noticed Ian Bailey had scratches on his hand as he bought a copy of The Irish Times in Brosnan’s newsagents in Schull, the French trial heard.
Bailey later elaborated on how he sustained his scratches, telling gardaí in his interview that he got them from killing the turkeys - which Jules Thomas put down as happening around noon on Sunday December 22nd when he also went and cut off the top of a Christmas tree with her daughter, Saffron. The French case, like the Garda file, focused on when Bailey sustained the scratches to his hand and drew heavily on several witnesses who had met him in the pub on the night of Sunday December 22nd – several hours after he said he got the scratches from the turkeys and the Christmas tree., who were both in the Galley Pub and near Bailey when he was playing the bodhrán between 11pm and midnight on December 22nd and neither of them noticed any marks or scratches on his hands and face.
“When I arrived at Jules’s house, I met Jules’s boyfriend, Ian, and I immediately noticed heavy marks from scratches on both his hands. They were numerous on both hands and they were up as far as his forearms and they were fresh,” said Ms Boarina whose statement was read into evidence in Paris. Yet by December 24th, another witness, Lowertown Creamery employee Denis O’Callaghan, told how when Bailey called at about noon to buy a new blade for a saw, he noticed several scratches on the back of his left hand that looked as if they caused by briars.