Bailey denies being a violent man

Ian Bailey denied that he was a violent man in the libel trial against seven newspapers in Cork Circuit Court today.

However, in strenuous cross-examination, the defence team in the libel action taken by the English journalist said he had assaulted his partner so viciously that her eye was swollen to the size of a grapefruit, clumps of hair were pulled from her head and her lip was severed from her gum.

These descriptions of Mr Bailey’s partner, Jules Thomas, after she was assaulted in May 1996, were given in cross-examination by Paul Gallagher, senior counsel, and Mr Bailey did not dispute them.

"How would you describe the person who did that?," Mr Gallagher asked.

"Not very nice," Mr Bailey replied before adding, "It is appalling."

"Why did you say, ‘Not very nice’, do you have to be asked twice or three times to get the truth? Is ‘appalling’ as far as you would go? Would you think it was animal-like?," the senior counsel asked.

"No," Mr Bailey replied.

Mr Gallagher asked the plaintiff who is suing seven newspapers for defaming him, or lowering him in the estimation of right-thinking members of society, what he thought the public would think of a man who left this woman with these injuries after she had taken him in to live with her and her three

daughters in Schull, Co Cork.

"They would think it was appalling," Mr Bailey said.

He denied that he was a violent person.

In relation to the assault on Ms Thomas, after which she got a barring order against him, he said: "If she had not started to go at my face this would not have happened. I am not a violent person. When we both drink, violence occurs. I believe there is a difference."

In his direct evidence he admitted that he had been convicted of assaulting Ms Thomas two years ago "to my eternal regret and shame."

He said this incident was one of three fights they had in 13 years together.

Earlier yesterday he said he was naïve in talking to journalists after he had been arrested for the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier as he hoped that they would write sympathetically about him.

The plaintiff’s barrister James Duggan, questioned Mr Bailey about each allegation and implication in the articles at the centre of the defamation case.

Brighid McLaughlin wrote one article for the Sunday Independent in which she said that Bailey had burned his clothes after the murder because they were soaked with turkey blood.

Mr Bailey denied that he said or did this.

He also denied that he had washed his wellingtons in a stream about a mile from the murder scene, when it was put to him that an unnamed villager described seeing a man fitting Bailey’s description doing so.

He described Ms McLaughlin’s article as rubbish and said it had upset him

greatly.