Are you disputing that Tabak instructed his Counsel that he would plead to manslaughter because that is relative point here and not what he supposedly did or did not tell a prison chaplin.
I'm not disputing it - I'm insisting that any plea would not have been his decision. It would have been his lawyer's recommendation. Just to clarify facts that we know:
(1) After the prisoner had held conversations with Peter Brotherton in prison, he ceased to be represented by Crossman & Co instructing Albion Chambers, and his case was taken overy by Kelcey & Hall instructing William Clegg Chambers. It seems most probable that it was Vincent Tabak who decided to change his lawyers, though it is just possible that it was his first defence team themselves who recommended the second team.
(2) There is no question but that Peter Brotherton, under oath, told the court that the prisoner had told him in February 2011 about the plea he might be making, and that this plea might be "guilty". At no time did Peter Brotherton actually state that the prisoner had told him that he had killed Joanna. It was Counsel for the Defence who, in a subordinate clause, under cross-examination, used the words "he had killed Joanna".
We know that a lawyer from Crossman & Co or Albion Chambers, who had declined to apply for bail for their client, and therefore believed him to be guilty, visited the prisoner in his cell BEFORE the first conversation with Peter Brotherton. It must have been this lawyer who, for some reason we don't know, advised Vincent Tabak that he plead guilty of manslaughter.
By the time the case came to court, we all heard how meagre the evidence against Vincent Tabak actually was. This didn't matter, as he had "confessed", and went on to recount, at great length, but with little credibility, how he claimed to have committed the crime. Surely it is obvious, however, that in the absence of a "confession", even Albion Chambers could have secured a "not guilty" verdict from the jury? However, unlike the jury, WE KNOW that the confession to the "chaplain" was a very cleverly executed fake. So why did he plead guilty of manslaughter? I am not going to repeat here the dozen or so points of evidence that suggest strongly that his plea too was faked, but I maintain firmly that the real Vincent Tabak never did plead guilty.