The judge in the Ian Bailey case has warned witness Marie Farrell that there are penal sanctions for people who commit perjury.
Mr Justice John Hedigan has advised the Schull shopkeeper, after seven days in the witness box, to give “very careful consideration” overnight to the manner in which she is giving evidence to the High Court.
The warning came after the mother of five was accused under cross examination of telling “barefaced lies” because her testimony contradicted an interview she gave to the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission in 2012.
Today, she denied owing money to the Department of Social Services in England for making false benefit claims but in a video of the GSOC interview the jury saw her admit owing the department thousands of pounds.
Marie Farrell's response was that she didn't know how she had “got it so confused” with GSOC.
WALK OUT
Earlier today Marie Farrell sensationally “stormed” out of court rather than identify the man she was with in the early hours of 23rd December 1996, the day French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier was murdered at her holiday hom in West Cork.
She later apologised and named the man as John Reilly, a factory worker from Longford, who died sometime before 2000.
She told Paul O' Higgins SC for the State that she has never disclosed his name to anyone before now, not even her husband, because she wanted a quiet home life.
''I came here voluntarily to tell the truth. It feels like a personal assault on my private life and it's very very difficult,'' she said.
Tom Creed SC for Ian Bailey, had asked the court to let her write the man's name down on a piece of paper for the judge but Mr John Hedigan said there would be no 'secret evidence'.
''Marie Farrell has not hesitated to name other people in a manner that is extremely embarrassing to them and their families,'' the judge said.
The jury has previously heard allegations that one of the gardai investigating the du Plantier murder Det Gda Jim Fitzgerald once stripped naked and asked her for sex.
Ms Farrell claims another detective Maurice Walsh exposed himself in the ladies toilets of a golf club and told her he found it a turn on fitting up that long English bollocks.
The allegations are strenuously denied.
FALSE STATEMENTS
The shopkeeper claims gardai pressurised her to make false statements that the man she saw at Kealfadda Bridge at 3am on the morning of the murder, while in a car with John Reilly, was Ian Bailey.
She has told the court she believed detectives in 1997 when they said they knew the former journalist had murdered the French film producer and that they had to stop him before he killed again.
The jury has also heard they said Ian Bailey was strange and had once sat in a rocking chair on a beach with ten lesbians dancing and reciting poetry.
Ms Farrell retracted her garda statements in 2005.
Ian Bailey is suing the State and the Garda Commissioner for damages. He claims members of An Garda Siochana conspired to concoct evidence against him and wrongfully arrested him on suspicion of murder.
