To think that the jo yeats jury should have been told about his strangling during sex fetish?

[pippala]

pleased for Joanna's family that he has been found quilty, their ordeal is hardly over though.
Min 20 years, so he will be 53 when he comes out, with still half his life left.
Now it appears he watch porn that involved strangulation, had sex with prostitutes and like choking them!
I have heard about better orgasms when you can't breath, Isn't that how Mike Hutchence died?
I can not understand why this was withheld from the jury.
I was on jury service and put away a pedo for 33years. at sentancing we were told he had done it before to 3 other girls! I can understand that we were not to know as we were hearing only that case but in Tabaks case he hadn't killed before,as far as we know but his personality was not the one portrayed by the defence.

YABU.

It might well have been entirely irrelevant to this case. The fact we don't like the man for his various unpleasant tendencies doesn't make him any more guilty of this murder.

Absolutely Ormirian, and the law doesn't just go against people like this it can actually help other people who may be innocent. I'm so glad he was found guilty but also so scared now - as he really did seem a 'normal' guy who just happened to be around at a time her boyfriend was away. How do you know police think he may have done this before - where have you heard that?

re. another comment - he wasnt a lone nutter - he had a healthy girlfriend, was involved with her and his own family and none of them suspected anything - this is much more scary than most murders. Generally people know their attacker, or the man is 'some lone nutter' - but his guy was different... sorry, am a little freaked out by it.

I too am horrified and frightened that everyone is not horrified and frightened that men use strangulation porn (can't even bear typing it).

I think people here who are focused on ensuring that we all know that they are truly aware of the difference between motive and intent are missing the point here.

The point is that for a trial to be fair and just, the evidence has to be presented - that's a wider point, not one that relies on banging away about non-points about intent and motive, when everybody is already aware of the difference. The fact that our legal system ensures that evidence of men's hatred of women stays out of the courtroom on numerous occasions is a cause for concern, not for congratulation of the legal system.

Anybody who doesn't think that the fact that he watched strangulation porn and then strangled a woman to death, isn't relevant, needs to think a bit longer and harder. Even the judge said it was relevant to motive, just that he didn't think it was important enough. Motive is still part of proving a case in a murder trial.

This trial is an argument for the idea that hate crimes against women should become a category in law. Thus Tabak would have been charged with a hate crime as well as murder. What happened here was like a white person killing someone from an ethnic minority in an apparently motiveless crime and then it turning out they had membership of the BNP.

Basically men exist in a vacuum in our legal system. Nothing they do in the real lives, none of their beliefs or activities ever impinge on their actions or crimes they commit. Thus a lawyer and judge can argue with straight faces that a man's use of strangulation porn is irrelevant in a case where he has strangled a woman to death. They might be right in law, but all that means is that the law needs to be changed.

"crimes they commit against women"

Well said thunderbolts.

That is so true of rape trials where the man accused is able to argue that he couldn't tell the difference between a consenting and non-consenting woman. They never seem to look at whether he has similar problems in his everyday life with nonverbal communication. Yet the victim's private life regularly gets used in all sorts of spurious ways to discredit her.

I'm hugely relieved by the verdict, but deeply troubled by the process. It seems to me that there is a loophole in the law that makes violence against women by men more complex than necessary. I have the same brain itch in this case as I do when considering many rape cases and I can't quite scratch it yet. I think it's to do with mens rea and the lack of opportunity to fully expose a defence as bullshit, along with the adversarial system of justice. I keep asking questions on threads about these sorts of cases on which those with supposed legal knowledge are posting, but they never seem to get answered. No duty for anyone to do so, of course, but it does puzzle me that the questions get lost in the general melee.

100% behind thunderbolts on this. Violence that is gendered should be a hate crime. And those producing and watching filmed rape and torture should be prosecuted.

However distasteful strangulation porn is, there are a lot of people out there who like this kind of sex, but if between adults who have consented it can't be compared to child porn. People who have this kind of fetish will not necessarily murder someone!! There are also a lot of people who like S&M.

It's important not to get hung up on the idea that anyone who watches fetish stuff is a dangerous psychopath. The two things are entirely separate so I think it's appropriate that this was excluded from the prosecution's case, and as others have said, he is not going to be able to find grounds for an appeal.

thunderbolts - you're analysis of the CJS is extremely poor and you seem to be so fixated with your idea of being 'right' that you attack people ( on this thread) who agree with you. But it seems because they aren't using your exact form of words you have accussed them of being Tabak apologists. As I wrong as I may be in doing so, I am more likely to follow the chief prosecuting barrister's legal intervention than your own.

Women will never get justice from a male justice system because men (as a group, there may be individual exceptions) don't care about male violence against women or want to stop it.

The judge was able to claim that the women being strangled in pornography were acting and were unhurt, when in fact strangulation porn involves real strangulation and all the dangers and harms that go along with it. Thus Tabak through his interest was revealed as a sexual sadist who enjoyed watching women being seriously hurt and traumatised. Irrelevant according to the judge, direct evidence of a man's sexual sadism towards and hatred of women would interfere with his right to a fair trial. Is that judge fit to sit on any case which involves male harm to women, when he denies evidence that is right in front of his eyes?

A fair trial in the patriarchy means men who harm women getting away with it.

I'm not really sure why I should be bothered what you think Pan. Your assessment of what was actually going on in this case has been very poor indeed.

Are you regretting your claim that Tabak didn't wake up that morning deciding to strangle a woman to death, when from his interests it appears that in fact it had been on his mind for some time?

well thunders, don't bother with what I say. I eally couldn't care less. And no I don't withdraw that post. There is nothing ot suggest he DID wake up that morning with the thought " I think I'll kill that Jo person today". What you assert is utterly unsustantiable. But don't let that stop you.

Everyone understood what she was saying perfectly well.

That tends to happen when you are stating the bleeding obvious.

Oh yeah, and "there's no evidence to suggest xyz" is completely different from "he didn't do xyz". You made the latter kind of statement, which is being revealed as very likely to be wrong.

He had already admitted to the unlawful killing, therefore the issue wasn't why he attacked her but whether it was murder or manslaughter.

The stuff he had been watching was vile and yes, I do believe that seeking out images sexual violence towards women is an indicator of someone who is a threat to women.

It doesn't mean that he planned the attack in advance in a way that meets the mens rea bit of murder. Even if the evidence had been introduced, it could still have been argued that he didn't enter her flat with the intention of killing her/doing her harm. The legal definition of murder and the way it's applied is not the same as most people would understand it to be.

The judge decided that the fact that he used prositutes and viewed stragulation porn would be enough to prejudice the jury. He decided it was evidence of motive rather than of premeditation. Honestly? It would have prejudiced me against him. It would have taken me about 5 minutes to find him guilty. And I would have been right. The judge's job is to try to get people to put aside those feelings and weigh up the facts of the case to see if they meet a legal standard of a crime.

I do think that in this case you could have argued that the stuff should have been admitted because it wasn't just evidence of motive it was evidence of intent - that he saw an opportunity to live out his fantasy.

A reminder of the Mumsnet Campaign on Rape and Sexual Violence.

I also think that the porn should have be taken into account when he was sentanced.

Why is accurately assessing a man's hatred of women and sadism towards them get classed as prejudice? Getting sexual enjoyment from strangulation of women is a fact, it's not prejudicial, any more than DNA being on her chest was prejudicial, or the fact that the jury was told that he had actually killed her.

Also there was an issue about why he attacked her, he claimed it was so he could stop her screaming.

Consensual S&M is not a defence to GBH, so it is a little more than distasteful.

They do tend to leave these tings out. I do remember a case R v. Z where the judge allowed the fact that the chap had used the I thought she consented defence three times in previous trials. Convicted and upheld he was a "bad egg" though

He didn't need to intend to kill her when he gained access to her flat for it to be murder.

He only needed to have intended serious harm, or death, when he had his hands around her throat.

If his motivation for putting his hands around her neck was irrelevant - why were both the defence and prosecution allowed to offer explanations for his motivation - shutting her up, and sexual gratification?

The evidence of strangulation porn would have been prejudicial, but to allow the defence to make their case based on his lack of knowledge of strangling, and gag the prosecution from mentioning his keen interest in strangling, was a poor decision IMO.