Court orders GSOC to hand over files to Bailey in wrongful arrest case

The Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission is to supply Ian Bailey with key witness statements as part of his claim of malice against the garda authorities.

The former journalist is suing for alleged wrongful arrest as part of the murder investigation into the death of French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier in Co Cork in 1996.

Ian Bailey was arrested twice as a suspect in the Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder investigation.

He is now suing the garda authorities and the State claiming malice and wrongful arrest in a hearing that is due to go before a jury next month.

Today the sides battled out last-minute discovery issues.

Lawyers for Bailey want assurances the Director for Public Prosecutions will hand over any documents that might tend to show unlawful behaviour by State parties towards the former journalist and his longstanding partner Jules Thomas.

They say in the past they received documents of this nature from the DPP which they had not known existed

The Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission has been ordered to hand over statements it received from key witnesses in the du Plantier case, including Marie Farrell, who in 2005 withdrew a garda statement that incriminated Ian Bailey.