Ian Bailey's solicitor, Frank Buttimer, has said the decision of French judges to find Ian Bailey guilty of the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier is a grotesque miscarriage of justice.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Six One news, Mr Buttimer said that people should understand that this was not a criminal trial or proceeding in the way that we would understand in Ireland, but it was no more than a rubber-stamping exercise of the pre-determined guilt of Ian Bailey as far as the French criminal justice system is concerned.
He said that under the Irish legal system, the police are unsupervised by any outside authority but by the court system.
He said there is no such similar supervision under the French jurisdiction. He said that the investigative system in France involves the supervision of their police by their judges and that did not happen in this case.
Mr Buttimer said that the result is that Ian Bailey falls between two stools by not having the benefit of the supervision of the police in France under that system.
He said that the Director of Public Prosecutions here has long held the view that the so-called evidence on Ian Bailey was gathered in a thoroughly flawed and prejudiced manner.
Mr Buttimer said that if the DPP had decided at any point to put that evidence before an Irish jury, it would have been policed by the criminal justice trial system but Ian Bailey does not have access to that because he is innocent here.
Mr Buttimer said that in Ireland we will have to examine this case very carefully and establish how this could have happened in the first place.
He said that this is not about Ian Bailey but about Ireland as a democracy and a functioning system.
He said Mr Bailey has no money, no assets or means and is a person who has not been able to work in any meaningful way since this whole situation was visited upon him 23 years ago and his life has been destroyed as a result of the wrongful association that has been made between him and this crime.
Mr Buttimer said he believes the French will attempt to have Mr Bailey extradited to France.
He said that the Supreme Court had decided seven years ago that Mr Bailey could not be extradited for the trial which the French authorities were intending to conduct and he very much doubts that our courts would now go behind their decision and change that view.
