Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Clare McCarthy

Sophie Toscan du Plantier son says he's 'very confident' in new Garda investigation

The son of French film maker Sophie Toscan du Plantier has said he is "very confident" in the new Garda investigation into her murder case.

Sophie, 39, was bludgeoned to death with a large concrete block outside her holiday home near Schull in west Cork on the night of December 23, 1996.

Pierre-Louis Baudey-Vignaud, who was 15 years old when his mother was killed, spoke to Newstalk on Thursday. He said he was given no timeframe for how long the new investigation would take but he had high expectations.

"If there is a new investigation and there are new things and the pressure of the people and their expectations are high... let's see but I am very confident," he said.

READ MORE:

Mr Baudey-Vignaud said he hoped the gardai would be able to use "new technology" to help prove something in the case.

Sophie Toscan du Plantier was murdered in Ireland in 1996 (gettyimages.ie)

He continued: "[With] this new investigation, the DPP recognises that the Gardaí and the team of the DPP made some mistakes during the previous investigations.

"So they need to go further - and maybe with the new technologies, they think that they can prove something.

"And in addition there must be new elements that have been released through these last few months."

No one has ever been charged with Sophie's murder in Ireland and her family have spent the past 25 years seeking for her killer to be brought to justice, which Mr Baudey-Vignaud described as a "nightmare".

"Twenty-five years looking for justice, taking me a lot of time to fight... for speaking with the Irish police, to the French police, to do the trial," he said.

"I have to pay a lot of lawyers - so it's a nightmare, it's still a nightmare. You can never find some peace with this sort of thing."

Yesterday, gardai announced they are launching a 'full review' into the case and that the investigation into her murder is "active and ongoing".

A French court convicted English former journalist Ian Bailey of Sophie's murder in absentia in 2019 however, The Irish High Court refused to extradite him to France.

Ian Bailey said he hoped the new investigation would clear his name (Niall Carson/PA/PA Wire)

With the news of the cold case review, Mr Bailey said that he hoped it would clear his name.

He told Newstalk: "My prayer for a quarter of a century has been that the truth at some point would come out before I was dead.

"I hope there will be [a successful outcome] and if I can give any assistance, I will be doing that.

"I would hope there would there be an acknowledgement - if not the discovery of who was the murderer of Madame Sophie Toscan du Plantier - an acknowledgement that it wasn't me."

Mr Bailey was arrested by gardai twice over Sophie’s death, in February 1997 and January 1998, but he was never charged and he has always denied any involvement.

READ NEXT:

Get breaking news to your inbox by signing up to our newsletter .

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.