'I've had enough': Jules Thomas splits from Ian Bailey
Thomas Enough Split Partner Claiming: All Had Her Ian Confirmed Longtime Jules Has Bailey, That's " "i've From
Jules Thomas has confirmed her split from longtime partner Ian Bailey, claiming: "I've had enough ... that's all."
The ending of the relationship means Mr Bailey, convicted in absentia in a French court of the murder of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan Du Plantier near her home in Schull in December 1996, is now looking for somewhere else to live. Mr Bailey has always denied any role in Ms Du Plantier's death.
Ms Thomas, originally from Wales but a longtime resident of West Cork, said: "After 25 years I am sick and tired of banging on with this; it's been just awful — all that stuff in print, the press attention, the photographers, everything."
Ms Thomas, a landscape artist, and poet and writer Mr Bailey, began a relationship shortly after he arrived in West Cork in the early Nineties.
That relationship included some violent episodes. In an interview with the Ms Thomas said: "Yes, he was physically abusive to me a couple of times; we split up for a while and then got back together again."
She also said Mr Bailey was "very hard going".
"I put up with him for far too long and I realise now that it was a waste of time. It was always a one-way flow; men like him don't ever bend or accommodate ... it's to do with their egos."
However, she said she still believed Mr Bailey was innocent of any role in Ms Du Plantier's death.
"I am convinced of his innocence, always have been and that it was a stitch-up by the guards from the beginning."
She told the paper she would have ended the relationship sooner but for the intense media scrutiny on Mr Bailey, which in recent years has included the French trial in 2019 and the high-profile podcast series .
"If I had left him in the middle of all that it would have looked like he did it, so I just gritted my teeth."
Mr Bailey, 64, is still residing in the home he shared with Ms Thomas at Liscaha near Schull but is looking for somewhere else to live and confirmed that the relationship was over. He was quoted as saying: "I am feeling very raw at present, so I don't want to speak about this right now, but it is over."
Ms Thomas expressed confidence that her now ex-partner will "find something" in the way of alternative lodgings.
Mr Bailey has consistently denied any role in the death of Ms Du Plantier and he and his legal team denounced the French trial as a "grotesque miscarriage of justice".
Two documentaries on the case, on Netflix and Sky, are scheduled for release this year.