Son of Toscan du Plantier ‘will never give up fight for truth and justice’
Pierre-Louis Baudey-Vignaud, 35, said he hopes his ageing grandparents will live to see their daughter get justice, but asserted he is willing to continue campaigning for another 20 years.
“This time of the year is very difficult for all of us, but I have an obligation to my mother, to her parents — my grandparents — and to my children,” said Mr Baudey-Vignaud. “I will have to be able to tell them in future what I did in this case.
“We will never give up. It’s been 20 years, but if we need to wait for another 20 years, or if I can give enough energy to my children to keep up the fight, I will do that.
“I lost my mother 20 years ago. This is not a question of revenge anymore. This is a question of truth and justice.”
However, he expressed confidence in the eight-year French investigation into the case which has resulted in French authorities charging Ian Bailey with voluntary homicide and issuing a second European arrest warrant seeking his extradition.
“I hope and am very confident in this process,” he said. “We are quite confident that we will get justice. We are expecting, in France at least, that we will have a trial and a public debate on all the elements in this case.
“We are sure that the Irish authorities are considering this in detail, and I’m sure that a prosecution will begin very shortly.”
As a child, Mr Baudey-Vignaud regularly accompanied his mother on short summer visits to her secluded holiday home on the Mizen Peninsula in West Cork.
He was 15 and at home in Paris when her battered body was found at the end of the laneway leading to the remote farmhouse outside Schull on December 23, 1996.
It would be two years before he could visit the house again.
He subsequently inherited the house and now holidays there with his own family up to four times a year.
“When I am in Ireland, I speak to Irish people, to people in Schull, in Goleen, in Bantry,” saud Mr Baudey-Vignaud. “I like this land, I like these people, and they tell me they are still frightened that nobody has been charged. They tell me they don’t understand why their country, their democracy, has not delivered justice. That’s been very hard to understand and to fight.”
Mr Baudey-Vignaud dismissed criticism of French authorities’ investigation and said it took professional judges and detectives eight years of painstaking work to compile the case, which resulted in charges being preferred against Mr Bailey last summer.
Mr Bailey, who was twice arrested as part of a garda investigation, but never charged, has always denied involvement in the murder.
Two former DPPs directed that there should be no prosecution after the garda investigation.
However, Mr Baudey-Vignaud last night appealed directly to the DPP, Claire Loftus, to meet him to discuss elements of the case and to explain why no-one has ever been charged in connection with his mother’s death.
He said he will mark the 20th anniversary of her death today at home in Paris with his wife Aurelia and their two young children, Sophie and Louis.
“This is not a happy time for us,” he said. “I will spend the time with my family, and try to have a normal Christmas, but we will keep fighting. We will keep looking for the truth.”
He also revealed he and his uncle, Sophie’s brother Bertrand Buoniol, are finalising plans to visit Goleen next month to mark the 20th anniversary.
News: 6&7
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