Violent porn, prostitutes and web of lies: Jo’s killer gets life

JOANNA Yeates’s murderer, Vincent Tabak, was obsessed with images of women being strangled during sex.

The killer was jailed for life yesterday after a jury took three days to find him guilty of throttling the 25-year-old.

Her family wished his life to become a “living hell” as his perversions for violent pornography and prostitutes were revealed for the first time.

Jurors were not told how videos found on his laptops had chilling parallels with the way Miss Yeates died.

His pornography depicted blonde women being throttled during sex or bundled into car boots.

Two weeks before murdering the landscape architect, he paid for sex with a prostitute during a business trip to Los Angeles.

But despite being blocked from hearing of his depraved sex secrets, jurors found he was a liar who had been aroused during the attack.

Tabak, 33, showed no emotion as he was found guilty and jailed for life after Mr Justice Field condemned him as “wicked”.

Miss Yeates’s parents, David and Teresa, who were too distraught to attend court yesterday, said in a statement how they “regret that capital punishment is not a possible option”.

Her relatives added: “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.”

Police leading the inquiry paid tearful tribute to the dignity shown by her family and boyfriend Greg Reardon.

Detective Chief Inspector Phil Jones, who led the murder inquiry, attacked Tabak for “living lies”, while Detective Inspector Joe Goff described him as being “a social inadequate”.

Tabak strangled his next-door neighbour before spinning a web of lies and deceit to cover his tracks. He strangled Miss Yeates in a violent confrontation at her flat in Clifton, Bristol, on 17 December last year.

She suffered 43 injuries during a desperate fight for life as he used his 6ft 4in frame to overpower her.

Miss Yeates, who did not even know her killer’s name, is believed to have been dead within about 20 seconds of Tabak grabbing her neck.

For reasons only he knows, Tabak kept her sock and took a Tesco pizza she had bought earlier that night.

He then immediately launched into a cynical bid to cover his tracks.

Tabak carried Miss Yeates’s body in his arms back to his flat next door and put her in his bicycle bag. In a bizarre twist he then went night shopping in Asda with her in his car boot.

While wandering the aisles – picking up rock salt, crisps and beer – Tabak texted his girlfriend, Tanja Morson, to say he was bored. But in reality he was plotting the best way to dispose of Miss Yeates’s body.

Within an hour he had dumped her partially clothed corpse in the foetal position on a snowy verge in Failand, near Bristol.

Just 24 hours later he was drinking champagne with friends as he embarked on a life of lies that would lead police to dismiss him as a concerned neighbour.

He scoured the internet for clues to how he could get off the hook before and after her snow-covered body was found by dog walkers on Christmas Day.

It is believed he may even have been getting sexual satisfaction from looking up pictures of Miss Yeates.

Detectives who recovered his laptops found he was looking at pornographic websites within seconds of looking at pages surrounding the inquiry into her death.

In the weeks that followed, Tabak then repeatedly lied about his actions to his girlfriend, his family, police and his legal team.

Mr Reardon kept his composure in the public gallery as the judge told Tabak: “In my opinion you are thoroughly deceitful, dishonest and manipulative.”

Jailing him for life with a 20-year minimum term, Mr Justice Field attacked him for “a dreadful, evil act committed against a vulnerable unsuspecting young woman in her own home”.

He added: “That wicked act ended the life of a young woman who was entitled to expect a life of happiness and fulfilment.”

He told him he had caused “devastating heartache and distress” to Joanna’s family and to Mr Reardon.

Police closed in when Tabak began to slip up – changing his story over and over again as more evidence emerged as to his guilt – answering “I can’t remember” more than 80 times to questions during his three-week trial at Bristol Crown Court.

From the witness box he wept as he apologised to Miss Yeates’s relatives. The bespectacled engineer – speaking with a shrill Dutch accent – said he would be haunted for the rest of his life “no matter what sentence I get”.

But the jury failed to be swayed by Tabak’s tears. He had robbed relatives of a much-loved girlfriend, sister and daughter.

Miss Yeates and Mr Reardon were described by friends as “the perfect couple”.

The prosecution’s bid to include Tabak’s previous sexual perversions was thrown out twice during the trial.

The judge said it would be inappropriate for the jury to hear how he had cheated on Miss Morson by paying for sex with a prostitute he had met on an escort website.