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?

exactly. Which is what creates the argument for reasonable doubt.

He misread the signals and, oops, strangled her? On what planet is that reasonable?

Don't most reasonable people usually just blush and stammer and make excuses before hiding themselves away in shame for a little while if they get the signals wrong?

And tut tut at the "well, she was asking for something bad to happen, given that she was texting lots of men" train of thought.

It doesn't make anyone actually safer by trying to blame her, you know.

Aye is that to me? I think it is plausable that she could have invited him into her home, as she was texting others also, she was texting men that night, not women, so I can't write, she was texting people to spend time with her..... can I ?

I also said IF it was as simple as he states, we will never really know will we!

I never said anything about her asking for something, that all came from you, or if your post is relating to something posted by someone else, apologies.

I don't believe that anyone would scream just because someone tried to kiss them, I think she'd say no, insist no, Waaaaay before needing to scream.

Signals or not, there's no way that if she had lived next door to a decent man that Joanna Yeates would be dead.

but it wasn't that straightforward.

As the defense makes the argument, he tried to kiss her and she screamed. for whatever reason, perhaps because he panicked he put his hand over her mouth and the other hand around her throat and she ended up dead.

No-one is excusing that or saying that it was reasonable - it wasn't.

But the jury here aren't being asked to decide whether Tabak actually killed her - we all know that he did. The jury are being asked to decide whether he pre-meditatively killed her, because that is the difference between murder and manslaughter.

We don't really know what his defence is until he takes the stand - or until his barrister outlines his defence. The fact is Ponders this is not an uncommon defence in murder trials - I attacked her, but I didn't mean to kill her. I remember the case of John Tanner who strangled his girlfriend Rachel McLean at her student house in Oxford and then hid her body under the floorboards and went back to University in Nottingham. He took part in a police reconstruction, played the part of the grieving boyfriend for about a week until they found her. He also tried to claim diminished responsibility - which didn't wash with the jury in view of his very elaborate cover-up, but he (or rather his barrister) must have thought it was worth a try if it gave him the chance of a reduced sentence (as I recall he didn't take the stand).

I don't buy it.

I rather think the jury will agree with you Posies, but like everyone in this country Tabak is entitled to a fair trial.

The barrister opened the defence today. (Have been following tweets on Wannabe's rec). The defence seems to be that it wasn't pre-meditated. Which may be true but it is implausible that you could do what he did without having an intention to kill at any point. He is chancing his arm imo. Which is frankly despicable considering what he has already put her family through.

"The jury are being asked to decide whether he pre-meditatively killed her"

Premeditation is not the test. The test is intent to kill or cause GBH. And that, as someone said earlier, can happen moments before the incident itself. In the 'eggshell skull' manslaughter defence, you can potentially show that you intended to throw one punch but that you did not intend that single punch to kill or cause GBH. In a situation where there has been a sustained violent attack it is far less easy to prove that you did not intend to cause greivous bodily harm. The defence in this case is claiming that the violence was the result of blind panic rather than intent. I think they'll struggle with that.

"I don't believe that anyone would scream just because someone tried to kiss them, I think she'd say no, insist no, Waaaaay before needing to scream." but that's opinion not evidence, and you can't base a prosecution on "I think she would have," when you don't and can't possibly know for certain.

He is going to take the stand tomorrow.

Cogito

I thought that the eggshell skull thing was about taking your victim as you find them, and not a defence?

WannaBe, this is a MN forum not a Barristers coffee house!! I am speculating, as a watcher or legal drama....I don't expect to be an expert!

Okay, having not seen the stuff from today, but read about the injuries and so on it seems there was bruising and bleeding which, clearly, happened while the poor lass was still alive.

So there can't have just been an attempt at kissing and then a sudden accidental strangulation. Where do the injuries fit into that?

Saying this I don't think it's necessarily bad that he wants to try and prove he didn't intend to kill her.

If it was found that he didn't intend it, surely that might help moderate the grief and anger slightly - I don't know, but I think (and I've never been unlucky enough to find out) that knowing my loved one was killed unintentionally by a clumsy handed idiot would be LESS awful than knowing she was killed by some bastard who planned it and intended it.

I'm not sure.

I don't get the "she was texting men" thing? What are you implying, tranquilitygardens? That she clearly wanted male company? That she shouldn't have turned him down? Or was it just a non sequitur and maybe she knew that her female friends were occupied that night and her male friends weren't?

We'll see what he says tomorrow.

Lillian, I remember the Tanner one too - his behaviour during press conferences & the reconstruction was most odd - I think that was the first time I ever assumed the partner was responsible

The thing with this one is the timing - wasn't it only a few minutes between her entering her flat & the screams which were heard by passers-by? If his version is true he would have had to decide she was coming on to him within moments of being invited in (if he was invited in )

posies but while you could speculate, a jury wouldn't be allowed to speculate on that level.

Jane many of the injuries were consisteant with her body being lifted over the wall etc so not part of the actual killing iyswim.

Aye, bless you, she was texting men means, she was texting men, not people, not women, men, it is what she was doing, I think you may be implying your own thing there Aye.

I was implying that she was lonley that night, as her boyfriend was away and she probably didn't want to be alone, so it is reasonable that if she saw a neighbour she may have called them in for a mince pie and a glass of wine on a Friday evening when she had nothing better on, with it being so close to xmas and her being on her own.

Betelguese, his story is that she saw him through her kitchen window as he was walking to his car & she invited him in; the fact that they were both without partners that night led him to assume that she was interested in him.

I wonder if in fact he noticed her, went to her door & invited himself in.

I don't suppose we'll ever really know

The reports I've seen on the news today suggest it was the first time he'd been in her flat. He'd been going out and passed her kitchen window. She recognised her neighbour and invited him in (no sign of forced entry). It all went wrong after that.

BTW: I think the "egg shell skull" defence comes into the rule at you are not allowed not to intend the obvious consequences of your action. But you are allowed to assume that someone of normal appearance is in normal health. So if you were in a fight with someone, you can say that you intended to hurt them enough to end the fight, but as you couldn't possibly have known about their "egg shell skull" the force you used was normal for a fight, and you had no intention to kill as you could not reasonably have foreseen that a single blow would be fatal (the actual consequence of your action in this example not being an obvious consequence),

Ponders: the letting him in bit is the only part of his account I find plausible. She'd have seen him coming and going, if he gestured to come in, it's not unreasonable to think she'd have opened the door to him to see what he wanted.