Sophie: A Murder in West Cork - Netflix.

I don't think it was blood, named a bodily fluid which I took to mean semen / sweat / saliva.

I'd like to know the French narrative of exactly what happened.

They present evidence that IB and Sophie not only knew each other but that she was telling friends about meeting some poet in Ireland and also that she was so scared that she asked everyone she knew to go with her.

They also use the Kealfadda Bridge sighting as evidence but there seems to be no effort at all to find out about the second witness, the mystery passenger in Marie's car.

The bridge sighting is just one of the most bizarre bits of evidence in the case. All they had to do is find the second witness to corroborate the story and they've got the person who was driving that second witness around in the car all night right there and it somehow doesn't happen. She gives them the runaround TWICE before settling on a third person who just happens to be deceased. My concern is that if the passenger in the car had ever been identified they would have simply said "we didn't see anyone that night" or "the person we saw was definitely not IB". So that person was somehow never found. Ridiculous.

The other thing I don't get is that when Marie is saying the Gardai essentially made her change her story until she was pointing the finger at IB why doesn't she just denounce her entire testimony? She doesn't say she wasn't out driving at all. She doesn't say she was just driving alone. She doesn't say she made all of it up just to feel involved. She just says that the man she saw was not IB but the Gardai pressured her into saying it was. Why would anyone do that? Unless there was a genuine concern that the other person in the car might come forward some day?

I feel like she was down at the bridge at that time and with someone else in the car. Everything else could be true or not, who knows?

Plus I always tell the truth when drunk 

That's why alcohol is referred to as truth serum. People, (myself included) divulge quite a lot when they're under the influence that's otherwise suppressed.

The GSOC report also says there are pages with job numbers that skip sequence, but with no missing pages in between, so its possible there was nothing on the missing pages anyway, there seems to have been a general feel of disorganisation. GSOC re-interviewed anyone who made a statement and was willing to be asked questions on it, none of them retracted them or claimed they had been tampered with. Apart from Bailey, Thomas and Farrell.

There's an assumption too that this is unusual in this particular case, I'd imagine though that the archives of most state agencies would be a nightmare to audit. People taking items out to re-examine them or have a specialist look at it and it works its way back into the wrong file etc. We know several pieces of forensic evidence were tested and re-tested abroad.

The problem with this supposition is that Bailey himself corroborated many of them. The DPP claimed, without evidence, that some of the witnesses may have been eager to help the gardai. Over two decades later some of these witnesses travelled to France to give testimony to a French court, more had given sworn evidence at both the libel and 'police corruption' trials and none varied or recanted their statements when interviewed by GSOC. I think it's clear the DPP made the wrong call on this in their internal report.

IB didn't deny saying something very close to 'I did it, I did it, I went too far' to the Shelley's, he has said the Gardai brainwashed him into believing he actually did it, other times he said he was saying 'they're saying I did it' or 'they think I did it'.

Likewise, he doesn't deny saying to Malachi that he 'went up there and bashed her head in with a rock', he claimed it was dark humour but Malachi said he was drunk and in foul humour.

He says he did 'joke' about killing Sophie to the Sunday Tribune editor, as Dwyer pointed out, no one else on the entire island is known to have been joking about killing someone murdered days before. The conversation worried her so much she immediately went to the gardai about it.

Jules said James Camier just got the date wrong, she probably went to his stall the next day. But that doesn't make sense since Ian was apparently using the car elsewhere and by then the news was everywhere, James said Jules was the first to tell him about the murder. It seems unlikely no one else mentioned it to a regular stall owner the next day and he and his wife missed every news bulletin over the previous 24 hours.

Two different witnesses said they saw a fire underway behind the studio around Christmas, when gardai checked it out, there was evidence of a very recent fire practically outside the back door. JT and IB said it was lit earlier in December.

I think there may be another discussion going on totally separate from who killed Sophie. It seems like for some people, this is a juicy and ripe case for kicking the gardai and indulging in conspiracy theories about a wide ranging cover-up. You can't really indulge in these ideas without being totally committed to the premise that IB is entirely beyond suspicion. Any suggestion to the contrary is too inconvenient to contemplate rationally.

Yes the methods deployed by the Gardai are a matter of concern, but not only to those who want to kick them. Even the Gardai themselves felt that an investigation into the conduct of the force in this mater was warranted. So, when the GS themselves were uncomfortable with the handling of the case, then its not surprising that others share that disquiet.

To suggest that only those with totally closed minds could entertain such a possibility, is wrong. Personally, I don't think IB is guilty of this crime but I don't think that he's "entirely beyond suspicion" so I'm willing to listen to alternative opinions and, if anything compelling emerges, I'll think again. But whether he's guilty or not, the behaviour of the Gardai is open to question.

Its been questioned by the public.

Its been questioned by the media.

Its been questioned by the DPP.

Its been questioned by the Gardai themselves.

So, I respectfully suggest, your assertion that doubts about the conduct of the GS are confined to closed minded conspiracy theorists, is well wide of the mark.

The Bandon tapes don't support MF's claims of being pressured by the gardai, or that IB was being deliberately set up. It is also inexplicable that she would contact them anonymously with information. They knew they couldn't act on an anonymous statement with no corroboration so worked hard to identify her. They then tried to identify who was with her, going to Longford and making enquiries based on the little information she gave them.

It's extremely curious that MF's statements began to align with a case for Bailey after she became his star witness. Ten years later, she changed the time she saw the man at the bridge to 2am when all along she said 3am. JT said IB got out of bed around 2.30am. This is a highly convenient change in her story. Likewise adding the previously unmentioned detail that the black coat had silver buttons. She also, completely unprompted, mentioned in a statement after 2006 that she saw Bill Fuller selling christmas trees outside her shop on the 23rd around 11am. This sighting had absolutely no significance for the case whatsoever. Except, as the state's barrister put it to MF on the stand, MF found out Bill Fuller has said he saw JT and JT and IB needed him to be somewhere else at that time. During the same trial a witness gave a sworn testimony that MF had told her she was hoping to get some of IB's winnings if he won his case.

So, I respectfully suggest, your assertion that doubts about the conduct of the GS are confined to closed minded conspiracy theorists, is well wide of the mark.

I'm specifically talking about the conspiracy theories that it was actually a member of AGS who was involved in the murder, or that MF was in the car with a garda whose identity she is somehow still protecting even after accusing two gardai of unwanted sexual advances or even assault.

There's plenty of reasons to be critical of the garda handling of the case, but that doesn't mean that there is no case against IB.