Some crimes cry out to be answered for. The murder of French national Sophie Toscan du Plantier was one such crime. She was brutally killed on 22 December 1996. Her battered body was found near her holiday home outside Schull in west Cork. The location of her body suggests that she was probably fleeing her attacker, who may have surprised her at home sometime that evening or night. The terror she must have felt in the time of her dying can only be imagined.

She was a 39-year-old film producer who was well connected, through her ex-husband, to the French establishment. Within a week or so of the killing, the gardaí had identified a suspect. Ian Bailey was a 40-year-old English journalist who lived in the area. Twice over the following 14 months, Bailey was arrested. Both times he was released without charge.

I was working as a sub-editor in The Star newspaper over Christmas 1996 and I remember editing the copy of a freelance reporter who was reporting on the murder from the area. The reporter was the same Ian Bailey, who some days later would come to the attention of the gardaí. The reporter on the spot, with his local knowledge, naturally made the most of his good luck.

About a year later, I picked up the phone at the newsdesk of another, now defunct, newspaper. Ian Bailey identified himself. He had a good yarn. The actor, Jeremy Irons, who lived in a castle in west Cork, had painted his abode pink. By any standards, that was a good yarn.

I told Bailey I'd have to consult with the editor on whether we could take the story from him. We both knew he was a persona non grata by then and there might be an issue over any association with him.

The editor declined the scoop. Contrary to some popular perception, there are standards in the media. All of that seems, in some ways, like another lifetime. For most of us, the world has moved onwards and upwards and now, downwards and backwards.

Some things haven't changed for Bailey. Last Thursday it emerged that French authorities have issued an arrest warrant for him in connection with the death of Toscan du Plantier. Two years ago, after the DPP decided for at least the second time that no charges would be brought against Bailey, the French began their own probe, under a law which allows them to investigate the death of a French national abroad.

The dead woman's uncle was quoted during the week as saying the arrest warrant was the latest step in the family's quest for justice. That a bereaved family still seeks justice for their murdered loved one is entirely understandable. But the latest development also raises questions about the cost of this pursuit. Is it turning into nothing more than the hounding of a man against whom no case can be made to answer?

In 2003, Bailey launched an action against seven newspapers whom he claimed had libelled him. He brought the action in the Circuit Court, where the issue is adjudicated on by a judge, rather than in the High Court, where far more damages are attainable, but a jury decides on the issue.

In the course of that case, Bailey emerged as a deeply unpleasant individual. There was evidence that he assaulted his partner in a despicable fashion.

"What kind of man are you?" the newspapers' lawyer Paul Gallagher asked him at one stage. Bailey lost the substantial aspect of the case.

The hearing, in many ways, contained elements of a trial to determine who killed Toscan du Plantier.

A chief witness for the newspapers was a Maria Farrell, who claimed to have seen Bailey near the scene of the murder on the night in question.

She subsequently claimed she gave false evidence at that hearing, but she has never been prosecuted for doing so.

An internal garda investigation was undertaken in the wake of Farrell's volte face, the report of which has never been published. Bailey is pursuing a case against the gardaí and the state over what he says was the abuse of his constitutional rights through the whole affair.

Now, the French are coming. Bailey's solicitor Frank Buttimer says he would vigorously contest any extradition request. In reality there is little chance of the arrest warrant yielding an extradition. The legislation precludes the extradition of an Irish citizen whom the DPP has determined has no case to answer in Irish law.

Currently, the attorney general – the same Paul Gallagher who tore strips off Bailey under cross-examination in the libel case – is studying the issue.

There arises a suspicion that the arrest warrant is being used as window dressing by the French authorities. If the Irish courts fail to extradite, then the French authorities can lay the blame at the door of the Irish, claiming their silly laws have allowed the case for justice to run into the sand.

This would appear to be the juncture at which the case has arrived. In the absence of any hard evidence to prosecute a suspect, the imperative is to be seen to be doing something, and shifting responsibility onto somebody else.

Some crimes do cry out louder than others to be answered for. The problem in the case of the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier is that the plaintive cry of the bereaved may well be drowning out the very concept of justice itself.

mclifford@tribune.ie