-maker Ms Toscan du Plantier near Schull in late 1996, Ms Farrell said she had not wanted to give evidence at the libel trial, but gardaí put her under “huge pressure” to do so, and Supt Dwyer said, if she didn’t, she would be brought to the court in handcuffs, she said.

Asked how she feels now about that, she said: “I can only apologise, I know I shouldn’t have done it.”

She also said Det Garda Jim Fitzgerald told her she “owed” him, because it was due to him introducing her to Senator Peter Callanan that her family had got a site from Cork County Council for a house at a certain price, she said.

In March 2004, she received a letter from Mr Bailey’s solicitors saying he denied her allegations of harassment and to cease making those. She instructed a solicitor to reply, refusing to give such an undertaking.

She also said her children began to experience hassle from the gardaí. In March 2005, she told Mr Bailey’s solicitor Frank Buttimer she had made false statements about his client.

Ms Farrell also said Det Fitzgerald asked her, and she agreed, to instruct a solicitor to write in July 1997 to Mr Bailey falsely alleging Mr Bailey was harassing Ms Farrell, had sent his partner Jules Thomas into Ms Farrell’s shop in Schull to get her to withdraw her statement, and had made “cut-throat gestures to her”.

None of that was true, Ms Farrell said. She also made false statements to gardaí in July and August 1997.

A statement of her getting a phone call on August 12, 1997, from a man with an English accent telling her to: “Watch your back, we are going to take you out” was true, but she did not know who that caller was.

The defendants deny all of Mr Bailey’s claims. The case continues today.