The Defence Will State Their Case

[Leonora]

Believe it or not, DCI Phil Jones never said anything in court, although he did read out his own statement to the press outside the court after the trial. I suspect that he and Vincent Tabak were never even in the same room together except at the pre-trial hearing at Bristol Crown Court on 20 September 2011. Several other people mentioned the pizza Joanna is said to have bought, but none of them was under oath.

Although the judge warned the jury sternly to base their verdict on the evidence alone, he made no attempt to warn them that a lot of what they would hear was NOT evidence, and hardly any of the images they would see on the screens was evidence. According to one eminent judge who wrote a book about "The Nature of Evidence", padding out trials with inessential information is standard prosecution practice.

This case bugs me too, but the biggest bug is that nobody is concerned about the fact that nobody ever even considered whether CJ or VT had any reason to kill Joanna. CJ was believed to be The Killer for a very short time, mainly because of his blue hair and conspicuous bad temper. VT is now considered to be The Killer because he said he did it. Nobody except you and I are bugged by the fact that the police knew very well that both of these suspects were of very good character. Although the police publicly flew all sorts of kites that suggested they were interested in the usual suspects - namely, (1) people who knew Joanna well enough to have fallen out with her, and (2) known sex offenders living within XX miles of Bristol - the police made sure that we knew that Joanna had no enemies nor knew anyone who could possibly have wished her harm. They also brushed aside any evidence that this might not have been the case. This is seriously disconcerting.

[mrswah]

I wouldn't believe what VT stated re the pizza, either.
It has occurred to me that, even if the police had found the pizza in one of the local bins, how would they have known it was the one Joanna bought? I doubt whether she was the only local person who bought a Tesco finest pizza that week, and I expect any fingerprints would have been destroyed/contaminated by then.
if it had not been Joanna in the video clips, I am sure her parents or friends would have said so, so I think we can safely conclude that it was!

[Leonora]

I wouldn't believe what VT stated re the pizza, either.
It has occurred to me that, even if the police had found the pizza in one of the local bins, how would they have known it was the one Joanna bought? I doubt whether she was the only local person who bought a Tesco finest pizza that week, and I expect any fingerprints would have been destroyed/contaminated by then.
if it had not been Joanna in the video clips, I am sure her parents or friends would have said so, so I think we can safely conclude that it was!

Why would the police expect to find the pizza in its package in one of the local bins mrswah? Nobody except Vincent Tabak would dispose of an unopened uneaten pizza, and at the time of DCI Gareth Bevan's appeal for the pizza, the general public had heard of neither VT nor their landlord. Surely the intention behind a massive pizza hunt was to find the packaging, which, if they were lucky, would lead them to the neighbourhood where she had eaten the pizza? Even if they found several packages of that type, a serious police force would have been able to eliminate the ones unconnected with Joanna, by e.g. examination of the sell-by dates and by those finger prints that were recoverable.

But was the pizza appeal serious at all, or was it just a smokescreen? If it was serious, then it was an obvious conclusion for the police that the hungry Joanna had gone somewhere else to eat the pizza, before going home to get abducted, and that the person with whom she ate it didn't want to tell the police, either because they were the killer, or for some entirely innocent reason.

Mr Yeates declared that the police know more than they were telling us, and this still bugs me. What did they know? We now know, officially, that neither the landlord, nor VT, nor Ann Reddrop, were even a gleam in their eye at that early stage. So what was the real purpose of the pizza appeal?

[mrswah]

I think the police wanted us all to think that Joanna had died shortly after getting home, before she had a chance to eat the pizza.  Perhaps that is what they genuinely believed at first. Perhaps they continued to believe it:  who knows. They needed it to be  a Friday evening crime as time went on, as this was when neither CJ nor VT had alibis. The Friday night " maybe" screams coming from up the road must have been very convenient as they put their case together, much more than the "Help Me" heard by a neighbour at mid morning on Saturday. I would suggest that the Saturday scream was far more likely to be significant than those of the Friday night revellers, but it is perfectly possible that none of the screams had anything to do with Joanna.

It is also perfectly possible that Joanna ate the pizza at someone else's house, or she bought it for someone else as an errand, and delivered it on her way home.

I am assuming that the police carried out a thorough check of her freezer !!

[Leonora]

...
if it had not been Joanna in the video clips, I am sure her parents or friends would have said so, so I think we can safely conclude that it was!

Did Mrs Yeates or any other person testify under oath that the distinctive young woman with the green fleece or lining WAS Joanna Yeates? No of course they didn't. Why have a trial at all if you take it for granted that only the defendant is going to lie? Why have a formal identification of the body if "anyone" could see it had to be the missing landscape architect? It was the extent of deceit and manipulation in this case that prompted you to start this forum in the first place.

It has only recently struck me that the court did hear evidence from Mr & Mrs Yeates, via the 2nd statement of the police officer who went to 44 Canynge Road twice after Greg Reardon's 999 call. There must have been something unexpected about this, but the news media made absolutely nothing of it, so we don't know what Joanna's parents said to the police at the time.

[mrswah]

Also, Leonora, I would think that the police always know more than they tell the public-----in all crime investigations. There are very good reasons why they would not tell the public (or even Joanna's parents) everything. This isn't sinister in any way---it is good policing.

[Leonora]

I think the police wanted us all to think that Joanna had died shortly after getting home, before she had a chance to eat the pizza.  Perhaps that is what they genuinely believed at first. Perhaps they continued to believe it:  who knows. They needed it to be  a Friday evening crime as time went on, as this was when neither CJ nor VT had alibis. The Friday night " maybe" screams coming from up the road must have been very convenient as they put their case together, much more than the "Help Me" heard by a neighbour at mid morning on Saturday. I would suggest that the Saturday scream was far more likely to be significant than those of the Friday night revellers, but it is perfectly possible that none of the screams had anything to do with Joanna.

It is also perfectly possible that Joanna ate the pizza at someone else's house, or she bought it for someone else as an errand, and delivered it on her way home.

I am assuming that the police carried out a thorough check of her freezer !!

Mrswah you are being uncharacteristically ingenuous. At the time of the pizza appeal, the police did not OFFICIALLY know that she was DEAD. They CERTAINLY had no OFFICIAL reason at that time to embark on a campaign of brainwashing the public into believing that she went straight home rather than via someone else's home. The screams were not mentioned until after the body had been found and the landlord arrested.

You seem to be saying that you believe that the police were already determined on a campaign of brainwashing at the time when her parents were saying "She was abducted".

Why would a VERY HUNGRY Joanna buy a pizza for someone else? That doesn't make sense either.

I believe that the police did indeed know far more about what really happened very early on, but you are welcome to disagree with my conspiratorial tone. However, the pizza emphatically belongs to the very early phase of the case. If the pizza appeal was what it seemed, then the logical conclusion was that she ate it somewhere else on the way home.

[mrswah]

Yes, she probably did eat it somewhere else---that is the most likely explanation, although there is no reason why a very hungry person might not run an errand for a neighbour or friend if they were passing by the relevant shop. In the early days, the police certainly spent a lot of their time following up this pizza------ it always seemed, to me, rather a waste of time, particularly as (if I remember correctly) they did most of their searching after the bins had been collected.

Either inefficiency, or the pizza was "deflecting attention away from" (I am beginning to love that phrase!) something else???

[[...]]

Why Did the Defence advise Dr Vincent Tabak to make a guilty plea in MAY.. when they wouldn't have had the case files for too long and hadn't researched their own thoroughly investigations into the case??

When did Clegg take over???

[Leonora]

Why Did the Defence advise Dr Vincent Tabak to make a guilty plea in MAY.. when they wouldn't have had the case files for too long and hadn't researched their own thoroughly investigations into the case??

When did Clegg take over???

If you had read the translation that I have posted of Vincent Tabak's diary, then you would know that he was already thinking about pleading guilty in February 2011. That is what he told the so-called prison chaplain, Peter Brotherton, who testified to this under oath. Just for the record: I do not believe this witness perjured himself - but neither did he state that VT had confessed to the killing, contrary to what everyone was told.

Clegg took over some time between February and May 2011. The instructing solicitor Ian Kelcey was also new.

VT's first defence team, Albion Chambers, instructed by Crossman & Co of Radstock, told the magistrate that their client would be applying for bail. If it is true, as has been stated by John, that bail would never be granted to a foreigner charged with such a serious offence, then it would have been amazingly incompetent of these lawyers not to have noticed that their client was a foreigner nor to have anticipated this problem. I am not sure that I really believe they were incompetent.

At any event, the barrister Paul Cook did an about-turn the very next day by telling judge Colman Treacy that his client would not be applying for bail. It seems obvious to me that it was not Vincent Tabak who changed his mind about bail, but that something caused the lawyers to change their minds. It seems obvious to me that he might feel he was in the hands of what Aerial Hunter so bluntly called a "two-bit drongo solicitor" - and would turn to the prison chaplain for advice on how to get a more competent lawyer.

Presumably it was also "drongo" who first put into VT's head the idea of pleading guilty of manslaughter. I really don't know why she did this. A possibility that has emerged during discussions on this forum is the revelation that VT had known Joanna very well, including in the biblical sense, contrary to what he had told his duty solicitor. That would alter everything.

[mrswah]

If VT and Joanna had known each other very well, I am amazed that none of the newspapers sniffed this out. Somebody else must have known.

He pled guilty to manslaughter. If he knew Joanna, it is more likely that he had a motive to kill her than if he hadn't known her. So, why didn't he say so in court, instead of making up that ridiculous story? He was going down anyway, so why not tell the court that he knew her?

I'm inclined to think that he didn't know her-------but I could be wrong.

[Leonora]

If VT and Joanna had known each other very well, I am amazed that none of the newspapers sniffed this out. Somebody else must have known.

He pled guilty to manslaughter. If he knew Joanna, it is more likely that he had a motive to kill her than if he hadn't known her. So, why didn't he say so in court, instead of making up that ridiculous story? He was going down anyway, so why not tell the court that he knew her?

I'm inclined to think that he didn't know her-------but I could be wrong.

This was a COMPLEX case, mrswah. That is why Nine's 100 questions have grown to 299 and still counting. VT made up that ridiculous story to console the prosecutor (who was so disappointed at not being elected Labour MP for Basingstoke in 1997), and thereby to prevent you and me from getting taken seriously by the sort of people who read internet forums. IF you "think" VT didn't know Joanna, how else do you explain his QC Paul Cook's grovelling to the judge at his first appearance in the Crown Court: "Your honour, my client has decided not to apply for bail after all"? - and his subsequent replacement by his own head of chambers, Michael Fitton QC? - who was in turn eventually replaced by William Clegg QC, the barrister known for making prosecutors from Belfast to Belgrade tremble, yet who told the jurors trying VT, "There is probably nothing to like about my client"?

Yes, you could indeed be WRONG, mrswah - so you owe it to your loyal followers either to produce an alternative explanation of Paul Cook QC's extraordinary own-goal, or to get thyself over to the nearest nunnery.

[mrswah]

I think I'd prefer the nunnery, Leonora!

So, do YOU think Vincent knew Joanna "very well"???

[mrswah]

Nigel Lickley-----Labour candidate for Basingstoke in 1997---who would have thought it?

He was beaten by Andrew Hunter------who is a Bamber supporter (have you read the Bamber threads, Leonora???)

Oh dear!!!!!!!

[Leonora]

I think I'd prefer the nunnery, Leonora!

So, do YOU think Vincent knew Joanna "very well"???

It's not what I "think" that counts, but what Crossman & Co and Paul Cook QC thought at the time. First this:

While he was in custody, Vincent Tabak and his duty solicitor prepared and submitted to the police a number of written and signed statements. The first statement, given to police the same day as he was arrested, 20th January 2011, explained his movements on the night Joanna Yeates died... In this statement, Vincent Tabak also insisted that he did not know Joanna Yeates and that he had never spoken to her nor her boyfriend. “Until her picture was shown prominently in the press I would not have recognised her,” he told police. (The Mirror, 18 October 2011)

Then they read this:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/324139/weeping-girl-tipped-off-jo-police/

Tabak knew landscape architect Jo and they worked together on joint schemes
for their respective firms, according to a former colleague of his at
consultant engineers Buro Happold. They said: “They would have met in her
office or on location.” (The Sun, 21 or 22 January 2011)

Why was this former colleague not named nor called to testify at the trial? Why was Colin Port not cross-examined by Lord Leveson about this blatant abuse of the news media to pervert the course of justice? Is it because he was interested only in the lost honour of landlords, but not in justice for skilled non-British EU nationals living and working in the UK? Is it any wonder they changed their minds about applying for bail?