You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
ship. I explained my relationship with Jim and left<br />
the solicitor Buttimer to deal with him. Chinn as<br />
producer brought in a Scottish director, John Dower<br />
who then wrote to me seeking my cooperation in<br />
the Netflix production. I went on to meet him and<br />
explained to Dower the situation. I did however<br />
allow him some limited access to me in the market<br />
places of Skibbereen and Schull.<br />
I had also rather naively had given two trusted<br />
journalists some limited access to me on The Prairy<br />
in May 2018. This was to finish up in the hands of the<br />
Netflix production and was used to make it appear<br />
as if Dower had conducted the interview, in the<br />
three part faux documentary Sophie: A Murder in<br />
West Cork. The original journalists were never even<br />
credited. It occurred to me that my existence and<br />
continued persistence was feeding a small industry.<br />
I even made light of it by joking that I was no more<br />
than a bone to be chewed by various animals. Some<br />
of them friendly like Jim’s<br />
team others like<br />
the Netflix team,<br />
hostile.<br />
I knew that<br />
the Netflix so-called<br />
documentary was going to be a piece<br />
of self-serving abusive propaganda that would<br />
perpetuate the false narrative and I was right.<br />
The Sheridan Project, as I christened<br />
it, was severely disadvantaged by a disgraceful<br />
act of betrayal<br />
At a certain point in early 2021 there was a race on<br />
between Jim’s objective project, a five parter which<br />
was to air on Rupert Murdoch’s Sky network and<br />
Netflix’s project. I had been bracing myself for the<br />
releases. I was also reeling from the emotional fall<br />
out of Jules’ decision to call time. I had contacted<br />
Cork County Council to apply for a council house<br />
and had a rake of paperwork to complete.<br />
I was about to embark on the craziest and most<br />
testing time of my life. I had started to gather my<br />
possessions and bunch things I wanted to retain<br />
into the shed, which for several years had been my<br />
creative sanctuary where I would spend my time<br />
between writing and wood carving.<br />
Jim’s project went to air in early May. I had a go at<br />
watching the first two episodes with Fenella’s fine<br />
young son Theo, but had found it upsetting. It nearly<br />
brought me to tears. I was upset for the victim, upset<br />
for Jules and almost upset for myself. I took the<br />
decision that I was too emotionally fragile to watch<br />
any more.<br />
29<br />
Two weeks later the Netflix project came out and I<br />
was inundated with media calls asking me for my<br />
reaction and to comment.<br />
Although I did not watch Netflix production I<br />
was made aware of certain passages which most<br />
shockingly contained a number of downright<br />
falsehoods. The ones that stood out referred to my<br />
long black coat which I had worn at the Christmas<br />
Day swim in Schull and two totally false statements<br />
the first made by the retired Chief Superintendent,<br />
the Kerry born Dermot Jerimiah Dwyer. Dwyer<br />
wasn’t telling the truth when he said I had burned<br />
the coat in a fire on St. Stephen’s Day at the Studio<br />
House. His false statement was exposed by the fact<br />
that when I had obtained a schedule of items taken<br />
from The Prairy on the first arrest in February 1997<br />
the first item listed was my long black coat. The<br />
second untruth had come from Ginny’s Christmas<br />
guest the Italian Ariana Boarina. She claims, for<br />
whatever reason I do not know, that<br />
while a guest in the cottage,<br />
she remembers seeing<br />
my dark coat soaking in<br />
a bucket in the bathroom.<br />
(However, in her statement to<br />
Gardaí, she had said she saw clothes being cleaned<br />
in the bath). This is a total fabrication. Ms. Boarina’s<br />
statement is a blatant untruth, which still has to be<br />
explained. What makes this untruth all the more<br />
damaging is that John Dower the director sets up a<br />
sequence in which a black coat is soaking in a bucket.<br />
These two untruths conveniently gave Director<br />
Dower & Netflix the perfect hook to hang their story<br />
and distort the narrative. At the time of writing<br />
lawyers in the US are considering whether I have a<br />
case against Netflix and Chinn for deformation. The<br />
problem is money, it costs a fortune to sue in the US<br />
and as everybody knows I am financially one of the<br />
poorest people in Ireland although rich in so many<br />
non-material ways.<br />
I note the head of Netflix, Ted Sarandos has claimed<br />
that no film they have distributed has had real life<br />
negative effects on their subjects…Well let me tell<br />
you Mr Sarandos, the release of your demonising,<br />
biased and defamatory film ultimately had<br />
catastrophic real life effects on me.I lost my partner,<br />
my home, and was subjected to real life death threats<br />
and social media abuse.<br />
The release of the two projects coincided<br />
coincidentally with my deciding to lose my Social<br />
Media virginity. I went from no SM presence to
Change language