Jo Yeates’ parents: ‘We regret capital punishment is not an option for our daughter’s murderer’

In a statement read by police outside court, they said they would never get over their loss.

“For us, it is with regret that capital punishment is not a possible option for (Tabak’s) sentence,” they said.

“The best we can hope for him is that he spends the rest of his life incarcerated where his life is a living hell, being the recipient of all evils, deprivations and degradations that his situation can provide.”

The past four weeks had been “more stressful and intense than we ever imagined,” David and Teresa said.

They had attended Tabak’s trial to find out as much as they could about “what really happened” from the time their daughter disappeared to when her murderer was arrested, they said, but they “never considered this trial as a process of justice for Jo”.

“There was never any doubt in our minds that Jo had been murdered and we fully expected [Tabak] to lie when he went into the witness box,” they said.

“We came here with little hope or expectation of hearing what happened on December 17, but needed to see him and hear what he had to say first hand. We saw no emotion or remorse or regret for what he did to Jo. We felt all emotion expressed by him was false. All we heard were words of self-pity.”

They described the trial as having had “little effect on our lives”.

“We have still lost our daughter and our son has lost his sister,” they said. “Our main sorrow is that Jo isn’t allowed to start her own family, have children and achieve her potential.

“We will never get over our loss, how she was murdered and the total lack of respect with which her body was treated.

“We so miss hearing her happy voice and seeing her living life to the full.”

Miss Yeates’s parents told of the many cards and letters of support they had received since their daughter’s disappearance, mostly from people they had never met.