Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder cold case review 'complicated by death of witnesses' 

Sources said the credibility of the cold case review process has to be protected by ensuring that reviews continue “until they get to their own logical conclusion”.

Another source said: “It would make a mockery of what the cold case was supposed to do in the first place by not continuing.”

Gardaí are appealing to anyone with information to come forward, even though the murder occurred 27 years ago.

The source said: “Lots of things have changed in that amount of time.

“Maybe, because it was such a high-profile investigation, people just didn’t want to get involved.

“It being such a high profile case could have scared people off.”

He acknowledged that the deaths of several witnesses over the years will also have an impact on the cold case review.

One, Rosie Shelley, had testified at Ian Bailey’s libel action against seven newspaper publishers in December 2003 that she believed he confessed to the killing on New Year’s Eve in 1998.

A separate statement made in 2000 by Clonakilty man Paddy Lowney, who is also now deceased, was included in the French case against Mr Bailey.

He had identified Mr Bailey as the man who had approached him to get photographs developed —photographs of a woman lying on a roadway, in a position similar to the one in which Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s body was found on December 23, 1996.

Mr Lowney approached gardaí about the suspicious photographs in September 2000, four months after the man had come to his photo lab.

Martin Graham appeared as a witness in Mr Bailey’s case against gardaí and the State for wrongful arrest in 2015.

Mr Graham claimed in the High Court that he had been given cannabis, cash, and clothes by gardaí in return for becoming friendly with Mr Bailey to get information linking Mr Bailey to the Frenchwoman’s murder.

Condolences from council 

Meanwhile, Mr Bailey’s death was also acknowledged at a meeting of Cork County Council on Monday during the vote of condolences.

Independent Councillor for Carrigaline Municipal District, Marcia D’Alton, said that she felt it was “appropriate” that the Chamber remark on the death of the 66-year-old British national who lived in West Cork for several decades.

“There was never enough evidence to prove Ian Bailey’s guilt in the murder of Sophie yet he lived thirty years of his life under that shadow of guilt. Largely because of what was described by the Director of Public Prosecutions as a prejudiced investigation on the part of the gardaí.

“The State handed his files to the French authorities where he was convicted of the murder in his absence.

“Should there be any chance that our State caused this man to live out thirty years of his life under the shadow of suspicion, then I think it is appropriate that we recognise that this is a terrible tragedy.”

Independent Councillor Frank Roche, who represents the Fermoy Municipal District, said that in his opinion, it was “very sad” that Mr Bailey had spent the last 30 years of his life under “the shadow of being a criminal”.

He added: “It is very sad that people who are suffering abuse at the hands of our authorities have to live like this and I hope his life wasn’t cut short because of the corruption of our State.”