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?

So who was it who was claiming upthread that he wouldn't have woken up that morning and decided to strangle a woman to death.

This was obviously on his mind. He was fantasising about it.

Just "speculation" from those of us who could see through the BS I suppose.

There was imagery of women tied and bound in the boot of a car! Which may have explained some of her injuries that he said 'dunno' when questioned on such as the marks around her wrists. This info was vital ime. Also with the jury some people do err more on 'benefit of doubt' than others and this could have been a disaster.

"No, he looked at strangulation pornography before he killed her, including on the morning of the murder."

oh - I didn't know that. It wasn't mentioned on the BBC site earlier, just that he had looked at it after the murder. In that case I am not sure why they didn't allow it to be used.

It was so specific though the strangulation, the blonde girl, the boot of the car, etc

wannaBe - that is a crock of shit.

The porn was disallowed because it was prejudicial. The judge believed (entirely correctly) that if the jury had access to that information that it would have made up their mind for them.

"in fact the defense could quite possibly have argued then that it was just a fettish gone wrong"

Well if it was so useful to the defence, why did they work so hard to exclude it?

You don't get to walk into someone's house and perform your "fetish gone wrong" on them without their consent and then claim it was an accident when you kill them.

Alllowing it admitted would have prejudiced his chance to get away with it.

wasn't there 6 men and 6 woman on the jury?

no, actually the BBC site still doesn't say he viewed them before the murder. Where is it saying this?

Did they work hard to exclude it?

I know that post-verdict, it opens the subject up to comment and speculation, but are assertions on legal argumentation that hasn't been made public still seems a tad unwise.

Or have I missed something, SheCutOffTheirTales, or is it to be published shortly?

Have you looked at the Sky news web site Fanjo? There's more info on there.

here

Vincent Tabak and the porn searches the jury did not hear about

Judge His Honour Mr Justice Field dismissed the application to have the material introduced to the trial and rejected prosecutions claim that it showed an intent to kill.

He said: ?These films show actors, acting out roles. None of the women suffer GBH. None of the women are killed.

?These are not snuff movies. The women did not die.?

Bottom line is, people tend to get confused between motivation & intent and in this case, the jury were asked to decide what the intent was. I can only imagine Mr Justice Field didn't allow it because it would have blurred the lines between the two & taken the focus from intent.

Calling the strangulation pornography evidence prejudicial is a bit like a prosecution not being allowed to use the fact that someone had taken out a life insurance policy on a murder victim, because it might prejudice their trial.

DF - www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2053178/Vincent-Tabak-guilty-Joanna-Yeates-murdered.html

"When police examined Tabak?s laptop and hard-drives at home and work they found he regularly accessed hard-core 'sex and submission' websites.
In particular, he chose porn depicting violence towards women with their tops raised - and featuring violent images of women being held by the neck, saying 'choke me,' before being sexually abused by men.
They also found three photographs downloaded from a porn website.
They depicted a blonde girl bearing a striking physical resemblance to Joanna, also wearing a short pink top, which had been raised and her breasts exposed.
Yet another image stored on Tabak?s computer showed two naked women bound and gagged in the boot of a car."

:o is "unwise" the new "unhelpful"?

Are you suggesting that the judge ruled inadmissible evidence the defence wanted to include so they could go for the "fetish gone wrong on a non-consenting neighbour after months of watching violent porn" defence?

That judge hasn't got a clue about pornography. Women who are choked and strangled in porn are actually choked and strangled in porn. They aren't acting. They suffer the same injuries and after-effects as anybody who was strangled or choked half to death. Why is he claiming hey don't suffer harm?

shecut I agree that knowing he had a fettish for strangulation would have automatically made the sexual motive clearer - absolutely.

But if the conclusion of the videos was not clear then it would not any more prove that he fantaised about murder - only that he did about strangulation on a sexual basis (and I did speculate further up thread that perhaps he had gained sexual pleasure from strangulation).

Tbh I don't know how as a lawyer you can form a defense for someone when you know all that about them.

?These are not snuff movies. The women did not die.?

So he would have had to be watching snuff movies for the fact that he liked wanking over women being strangled to be relevant to the fact that he strangled a woman.

If people get confused between motivation and intent then it's the judge's job to guide them on that, not hide the evidence from them.

"Tbh I don't know how as a lawyer you can form a defense for someone when you know all that about them."

The way they did - you have it excluded from evidence, you base your case entirely on a technicality (intent, in this case) and you make up a story about a bumbling idiot.

Actually, I can see why the judge excluded the porn and prostitutes initially. But I think it was deeply unfair to allow to defence to lie about Tabak's relationship and sexual experience and refuse to allow the prosecution to rebut that.

wannaBe

"But if the conclusion of the videos was not clear then it would not any more prove that he fantaised about murder - only that he did about strangulation on a sexual basis"

Sure, but when you go into a woman's house and strangle her without permission for your own sexual gratification, you don't then get to claim it was an accident if she dies.

The intent was to strangle, and reasonable people know that strangulation can cause death.

The accidental strangulation argument relied on the idea that he was not trying to strangle her, but just to keep her quiet.

If you decide to act out your strangulation fantasy with someone who is not a willing participant then surely that is murder if it is with your consenting partner and was a regular feature of your sex life that would be manslaughter?

I'm glad he was found guilty of murder. Perhaps I was wrong to think he was guilty so early (I am not trying to be smug, JY is still dead), but I'm very glad the jury was able to reach a majority verdict considering the evidence they had.

I would be gutted if I voted the other way and then found out the inadmissible information. It makes his story a mockery. I know it is their job, but it is hard to think of the defence in this case basically lying to try and reduce the sentence to manslaughter.

As for Tabak...

And I'm afraid it does make me think that porn use can escalate and occasionally (obviously this does not happen to every user, I know that) tip people into doing terrible, terrible things.

Interesting Guardian article.

But it only describes some of the prosecution views and the Judge's decision on the admissibility of that information. It doesn't describe at all what the defence was arguing.

Is it normal for there to be a full law report idc which would related both sides?

I can see why information on the use of prostitutes was excluded - no one is suggesting he harmed them, and I certainly don't see such conduct as an indicator of experience in real interactions with women who are not paid sex providers.

What's interesting is that people can believe it's possible to have a sexual interest in strangling women and there not to be a murderous motive there, even if it's never acted upon in real life. Strangulation is about cutting off someone's breath and blood supply. Death from it happens very quickly.

If someone liked watching pornography of women being shot but not killed, would that also be seen as non-murderous and just a festish.

Men who kill women very often do it with their bare hands and strangle them to death.