GUILTY UK - Joanna Yeates, 25, Clifton, Bristol, 17 Dec 2010 #15

[2goldfish]

The pass gone wrong is what they're going with, then. No wonder they're disputing the timings.

Edit: He thinks he was in the flat for 10 minutes. He tried to kiss her after chatting for 10 minutes? Good grief!

I'm not buying it. it doesnt make any sense. sure, some guys foolishly think a woman likes that kind of thing but if she screamed, why didnt he apologise and WALK AWAY. if he went away what did it matter if she kept screaming? you cant convince me that your neighbor telling police or anyone else that you're a pig is somehow worse than a murder charge. that's not reasonable at all.

 

[veggiefan]

so if VT has declared himself of no religion... how will he be sworn in? :waitasec:

There is no requirement to swear on a bible or other holy book. He can opt to publically affirm that he will tell the truth - it is just as legally binding.

 

[Clio]

I'd like to know if he looked up sexual conduct/sexual assault before or after the police mentioned on the news that the motive for her abduction and/or attack could be sexual.

From what I can piece together from the tweets the jury were shown his browsing history in two forms. A chart form depicting the topics he researched and a timeline as to when he looked at which topics.

They seem to have gone through the timeline chronologically

If you assume that a reporter is tweeting the things that are said chronologically then he looked up body decomposition on the 23rd December and sexual conduct some time after that.

In all the twitter feeds, the sexual conduct is mentioned towards the end of the timeline.

Huge huge huge assumption here but it seems he didn't look for that until after she was found.

 

[Cherwell]

Actually I'm with Nausicaa on this. She was a friendly outgoing person by all accounts, and she knew who he was. He wasn't a total stranger off the street.

That is - I can believe that she might have invited him in, but am not convinced that this is what happened here.

I have no difficulty in believing the story that she initially invited him in to be sociable and he misread the signals. But there is a big chunk missed out as to what made her scream and as to her struggle for life. We need evidence about whether he habitually passed her flat door going to his car.

I'd have thought he might well have used that path regularly if he kept his bike in the shed. I don't see any reason to assume it was a private path for the use of Flat 1 only.

 

[2goldfish]

He will be taking the stand on Thursday, Clegg has just said so. CANNOT WAIT to see/hear him cross-examined.

no fool like a damn fool I guess. it cant possibly help him in any way. with that said, I'm glad. I hope it's miserable for him and he suffers at least a little.

 

[masekwm]

Huge huge huge assumption here but it seems he didn't look for that until after she was found.

http://news.sky.com/home/article/15878740

Could be after it was reported...

 

[badhorsie]

As I understand it, the automatic reduction in tariff is only given when a defendant pleads guilty to the charge (which is murder) at the earliest opportunity, which must be before the court case starts.

Sorry, I didn't explain myself. He has admitted guilt to manslaughter, if found NG to murder but guilty to manslaughter, the admission will help him during sentencing

 

[Luna15]

I am wondering why the prosecution wanted it 'out there' about where JY's earings were found in the bedroom - wonder if he will place himself in the bedroom at all if forensics show he was there...

Am I the only one still thinking he could have been in the flat when she got home?

 

[Frodo]

I find it totally implausable.

If someone made a pass at me after I'd invited them in for a Christmas 'hello' and they then put their arm around me and leant in to kiss me I would either fly up from the sofa or turn away and uncomfortably say 'no thanks!'

I wouldn't scream... unless I already had some fear of that person, and in that case I wouldn't invite them in!

I think the suggestion that after ten minutes he decided to make a pass at her and she screamed is massively unbelievable. Believable if he's acted inappropriately during those ten minutes, and scared her.. he'd have to be very ill mannered and forward, as well as having an ego the size of Australia, to make a pass after ten minutes!!!

 

[Firefly75]

it strikes me they are going for the 'inexperienced oaf' who panicked...

I hope they don't try that as another mitigating circumstance. God knows they're trying everything they can find, from discrediting the victim (was she drunk? did she lead him on? did she open the door? why did she stay behind when her boyfriend visited with family?), the perp's lovely character, the appalling betrayal by the Sally Army bloke, the remorse - but, excuse me. How inexperienced can a thirty-something be to take a "Would you like a drink?" and "My boyfriend's away this weekend" as an invitation to touch/kiss/have sex/who knows what else with a neighbour he doesn't even know all that well??? How innocent and oafish can someone his age be to think that he can try it on with someone who's practically a stranger, within ten minutes? It's not a teenager or someone who's not all there we're talking about. And, don't let me forget, the man is supposed to have been in a stable relationship with someone he talked marriage and children with, and that someone had only gone away to a party for a couple of hours that night. Inexperience and lovely character indeed.
Yeah fine - they should judge him for what he did, as QC said: which includes the 40-odd injuries she had, which can't all have been from the few seconds he had his hands around her neck; coming on to her, and not taking 'no' as a 'no'; putting the victim's family through hell while they searched for her. And, oh, since I'm going against any mitigating nonsense, his immediate willingness to cheat on his own girlfriend. I can't help thinking I'd have more respect, and, yes, pity for him if he'd called an ambulance or the police afterwards instead of trying for a perfect crime and pretending everything was normal. I could believe it was all a tragic mistake, perhaps. Judge him for what he did, but don't discount three quarters of it, and don't try to interpret every little thing as a mitigating circumstance."Lovely V.", indeed. I really don't like this guy.

Had he managed to hoist his victim up over that wall, her parents & co. would still be making appeals, hoping against hope that somebody will come forward.

 

[Nausicaa]

I find it totally implausable.

... he'd have to be very ill mannered and forward, as well as having an ego the size of Australia, to make a pass after ten minutes!!!

But some men are ill-mannered and forward and have an ego the size of Australia. And quite a lot of men would like to believe that their pretty young neighbour might just open the door and invite them in for a drink and a ****.

Obviously there are some bits of the story that he's missing out, but the broad outline seems credible to me.

Meanwhile, he's on trial on the question of whether, during the at least 20 seconds he was throttling her, it occurred to him that this might lead to her death or serious injury or whether it was purely a mechanism for short-term silencing and no thought of long-term consequences flashed through his innocent PhD-size brain.

 

[Sammyme]

My house has a similar layout to Joanna's flat in so far as the front door has a kitchen window to the right of it, when looking from inside (or to the left, from outside.) If I am in the house alone, I don't usually answer the door if I am not expecting someone I know or if I do not recognise someone through the door's opaque glass panel. Instead, I will go and lean into the kitchen window and peer around to my left to get a view of who is standing by the front door. When I do that the person awaiting an answer to the doorbell will usually catch sight of me moving or maybe raising the blind a bit and leaning in to get a better look out. I will then either shake my head and use hand gestures to indicate that I have no interest if they are selling something, or if it is something else, such as a neighbour or a delivery man with a parcel for a neighbour, I will indicate for them to hold on and that I will come around to the door.

I don't keep the front door locked, let alone double locked but for someone who does, and who sees friends by arrangement and invitation rather than casual unannounced visits, the above might be how they would come to be looking out to see someone through a window.

 

[whiterum]

I am wondering why the prosecution wanted it 'out there' about where JY's earings were found in the bedroom - wonder if he will place himself in the bedroom at all if forensics show he was there...

Am I the only one still thinking he could have been in the flat when she got home?

Unless he put the body on the bed under the covers until he came back with the bag. Then again that suggestion is daft since no evidence was found on or under the bedcovers only an earring :waitasec:

 

[Cherwell]

Am I the only one still thinking he could have been in the flat when she got home?

No, you're not. Originally I thought it an unlikely scenario and I always favoured the 'invited in, pass gone wrong' as being more plausible. But now we know a lot more, it doesn't fit so well ....

If I'd been defending him, I'd have gone with the cat story!

 

[Firefly75]

Actually I'm with Nausicaa on this. She was a friendly outgoing person by all accounts, and she knew who he was. He wasn't a total stranger off the street.

That is - I can believe that she might have invited him in, but am not convinced that this is what happened here.



I'd have thought he might well have used that path regularly if he kept his bike in the shed. I don't see any reason to assume it was a private path for the use of Flat 1 only.

I can see why she could have invited him in - it's my next door neighbour, he's slipped on the ice, he's brought my cat or my mail, he wants to say something, perhaps a message from my boyfriend, a warning about the icy path, you name it; he's not a random axe murderer, it's Christmas, I've got a drink poured and a pizza in the oven, why not be sociable and offer him a drink.

But why on earth he would have misread that as a come-on is beyond me. Or what he did to make her freak out so much and scream (an attempted kiss, evidently, not that I believe that) and why he failed to notice he was killing her.

 

[edgedweller]

<<"he's on trial on the question of whether, during the at least 20 seconds he was throttling her, it occurred to him that this might lead to her death or serious injury or whether it was purely a mechanism for short-term silencing and no thought of long-term consequences flashed through his innocent PhD-size brain.">>

LOL! I agree - twenty seconds is a long time - did he at no point think about the consequences of this 'holding' her neck? What was he hoping to achieve, if not death or serious injury? That she would stop screaming and say "Oh, OK, now that you've held my neck I have no memory of why you are here and what happened between us. You'd better go now as I have baking to do. Bye".

 

[FiestyFairy]

I suspect she did invite him in for a drink, but his story going for a kiss is rubbish. More likely she went to the bedroom to get something, he followed and lunged at her. Held her by wrists and tried to kiss her. She ran for the door and maybe got outside before she screamed. He pulled her back into the flat and she would stop screaming so he thought she had to be permanently silenced.
He was rational and controlled enough to leave the body in situ while he went to get his bike cover and move the car.
I dont think these are the actions you would take after an accident killing someone

 

[Sammyme]

I find it totally implausable.

If someone made a pass at me after I'd invited them in for a Christmas 'hello' and they then put their arm around me and leant in to kiss me I would either fly up from the sofa or turn away and uncomfortably say 'no thanks!'

I wouldn't scream... unless I already had some fear of that person, and in that case I wouldn't invite them in!

I think the suggestion that after ten minutes he decided to make a pass at her and she screamed is massively unbelievable. Believable if he's acted inappropriately during those ten minutes, and scared her.. he'd have to be very ill mannered and forward, as well as having an ego the size of Australia, to make a pass after ten minutes!!!

Exactly. When I first heard the snippet of evidence that they dropped in the other day that he had put an arm around her back - a woman he didn't know - I marvelled at the sheer presumption, the massive sense of entitlement on his part to do this to a woman on her own, whom he didn't know personally or socially, even slightly.

 

[edgedweller]

I suspect she did invite him in for a drink, but his story going for a kiss is rubbish. More likely she went to the bedroom to get something, he followed and lunged at her. Held her by wrists and tried to kiss her. She ran for the door and maybe got outside before she screamed. He pulled her back into the flat and she would stop screaming so he thought she had to be permanently silenced.

This sounds more plausible to me, too. I note the defence has not mentioned the bruises/grip marks on her wrists or the broken nose. Not minor injuries that you just pick up along the way, like a small graze or bruise.

 

[Nausicaa]

Exactly. When I first heard the snippet of evidence that they dropped in the other day that he had put an arm around her back - a woman he didn't know - I marvelled at the sheer presumption, the massive sense of entitlement on his part to do this to a woman on her own, whom he didn't know personally or socially, even slightly.

I'm lost. Are you saying you think it happened and it's very shocking or it's so shocking it can't have happened and the true story must be something else ?