Joanna Yeates case - why is this happening at all?

[Ponders]

It seems clear that he did kill her, & I don't see how he can claim it was unintentional, so why do her poor parents have to be put through such harrowing evidence?

We cannot really know why he is pleading guilty to manslaughter until his defense speaks and the media publishes it. It could always be some sort of "whilst the mind was unbalanced" type scenario they are going to argue, or maybe they will argue he did not know his own strength etc. But as far as I am aware in the UK even if you did not mean to kill them just cause GBH you would be guilty of murder if they died.
I just do not understand how it even became a situation where he hurt, let alone killed her. He does not seem to have any history indicating he would do something like this, and apprently all of his friends and colleagues were shocked when he confessed to the killing. Why on earth did he go into her home and kill her, and how could he eat the pizza she had brought and then go shopping. How does someone get to be in their thirties and then suddenly behave like this with no hint of anything abnormal before?

Either he tried it on with her and it went badly wrong OR they had an argument. As the prosecution seem to be saying it happened almost as soon as she got home, I wonder if she caught him kicking her cat and went for him all guns blazing. That could have kicked it all off in an instant.

Unfortunately I doubt we'll ever know the full story, because he's not going to tell the truth and nobody else knows.

my friend says her bf has a theory similar to that. That he tried it on and it all went horribly wrong. Still sounds like murder not ms to me but who knows. Said friend lives across the road from the house and spent a very scary Christmas locked in her flat with her young DD. :(

I'm finding the details of this case very upsetting.

I thought manslaughter also covered someone killing on the spur of the moment - ie it was purposeful but had not been planned in advance. As he lived next door I imagine there is a fair chance he planned it though.

I thought that he was not being tried for manslaughter, and has only been charged with murder.

The Jury can only find him guilty or not guilty of the offence for which he is tried, can't they? They can't decide he's guilty of a different offence. So if manslaughter isn't one of the charges, then if he is found not guilty would he walk free?

Has anyone seen/heard a proper law report listing the charges? Are there any in addition to murder?

He has already pleaded guilty to manslaughter, so if the jury don't find him guilty of murder, he will be sentenced for m/s. It is included in the charge, I think.

Have we been told what were the events leading up to his "accidentally" strangling Jo?

The charge against Vincent Tabak is that of 'unlawful killing' or homicide. If the homicide is admitted and intent is proven the jury can return a guilty verdict for murder. If not, they can return a guilty verdict for manslaughter.

As for the sequence of events, all that has been released is part of a defence statement. When Tabak takes the stand in person, we should get a better idea of what happened that evening.

a better idea of what happened that evening?

Well, he can say whatever he likes, there is sadly no one to contradict him. He has lied from the start so I don't expect him to start telling the truth now.

No-one to contradict him? The prosecution will be challenging every word of his story based on the evidence available.

He'll put forward his version of events, and it will be the Jury who decides if it is plausible.

It'll all hinge on intent, and whether his description of his actions matches what physical evidence there is. I think (but stand ready to be corrected) that you are not allowed not to intend the obvious consequences of your action. So the evidence (if the reports of it in the press are properly representative) that she put up a lengthy struggle are accurate, then that undermines his case. But if the physical evidence suggest vagal inhibition, then that might support it.

Well, of course the prosecution will "contradict" him,Cogito. He is the only person who knows what really happened, because the only other witness is dead. I didn't think I needed to spell it out.

Edith,
If a reasonable person would foresee your actions would result in death or GBH then you cannot use lack of intention as a defence unless you plead insanity. However, in practice juries do seem to give manslaughter verdicts as opposed to murder verdicts when it should have been obvious a person would die or suffer GBH (i.e when people have repeatedly kicked a person in the head).

Electra, no intent does not have to be premeditated. If you intend to kill or cause GBH then it is murder even if you only decide to do it a second before you do. However, as I said to Edith juries soemtimes do not follow this.

kelly - I though that's what I'd said (about not being allowed to not intend the obvious consequences). I do not know whether vagal inhibition could be an unintended action. I expect the medical evidence will cover this (the reports of length of struggle make it an unlikely scenario, but I've only got press reporting to go on, not full transcripts).

Edith,
sorry i was agreeing with you, not saying you are wrong. I also cannot see how she got a broken nose if he just suddenly killed her.

Sorry! I was reading a bit quickly!

And I agree that the evidence of the struggle makes it hard to see how a persuasive case can be made for a scenario with no intent. We shall have to await reporting of the defence case.

Will he take the stand?

apart from anything else, by his own account they were facing each other so he could see the effect he was having on her; even if it really was only for 20 seconds of "moderate" pressure he had time to stop.

noddy, that hasn't been said - presumably we don't find out until the prosecution witnesses have all been heard. But he'll be wanting to try to come up with a plausible scenario for his presence in her flat...

The jury only has to decide that there was an intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm in order to deliver a murder conviction. For premeditation to be proved, they'd have to find some evidence of a plan or preparation. From the details given so far - like allegedly using his own bike cover to wrap the body - that sounds unlikely.

You can decide to kill one second before you do it, and that makes it murder not manslaughter. Try squeezing your own neck for 20 seconds and decide whether he had time to stop. YES, he could've stopped, but he didn't - at that point he wanted to silence her for good, however remorseful he is now.

She had 43 injuries - OK, maybe some of these were from moving her body, but the broken nose? The blood? People only bleed when they're alive. He may have not intended to kill her when he went into the flat, but he definitely did intend it at some point that evening.

Its a trial with unusual aspects. wise not to guess at outcome

I've been watching the tweets of a sky news journalist tweeting from the trial and tbh it's been fascinating in a morbid sort of way.

The prosecution closed its case today and the defense made their opening statement.

And when you see everything that was said you get so much more of an insight.

He started out by saying that Joanna had invited Tabak in when she saw him walk past the kitchen window, that they'd had a drink, and that he'd misconstrued her friendliness for something more and tried to kiss her, she'd screamed and he'd put a hand over her mouth and one over her throat and she'd suddenly gone limp and was dead. just like that. And I thought bloody hell, a weak defense..

And then he went on to say that what happened afterwards was disgusting, i.e. going to asda etc... and that he wasn't defending that.

But then as part of the closing bit of his statement he said that the jury are not there to judge what happened afterwards - they are there to decide whether, beyond reasonable doubt, he intended to kill Joanna Yeates.

It's powerful; the fact he killed her is not in dispute.

But I think in terms of intention yes, there is doubt.

And I don't think that it's straightforward any more and I wouldn't want to be on the jury.

Because what happened afterwards isn't relevant. And tbh what happened afterwards is predominantly what the prosecution have focused on and I think that weakens their case.

This was a man with no previous history; there's nothing in his past to suggest that there were issues there; his friends and family were shocked at his arrest and subsequent confession; it's hard to argue that a man with no previous history even of violence intentionally kills someone one day.

He is going to be on the stand tomorrow.

and I think it could go either way.

Well his defence is that he misread the signals, sounds plausable considering she was texting many men that evening to have a drink with her, if it was as simple as he states we will never really know will we.