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.

If the only way for a defendant to be seen to have a fair trial in this country is to be able to lie his way through his trial unchallenged by actual evidence, then the trial system to needs to be reassessed.

The appeals to legal authority on this thread are missing the point. The legal system is fucked up, the way it allows or tries to allow male violence against women free reign so much of the time. That needs to change.

Thank you to posters who are being very patient with me by the way. I am a bit dense

Thunder you are rocking this thread I emphatically agree with everything you've said

though I'd say 'allows male violence against women and children'

What if someone watches child pornography? Should that not be allowed if he goes on trial for sexual abuse?

The distinction for me is that someone who intends to go out and strangle a person may well watch porn that involves violence of some kind. But not every person who watches that porn will do it with either that motivation, intention, or state of mind. Therefore, I don't believe it does anything other than expose the jury to a damning character assasination of the accused.

The Yeates family deserved to see their daughter's murderer convicted on evidence, not prejudice. Thankfully, that's what happened.

"The defence was permitted to base their case on Tabak's unfamiliarity with strangulation and its effects."

I didn't know tht. I didn't know that ws the actual bedrock of their case.

How is it possible that it is legal for someone to hide evidence which contradicts the bedrock of the defence?

How is that a fair trial? It's not fair, it's biased in favour of the accused.

I can see the arguments about intent and motive. I really can.

However, I struggle with the fact that surely it is relevant to the 'I accidentally strangled her' element of his defence that he had a keen interest in the effects of strangulation. I just can't get past one seeming directly relevant to the believability of the other.

But I'm glad the judge made the conviction pretty appeal proof.

That's different, screaming. Child porn is a legal offence (obviously and quite rightly). Watching violent porn is not. I'm not saying it shouldn't be btw, or that I'd be happy to be around someone who was into that, but I still maintain that the assumption that watching violent porn equals criminality is not reasonable in it's entirety.

It seems very relevant to me.
I cannot understand why it was not deemed to be by the courts.

He claimed manslaughter in order to get a shorter sentence. He lied and put the family through that ordeal.

Perhaps if he had been advised his habits were going to be open to the court he may have been persuaded to plead guilty to murder?

Justice is not a game to be played. This is what he was doing. Taking a punt on getting away with murder. The facts of his sexual preferences were important in this case and to say otherwise seems crazy.

The victim's sex life is often held up for scrutiny in murder cases. I am relieved but suprised that it didnt happen in this cas.

But so what if child porn is illegal?

You're not allowed to know about any other crimes the defendent has committed - so if someone has been convicted of rape once before, the jury aren't allowed to be told that if he's up for another rape, or for a violent assault. That's illegal and that's not allowed to be admitted, why is child porn an exception (is it even an exception - are you allowed to mention that someone accused of raping a child watches child porn)?

Tabak's porn use was evidence that could have been used to refute the lies told by the defence about his character, his naivete, his lack of knowledge about strangulation. And it would have been evidence to support the prosecution's claim that the murder was sexually motivated.

How anyone can think it was not relevant evidence I don't know. As others have already pointed out, the prosecution and the police thought it was relevant evidence.

I agree with thunder: the judge's ruling on the inadmissibility of this evidence was not an individual failure on his part but in accordance with the laws by which men who perpetrate violence against women get away with it every day.

The verdict in today's trial could easily have been different. Can anyone honestly say that a manslaughter conviction would have been just in light of what we now know about Tabak's use of porn and prostituted women?

I agree the jury should have been told the facts about his perversions.

Tabak's "unfamiliarity with strangulation and its effects"? That's laughable. Anyone with a basic understanding knows about that.

He just gives me the creeps and I think he should've been given 30 years without parole at the minimum. I hope what someone said before, they'll never let him out.

What really gives me the creeps tho, is that these people are around us, our neighbours and colleagues and no-one knows what really goes on in their minds, till they act it out.

I wonder about his girlfriend. Did she have an inkling about his character?
He's a psychopath. And most of them can hide it really well.
You only need to check out
www.lovefraud.com

I really do not understand this point about lots of non-murderers do it so it is irrelevant to the case. Other than the actual act, what do murderers do that is not done by other people?

If you murdered somebody with surgical instruments, and you had watched surgery videos so had some minimal knowledge of how to use them, should that not be mentioned in court?

If we took that approach, almost everything to do with the murderer would be inadmissable in court. What would the case then be about? The conduct of the victim I suppose.

Secondtimelucky: the defendent is entitled to defend himself. Everyone in the system knows that sometimes defendents get away with it and sometimes they don't, but this country has decided that it would rather 100 guilty people walk free than that 1 innocent person be convicted. (What happens in reality is another matter.)

Tabak is entitled to say whatever (give or take) in his bid to defend himself. The jury is the arbiter of fact. It is there to work out if he's lying, or telling the truth. No legal qualifications required, this is the nub of being judged by one's peers. One can have a keen interest in the effects of strangulation without meaning to strangle anyone. Motivation, without intention.

You say that you struggle to reconcile what Tabak said in his defence with what you learned afterwards to be his pornographic viewing choices. I hesitate to say it, but this is precisely why the judge didn't allow this evidence to be admissible. It can be very difficult to get one's head around this distinction, or even if one does get one's head around it, to not deliberately conflate motivation with intention. We can all feel dreadfully for the victim and her famiily, and that can be a very powerful emotion. The judge MUST remain impartial, doing right by everyone (victim, defendent, and in some cases family of the victim), in accordance with what the law empowers and obliges him to do.

"The distinction for me is that someone who intends to go out and strangle a person may well watch porn that involves violence of some kind. But not every person who watches that porn will do it with either that motivation, intention, or state of mind. Therefore, I don't believe it does anything other than expose the jury to a damning character assasination of the accused."

That's mistaken logic. The point is we know that Tabak strangled Joanna Yeates to death, saying he had no other motive than trying to stop her screaming. It turns out that he had a sexual interest in strangulation.

The argument isn't that everybody who uses strangulation porn will commit murder, the argument is that someone who uses strangulation porn and then strangles a woman to death, has a sexual motive for her murder. Both the porn use and the killing have to be there, not just the porn use.

Like SheCutoffTheirTales says, it would be like trying a murder case without including the small fact that the defendant had taken a large life insurance policy out on the victim. In that case the motive would be money. In Tabak's case the motive was sexual excitement and fantasy. Not everybody who takes out a life insurance policy on someone is a killer, but arguing that because they aren't, life insurance policies should be inadmissable as evidence, is silly.

You're missing a key point Slubadub. The defendant is allowed to make his defense but the prosecution is allowed to challenge it. In this trial the judge hamstrung the prosecution, ruling out a whole lot of pertinent evidence, evidence that would have challenged a number of Tabak's claims.

A fair trial isn't one where no evidence is put before the jury.

Maybe a good analogy Milly, could be that a lot of convicted offenders have been found to have mental health problems, but having mental health problems doesn't lead you to being convicted of an offence (in fact you're more likely to be a victim of a crime than the perpetrator if you have mental health problems).

Violent offenders might have been found to have watched a significant amount of violent pornography, but watchng violent pornography doesn't always make you a violent offender.

Although maybe it depends on how long you look at them? If a violent offence has been worked up to incramentally through the person acting out a previous fantasy they had, it could just be a matter of time/opportunity?

Thunderbolts as far as I can tell from the media reports, the prosecution was seeking admissibility of this bit of the evidence to prove intent. This is the key point: intent is different from motivation. This information is not relevant to the question of intent.

Unfortunately, it is often the case the procedure gets in the way of substance. That, and rubbish lawyers (not that I'm suggesting that the prosecution was rubbish - clearly not, in this case).

Not at all Milly.

If there was a direct link, and having read up on this case there may well have been, then the case could be made that it is relevant. I'm certainly not saying that in every case, the 'outside interests' of the accused should not be submitted. In countless cases, I'm positive they should be and in fact are. In this case, evidently, it was deemed to be not. Whether that was correct is now irrelevant, save for the fact that, as pointed out, it is one reason for appeal removed from Tabak, so therefore it really is a very good thing that it was not submitted in court.

For clarity, the difference that the legal distinction makes for me is that WRT child porn, we're talking about submitting previous crimes that the accused has committed, whereas in the case of an interest in violent porn, we're talking about personal interests.

You should not be allowed to tell lies in your defence, and if you do, the prosecution should be allowed to introduce e idence to show that you are lying.

Lies in the Tabak defence:

1 he is in a monogamous relationship and is sexually inexperienced and naive

2 he didn't understand "compression of the neck" and it's effects

The defence wasn't forced to tell those lies, but once it did, the evidence about visiting prostitutes and strangulation porn should have been admitted.

He was entitled to a defence, but not a defence based on lying to the jury about facts that had already been established.

It has been 10+ years since I studied criminal law so my knowledge might be out of date but the rule of thumb when I was taught was that the court had to consider whether evidence of this type could be considered more probative than prejudicial before it could be admitted. Presumably (if the rule still applies) the judge here decided that the evidence was more prejudicial than probabtive and decided to exclude it. As others have said, watching this kind of material doesn't mean that you commit murder in that way.

I'm happy to be corrected by anyone with more up to date knowledge. The rules of criminal evidence are hard and one of the reasons I opted to practise on the civil side!

The judge was wrong. And if he was right in law, then the law is wrong.

I never mentioned child pornography, so I've no idea why you are explaining the distinction to me.

You are arguing against an assumption that 'watching violent porn equals criminality,' but I don't see anybody on here making such an unsophisticated assumption.

Fuck you iPhone autocorrect, making me look like a punctuation idiot. Again.

"As others have said, watching this kind of material doesn't mean that you commit murder in that way."

No but it means if you strangle a woman to death, which is what Tabak admitted to doing, you are likely to have had a sexual motive for it.

Or, possibly, he was right.

In this case, it matters not one iota, except, as pointed out, it removes an avenue for appeal and therefore it has proved to be a good decision in this case.