FILM director Jim Sheridan said the Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder investigation needs to take a closer look at France, claiming the cold case probe is ‘being curtailed by bigger forces than we know’.

He also told how he met with Ian Bailey at Christmas in 2023, just weeks before his death, describing a broken, lonely man who had turned the unsolved murder case into an obsession.

Of their final encounter in Bantry he said: ‘This was a fella who was so self-absorbed he thought he was in charge of the investigation. At the same time he’d be looking for €100 to write a poem.

‘People say he lived off the crime. But on a minimal level. He just wanted to be seen and known and unfortunately he used Sophie’s death to do that,’

The My Left Foot Oscar-nominated film maker doubled down on his assertion that Ian Bailey is innocent of the killing as his controversial film Re-Creation goes on general release in cinemas here.

The film takes inspiration from 12 Angry Men and much of the action centres on the jury deliberating at the murder trial with the majority switching their verdict on the strength of one juror’s arguments.

Sheridan told The Southern Star: ‘The cold case hasn’t investigated anything in France. ‘How can you have an investigation that doesn’t involve the husband? It’s just crazy.’

Theories about the identity of Sophie’s killer include reported sightings of an Eastern European man that night close to her West Cork home, with some suggesting he was a hitman hired by her late husband.

The 36-year-old mother-of-one was found battered to death in the laneway leading to her remote holiday home in Toormore on December 23, 1996.

Ian Bailey, who died of a heart attack in January 2024, was the prime suspect but was never tried in Ireland. He was tried and found guilty of the murder in absentia in France.

Sheridan pointed to ‘unknown male DNA’ found on the dead woman’s shoe and asked why that had not been analysed using the latest methods, in the same way the rock used to beat her was.

He said: ‘Why haven’t they done that? We know all about Ian Bailey. We know what he had for breakfast. We know nothing about this unknown male DNA. It could be Harbison [pathologist], it could be a police officer who moved the body.

‘If it is then the person who killed her was so perfect that they managed to kill her with a rock, and I believe with a knife and choking her, and left no DNA. That is not believable.

‘The question is who is being protected? Why is there silence in Ireland and in France on the identity of the unknown male DNA? This cold case is being curtailed by bigger forces than we know.’

Sheridan said the film had so far been ‘very well received’ admitting he had had qualms about shifting from the realm of documentary to fiction before the investigation concluded.

He dismissed any suggestion that he was obsessed with the case and said his motivation came from a desire to see justice done and to ‘right any injustice’.

Asked why he was convinced of Bailey’s innocence he replied: ‘Precisely because of what you say, that he was unlikeable. He was a misogynist, an ass, he’s hard to take, he’s self-centred, he’s a narcissist, he beats his girlfriend. I take all that on board and discount all that and say ‘where is the evidence?’.

‘I kept in touch with him after the documentary, a lot. To me he became like a person with a personality disorder. He had this fantasy that he was running the whole thing [investigation]. He wanted to be famous, he wanted to be known. His only route was through the Sophie murder.’

Sheridan said he had contacted Sophie’s family about new evidence he uncovered during the course of the documentary ‘hoping they would tell the police’, but there had been no further investigation in France.

Re-Creation, co-directed by David Merriman, is set to be released at Omniplex cinemas nationwide on October 3rd.