Ian Bailey libel action witness dies

Rosie Shelley was an important witness in the Ian Bailey libel action which was taken by the former journalist in the aftermath of the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

The death has occurred of an important witness in the Ian Bailey libel action which was taken by the former journalist in the aftermath of the murder of French national Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

Rosie Shelley died at Cork University Hospital on Monday.

The 49-year-old testified at Mr Bailey’s libel action against seven newspaper publishers in 2003.

She told Cork Circuit Court that she and her husband, Richie had been socialising in Hackett’s Bar in Schull on New Year’s Eve 1998 when they met Mr Bailey and his partner, Jules Thomas. The pair invited them out to their house at the Prairie, Liscaha in Schull.

She claimed they were with Mr Bailey and Ms Thomas at the couple’s home when Mr Bailey took out a file of newspapers which related to the murder of Sophie.

She told the court that they spent almost two hours with Mr Bailey and Ms Thomas and the conversation was “almost entirely about the murder”.

“He just seemed to have it on his mind – he just seemed to be quite obsessed with it and he wanted to talk about all the different angles and what we thought about it,” she said.

Ms Shelley said she began to get a bit nervous because she knew Mr Bailey was a suspect in the case. She decided to leave and she claimed Mr Bailey broke down in the kitchen.

“It happened in the kitchen where I was waiting … he (Mr Bailey) came out, he put his arms around Richie, he was crying and he said ‘I did it, I did it’ …. It was very clear and succinct,” she said.

Asked by counsel for the newspapers, David Holland SC what she thought Mr Bailey meant when he said, “I did it, I did it”, Ms Shelley said that she believed that he was admitting “that he had murdered Sophie Toscan du Plantier”.

“It was an immediate recognition that he was doing some sort of confession,” said Ms Shelley, explaining she based her interpretation of what Mr Bailey said on the fact he been speaking almost entirely about the death of Sophie prior to passing the comment.

Cross-examined by barrister, Jim Duggan BL for Mr Bailey, Ms Shelley said that when her husband, Richie asked Mr Bailey what did he mean when he said “I did it, I did it,” he replied that “I went too far.”

Richie Shelley gave evidence in which he said he also took Mr Bailey’s comment “I did it, I did it, I went too far” as an admission that Bailey had killed Sophie.

Mr Bailey vehemently denied ever making such remarks. He said that what he had told the Shelleys was that “people had said that he had done it”.

However, Judge Patrick Moran said he accepted the couple’s version of events.

Ms Shelley did not testify in Mr Bailey’s subsequent High Court action for wrongful arrest against the state.

However, Mr Shelley did and he repeated his libel case testimony and his belief Mr Bailey had confessed the killing to him.

Mr Bailey, who was convicted in his absence earlier this year by a French court of the murder of Ms Toscan du Plantier, has always denied any involvement in the murder of the mother of one.

A weekly contributor to The Southern Star where she wrote a column on nutrition, Ms Shelley is survived by her husband, Richie and teenage son, Cian, and her mother, Hillary and brothers, Harry, Theo, Tully and Matthew.