I received a copy of William Clegg's book "Under the Wig" for Christmas ("sad", I know!), and thought I would relay to you what he says about the Joanna Yeates case.
Firstly, how he came to be Vincent Tabak's defence barrister:
"Tabak was being represented by Kelsey and Hall, whose senior partner Ian Kelsey, a well-known solicitor in the West Country, also knew one of the barristers in my chambers, Dean Armstrong. Since I had done some high-profile murder cases, I was engaged to act for Tabak, with Dean as my junior."
Mr Clegg says that it was "unusual to have such an intelligent defendant charged with murder" and that Tabak "spoke better English than most of my English clients".
A few points at odds with the newspaper reports, etc.
"By the time Mr Reardon returned to their flat on 19th December, he was already worried: Miss Yeates had not been responding to his texts and calls".
The "official" versions state that, at first, Greg was not worried, and that he was used to Joanna not returning his texts and calls.
He says that detectives found two bottles of cider in the flat, one of which had been partially drunk. In fact, Greg admitted to having finished the bottle when he returned home.
Clegg says that the police were already suspicious of Tabak before he went to Holland, and that they needed an excuse to visit him there. Tabak provided them with one by phoning the police and "claiming to have seen his neighbour using his car on the night Miss Yeates disappeared."
In fact, he didn't say that; he said that the car had changed position during the night.
According to Clegg, VT "confided to a chaplain that he had killed Miss Yeates but said that her death had been an accident."
He didn't-----he told the chaplain that he was going to plead guilty.
Clegg says that he himself asked the judge to rule as inadmissible the fact that Tabak had a collection of "extreme and violent pornography".
He says that although the prosecution maintained that VT had strangled Joanna for "sexual gratification", this was "purely theoretical" and that VT had "nothing in his past to indicate any predilection for that sort of conduct."
This post is getting rather long, so I will continue it in reply to any comments/questions posters might have.
Happy New Year to you all!!
