All language subtitles for The Murder Of Joanna Yeates 2025

December 2010

started as a perfectly
ordinary month.

The thing that changed everything

was the weekend when
Joanna Yeates disappeared.

She's vanished,

literally vanished into thin air.

It was an awful journey

for the family of Joanna Yeates.

In front of cameras invited
to record the moment,

they went to the place
where her body was found.

The press interest was immense.

Joanna Yeates.

- Joanna Yeates.
- Joanna Yeates.

Are you able to give us

any detail of what
it was you told them?

I'm afraid not, No.

Anything that I have said,
I have said to the police,

and I'm not prepared to make
any comments to the media.

The press absolutely
annihilated Chris Jefferies.

It was open season.

Much to my astonishment,

I was arrested on
suspicion of Jo's murder.

The police
were clearly affected by

what was being written in the papers.

10,000 pounds
Jefferies is your man.

How on earth
can he have a fair trial?

It was just that insatiable need

to get the exclusives.

It was detracting from the
hunt for Jo Yeates' killer.

This was no longer about Jo.

It was all about the story.

It was almost like
she'd been forgotten,

like her death was incidental.

Go ahead, caller.

Okay, basically,
I'd gone away for the weekend

and I come back to find
my girlfriend's not here

when she was expected to be,

and all her important
stuff is still in the flat,

such as her wallet, her keys,
her phone, her glasses, everything,

and basically I've
just found that now,

thinking that she'd come
home late and she'd be here,

but she isn't.

And what's her name, please?

Joanna Yeates.

My name is Richard Bunston.

In 2010, I was a detective

on Avon and Somerset's major
crime investigation team.

Joanna's boyfriend Greg
had been in Sheffield

and was calling her and
texting her repeatedly

for a couple of days
with no response.

Greg came back to the
flat, rang her phone,

and it was ringing in her pocket.

Her keys were there.

Her shoes were there.
Her coat was there.

She's vanished, literally
vanished into thin air.

Every missing person is
investigated in the same way.

You look at movements,
you look at phone use,

you look at friends,

you look at the last people
they had contact with,

and you build a timeline,
and Jo was no different.

We started inquiries
to check out that

Greg had been where
he said he had been.

It was very easy to ascertain

that he'd been up in Sheffield,
visiting friends and family.

She and Greg had a very
strong relationship.

There was never a suggestion

that they'd been having any
kind of issues or anything.

We didn't know if there
was mental health issues,

drugs or alcohol issues.

Unfortunately, their flat is close to

Clifton Suspension Bridge,
which was a notorious

location for people to
commit suicide from.

But there was absolutely nothing.

She was happy at work, was
popular with her friends.

There was absolutely no
reason for Jo to go missing.

The night that Jo was last seen,

we eventually pieced together
the movements from CCTV.

She went from work to meet
friends in Ram's bar in Bristol,

and then visited a couple
of different supermarkets.

She'd gone to the
shops, bought some cider,

told her friends that she was
gonna be baking all weekend.

We were able to find the receipt

for items that she'd purchased
that evening on her way home,

so the assumption therefore
is that she's got home

and has gone missing from home.

My name is Christopher Jefferies.

I was Joanna Yeates' landlord.

My flat was on the first floor

on the other side of
the building to Jo's.

When Joanna Yeates disappeared,

the first thing that
her boyfriend Greg did

was to give me a ring.

Greg wanted to know whether
I had any idea at all

as to where she might be.

I had met Jo once or twice

after Jo and her boyfriend moved in.

I can't claim to have
known her particularly well

because she'd only been
in there a month or two

at the time of her disappearance.

There was one occasion.

There was a leak into her
flat from the flat above,

so I was contacted to
see what could be done.

She was very, very pleasant.

She was perhaps a little bit nervous.

I say she was a little bit nervous

because she was just
slightly hesitant

at letting me into the flat.

Everyone in that building

needed to be treated
as a potential suspect.

I was interviewed by the police

following Jo's disappearance.

On the night that Jo disappeared,

I had arrived back in the
evening at about nine o'clock.

I had been to the gym.

I went straight into my flat

and I spent the rest of
the evening in the flat.

The police searched the
grounds of the house.

People, they were baffled as
to what had happened because

there was no sign of a break-in.

I had keys to the flat.

But there was absolutely

no evidence or clues
or idea where she was.

Like any big city.

Bristol had more than its
fair share of missing persons.

There are so many of those
almost on a daily basis,

and not all of them end
up being publicized.

Jo's disappearance was
completely out of character.

We need to publicise this.

We need to try and find Jo
and find out what's happened to her.

A press release from
Avon and Somerset Police

arrived in our inbox,
which notified us

that Joanna Yeates had been missing

after a night out in Clifton.

You engage with the media

because you need the public's help.

The dream scenario is that
you engage with the media,

you get the messages out there,

and all being well, very quickly.

The person concerned is found

and they're found safe and well.

But the job of a crime
reporter isn't necessarily

just to regurgitate what
the police are telling them,

but actually to tell the
public the whole story

as much as they possibly can.

As a local crime reporter,
you go door knocking,

and I recall going up to
her house down Canynge Road,

trying to speak to neighbors,
just trying to piece together

if anyone had seen
her, heard from her.

My flat was on the first floor.

Joanna had rented one
of the garden flats

on the other side of the building.

I remember buzzing on the
buzzer and Christopher answered.

He didn't come down.

He just answered on the intercom,
but he didn't want speak.

I was going to avoid the press

as far as possible.

Jo's friends had
set up a Facebook page

to try and find her.

This is only 15 years ago,

but the social media landscape
back then wasn't a landscape,

it was a garden.

That was really one of the
first instances in a major case

that we have seen people use
social media as a tool to help.

But as social media
was in its infancy,

the most effective way

to get those kind of
messages out to people

quickly and effectively
was to use the press.

On the 21st of
December, Jo's mum and dad

did their first media
appeal to the public.

If you've got to the
stage where, quite early on,

the family are sitting
in front of the cameras,

you kind of know that there
are severe concerns about this

and there are big, big worries.

With missing people,

sometimes the public can become
quite cynical about them.

You need to appeal to
their hearts and minds,

and as much as a police officer

can stand in front of a camera

and give a perfectly good
interview, when you've got parents

sitting in front of cameras in tears,

who cannot be moved by that?

Who is not gonna want
to help in some way?

Jo, whatever the reason

that you have not been in
touch over the last few days,

we want you to know
that we love you dearly.

She's a white female.

It's powerful.

It really is powerful.

When Joanna Yeates went missing,

I was asked to go up to Bristol

to try and find out backgrounds,

to go and meet friends and
family, to befriend people,

talk to them, hopefully
build up some sort of trust.

Normally, you really had to

work at getting a
story over Christmas.

Everything was closed.
Parliament's not sitting.

There's no stories going on,

and suddenly we've got a lovely girl

with a nice job and a good background

and she's completely vanished
off the face of the earth.

There's a phenomenon called
missing white woman syndrome,

and that's 100% Jo.

She was young. She was engaged.

She was beautiful,

blonde,

white,

middle class.

Unfortunately, the
media don't always give

the same amount of attention
to people that go missing

that aren't of the same colour,

that aren't of the same
socioeconomic background.

She would be someone

who our readership
would be concerned about

and we'd want to follow the story.

You mentioned there that
Greg tried to get in touch with her.

Where you have a distraught family

who are desperately
appealing for information

about a missing member
of their family,

you don't want a bun fight

that you might get at some
political press conference.

We miss her so much.

Everybody's on their best behavior,

trying to be as
sensitive as they can,

and it's good practice for reporters,

before the press conference starts,

to nominate one reporter
to ask the questions,

and on this occasion, we chose
a woman reporter to do it.

You're doing very well.

This might sound terribly
sexist, but I think we felt that

her parents might respond
better to a female journalist

because they were talking
about their missing daughter.

Forgive me for asking this,

but when you go through
all these scenarios,

you must have contemplated

that there could be
a dreadful outcome.

How do you cope with that?
Mrs. Yeates, I'll ask you that.

I go numb.

With all this snow around,
I sometimes picture her lying.

If, for some reason, she had
collapsed or had been discarded

and she was alive,

with all the snow
and the cold, I just

can't bear the thought of it.

I don't cope with it.

The awful thing about
these press conferences,

that as soon as
somebody gets tearful,

you hear all the cameras
going off, click, click click.

It looks terribly cynical.

I don't think you can avoid all that.

Images of families who are
making appeals tearful and crying

are inevitably going to be the images

that will be used in the
newspapers and on TV,

but you don't want the
people making the appeals

to have some terrible breakdown.

This was a chance to talk
to those who loved her,

who've known her since
the moment she was born,

who could tell us
much more about her,

and by them talking lucidly

and almost happily
about the real Joanna,

it's the sort of information
that might just prompt

a witness watching my
program to come forward

and tell the police what
might have happened to her.

She loved life.

She loved doing things
with her boyfriend.

She loved doing things
around the home.

She was a really loving daughter.

Her father was quite
convinced in the early days

that she had been abducted and
that someone was holding her.

Please let her go.

Just let her go if you've got her.

Let her go and let
her come back to me

and her dad and her family.

Please.

If you have her, or if she is dead,

please tell somebody where she is.

- We want her back.
- We want her back.

Forever.

It was unimaginable horror

that that family were experiencing.

I still see their faces.

Is there
anything else that you feel

that we've left out that you'd
like to say at this stage?

- No, I don't think so.
- No.

Thank you very much indeed.

Thank you.

There were a number of
mysteries surrounding the case.

One of the most high-profile ones was

the story of the pizza box.

Okay.

I have here a pizza,

which is similar in all respects
to the one we believe she purchased.

Which is a Tesco's Finest tomato,
mozzarella, and basil pesto pizza.

As part of the investigation,
we had footage of Jo.

One of the pieces of
footage we had of her was

that on her way home
from the pub in Bristol,

she'd bought a pizza.

The receipt for that
pizza was in her flat,

but the box, the pizza
itself, and the packaging

was nowhere to be seen.

When you've got
very little to go on,

you look at every
possible line of inquiry.

So, if someone saw a pizza box

sticking out of a bin
outside a flat somewhere,

is that the house where Jo ended up?

That would be worth following up.

I can't remember any police force

ever asking about a missing pizza.

The pizza became the
subject of more media interest

than we actually had anticipated.

Britain is full of
armchair detectives,

and if you throw in a
bizarre clue like a pizza,

it adds interest.

If you could
just hold that up again,

I'll just get a close-up.

I'm trying to
hold it as steady as I can.

That's all right.

The press became
absolutely obsessed with it.

Did she eat it?

And if not,
well, what happened to it?

It's now a story that is
getting national importance.

Christmas is a time

where people gravitate
towards their loved ones.

Here is a family that
had their Christmas plans

and then suddenly
their beloved daughter

was nowhere to be seen.

There was this great contrast

between everybody around that area

walking around with
smiles on their faces,

looking forward to Christmas,

people coming back
in the fading light

at the end of the day,

laden down with bags full
of Christmas shopping,

looking forward to parties,

and amidst all the happiness,

there was this looming tragedy.

Christmas Day, 2010.

I'm sat at home with my
family and my young son.

We had just opened his
first Christmas present

and my mobile went.

It was the control room inspector

asking me to put my shoes on
and drive to Longwood Lane

because a body has been found,

and the initial feeling
is that it's Jo Yeates.

I drove up to Longwood Lane

and certainly didn't
want to be driving there.

I felt incredibly sad.

I felt incredibly sad.

The people walking
the dogs saw a mound.

It snowed heavily in
the preceding days,

but the husband spotted

what he thinks was a pair of
jeans sticking out of the snow,

and he then discovered that
it was, in fact, a body.

Jo was in a very shallow
ditch up against the wall,

partially covered in leaves,

as if someone had maybe
made a very rough attempt

to disguise the body in some way.

She was preserved by the cold.

We knew it was Jo.

She wasn't wearing any footwear.

She only had a T-shirt and jeans on.

She wasn't dressed for the weather,

and the indications were that

the killer had probably
taken her there

and dumped her using a vehicle.

The wall was examined and
there was evidence that

Jo had come into contact
with that wall quite high up.

The working theory was that

the killer had tried to
put her over that wall.

On the other side of
that wall is a quarry.

Had that been the case, her
body may never have been found

or certainly wouldn't have
been found very quickly.

Of all the days

to have to tell a family that
their loved one is deceased,

you know, not Christmas day, please.

What could possibly
be worse as a parent?

On a bleak December afternoon,

it was an awful journey for
the family of Joanna Yeates.

In front of cameras invited
to record the moment,

they went to the place
where her body was found,

I've never experienced
media interest like it.

It was on every channel.

The family of Joanna Yeates.

Of Joanna Yeates.

Joanna Yeates.

This was the biggest story
in the country at the time.

My phone was just red hot.

There was this insatiable
demand for information.

The biggest question was,
"Is this a murder inquiry?"

And we just had to keep saying,

"We've got to wait now for the
outcome of the post-mortem."

"Well, when's that gonna be?"

Jo's a scene, so she needed
to be dealt with forensically,

but she was frozen,
so there's certain things

that needed to be done
in a systematic way

before we could take
swabs of her body

to see what people have
come into contact with her.

The post-mortem took three days.

When Jo's body was
discovered on Christmas Day,

it obviously led the
TV news that day,

but for printed
publications, actually,

most of them don't come out
at all on Christmas Day,

and a lot of them don't come out
on the 26th of December either,

which meant that they were
48 hours behind the TV news.

They had a lot of catching up to do,

and they needed to do it quick.

Newspapers really wanted
the information then.

They wanted everything then,

and the police were then
suddenly under pressure.

We cannot say anything until
the pathologist comes forward

and gives us a cause of death.

There would've been even
more pressure on journalists

to come up with the next
story, a follow-up story.

What would it be? Who
would it be about?

Were the police saying
anything more about the body?

How did she die?

The police are
keeping an open mind.

How was she killed? By what method?

It's up to the police to give
tidbits to the journalists

so they can write their stories,

because if they don't do that,

then it leads to all
sorts of speculation.

Between Christmas
and New Year, 2010,

Bristol became wild,
wild west country

in terms of media speculation.

On the morning of
the 28th of December,

I had a phone call from
the family liaison officer

saying Jo's family
were extremely upset

by what's been printed in
the national newspapers.

I got hold of the
papers and I felt sick.

The papers had written
that they believe

that Jo Yeates had been
held captive for eight days,

had been dumped unconscious
in Longwood Lane,

and had died of hypothermia.

I mean, I can only imagine

the distress caused to the family.

So I phoned one of the journalists

and said, "What on
earth have you written?"

And his words have stayed
with me ever since.

He said, "It was just something

that was being bandied about,
so we thought we'd use it.

You weren't giving us anything."

I was speechless.

I'm almost speechless recalling it.

So I said, "We are about

to issue the post-mortem results now,

and you are gonna have an
awful lot of egg on your face."

The post-mortem showed that

she certainly didn't
die from hypothermia.

It was from compression of
the neck or strangulation.

We'd now jumped a huge jump

from a missing person
to a murder inquiry.

On the ground in Bristol at
the time, it was pretty crazy.

TV trucks parked outside
Joanna's flat in Canynge Road.

You had two or three reporters

for every national
newspaper in the city.

There was a real frenzy

in terms of trying to contact
anyone who knew Joanna.

There were photographers
and reporters hanging around,

sitting in their cars, keeping warm,

waiting to talk to neighbors

or to relatives if they turned up.

Above all, we hoped
that Greg Reardon,

Joanna's boyfriend, would turn up,

but anybody living
within that mansion house

that was divided up into
various flats, any neighbors,

we just wanted to find
out more about Joanna,

talk to people who knew her.

Joanna's home was in Clifton.

Most people look to Clifton as

one of the most affluent
areas in Bristol.

If this had happened in

one of the council
estates in South Bristol,

they're like the rougher areas,

everyone would've known Joanna,

but you come to Clifton and
you start door knocking,

a lot of people don't even
know who lives next door.

Chris Jefferies,
he was the landlord.

He would've known Joanna Yeates.

He'd been taking her rent,

so that would be a good
starting point, really.

We became aware that
Christopher Jefferies

had spoken to the
police a second time.

He became an important figure
for us to try and talk to.

My second statement,
it was something that,

when I was interviewed by the police

following Jo's disappearance,

I'd entirely forgotten about
and subsequently remembered.

The night that Jo disappeared,

as I was walking up the driveway
to go into the building,

I was vaguely aware of somebody

or some people leaving the premises

by the path at the
side of the building,

which led to the front
door of Jo's flat.

We wanted to ask him, you
know, what he'd told the police,

I was leaving the building
to go and do some shopping.

That was how everything began.

You had made
some comment, which was then-

He came out and he opened
the gate and he walked out

and my colleague asked him
what he'd told the police.

That I saw that.

I made some comment,

which was very, very, very
much vaguer than that.

He seemed rather irritated,
but he was prepared to speak

and we hadn't heard
him talk at that point.

Are you able to give us

any detail of what
it was you told them?

I'm afraid not, no.

Anything that I have said,
I have said to the police,

and I'm not prepared to make
any comments to the media.

So you didn't see-

I was absolutely not prepared

to give anybody any statement.

And I thought he's just gonna
walk off 'cause he's annoyed

but then, as my colleague
asked him again a question,

"Did you definitely see her?"

He kind of turned back

and walked back a couple
of paces to the camera.

He did have a slightly
strange look on his face.

He wasn't smiling, but there
was a kind of sense that

he didn't mind too much the
attention of the camera.

You didn't see her that evening?

I certainly cannot say that

I saw Joanna Yeates that evening, no.

Thank you very much.

He turns again and
goes towards his car,

at which point a
couple of photographers

just come up to him, and as
he's trying to get into the car,

snapping pictures of him.

The journalists have found out
that this statement has changed,

and you do have to ask,
how did they know that?

As a journalist, you
always protect your sources.

It must have been, at least
to a degree, police-related.

Obviously, I can't prove it.

That was something that

Avon and Somerset Police
vehemently denied.

I don't know this, but I think

that if this information was
leaked, it was done so that

we focus more on him than
we would've done otherwise

because the police were
becoming suspicious about him.

I was just on the
point of getting up

when I became aware that

somebody was knocking
on the door of my flat.

I went to the door, asked who it was.

"It's the police, Mr. Jefferies."

Much to my astonishment,

I was arrested on
suspicion of Jo's murder.

When an arrest is made,
there are certain things

that we as a police
force are able to say,

and there are certain things
that we are not able to say,

and one of the things that
we never say upon arrest only

is you do not name an
individual who's been arrested.

You name an individual
once they've been charged,

because we're in a country where

we assume that you're
innocent until proven guilty.

We issued a statement

saying that a 65-year-old
man had been arrested.

We knew Christopher
Jefferies was 65.

You didn't have to be Sherlock
Holmes to work out that

the man arrested was
Christopher Jefferies.

What the media started doing
is phone police station's up,

and would say, "Just checking.

You know, is it in your custody suite

that you've got Chris
Jefferies at the moment,

or is it New Bridewell station
or is it Trinity Road?"

A member of staff

in the front office of
one of the police stations

got kind of tricked
into admitting that

Chris Jefferies was in
custody at that station

at that given time and
was devastated by it.

When he was arrested,
the most important thing

was to assist Christopher
at the police station.

When you're advising a
suspect at a police station,

you obviously have the choice of

whether your client answers
questions or doesn't.

If a client has already
given an account,

unless there is something in addition

that he needs to speak about,
there is no reason why

the client should be
answering questions,

and Christopher had given
two full accounts in two statements,

but Christopher was very
keen to assist the police

with any further
questions that they had

because that's how Christopher is.

He said he was at home.

He lived alone, so he
couldn't get that validated.

He didn't have a TV, so you
can't even get any timings

of what he may have been doing,
watching a certain program.

There was no sign of a forced entry

and he had a set of keys to the flat.

- When Christopher was [arrested, ]
- he was very naive.

He expected to attend the police
station, give his account,

and almost immediately be released,

and of course that wasn't the case.

Following Chris Jefferies' arrest,

there's a whole new forensic
procedure that is adopted

and his flat is subject
to intense scrutiny.

There were some trainers found
belonging to Jefferies in the flat

that looked like they
had blood on them.

Everybody assumed that this was it.

This was the missing
piece of the jigsaw.

This was gonna be Jo's blood.

During the police interviews,

they did mention this phone call.

It was made by Vincent Tabak

when he'd gone back to the
Netherlands at Christmas.

Vincent Tabak was a tenant
who had been living in

the other garden flat
next door to Jo's.

He suggested that

Christopher Jefferies' car
was facing a different way

the morning after Jo had disappeared.

And that was at odds with
Chris Jefferies' account.

I pointed out to them

that there was a
very good explanation

for the fact that my car had moved

because it was rather snowy.

I was going to an event
that particular evening.

I wanted to reverse up the driveway,

and because it was snowy and icy,
the wheels were spinning.

So I knocked on the door
of Vincent Tabak's flat

to say, would he mind
giving the car a push

so that I could get up the slope?

Of course, he said,
"What are neighbors for?"

There would've been a lot of
emphasis put on that phone call.

They took it seriously.

While I was in custody,
slightly naively,

it didn't actually occur to me that

anybody might be remotely interested

in the fact that I was in custody

That morning, I had a
number of telephone calls.

People were calling me to
go and buy the newspapers.

I went to the shop,

purchased a pile of newspapers,
and flicked through them.

Wow.

So, on the 31st of December,

the press absolutely
annihilated Chris Jefferies.

I can't remember a
suspect in a big case

being quite subjected to
that almost vilification.

It was just appalling.

I've never had a client
who has had such coverage.

It was a feeding frenzy.

Chris Jefferies was tried
and convicted by the media

long before we'd ever sat down
and finished questioning him.

The newspapers just
tore his life apart,

turning up pupils who'd known him
when he was a teacher years before,

and they were saying
dreadful things about him.

I think what people
vividly remember is

the image of him with blue hair.

My hair never looked like that.

I used,

at the time, a shampoo

to give the hair a
very slight blue tint,

but it certainly was not anything

remotely resembling the photograph.

But that, of course,
wasn't the only thing,

The worst thing I remember

were quotes from anonymous females

who were his pupils
many years before,

saying how uncomfortable
they felt around him,

how creeped out they felt,

and there was also somebody

who'd been a tenant
in one of the flats

who accused him of
being a peeping tom.

The implication was
that she was a female,

and, you know, he had some
unhealthy sexual interest in her,

and, again, in the context
of him being identified as

the suspect for Joanna's murder,

it couldn't really be more damning.

The police were saying

there was no evidence that
she'd been sexually assaulted,

but a pretty young woman murdered,

there's a kind of unspoken
sexual element to it

in most people's minds.

That all added to this idea
that he was a sexual deviant.

That's why he's been arrested.

The police were scratching
around for a motive,

so my concern was that,
what effect does this have

on the police and the investigation?

Bizarre links were being made

between him and a
convicted paedophile.

There was no shred
of truth whatsoever

in the allegations
that were being made.

The only link that they had

was that they had both
owned the same flats,

but it was years in between.

It had changed hands two
or three times since.

There was no link to be made there.

They used quotes such as,
"He was really creepy.

Everyone thought he was gay."

It implies that being gay
makes you a paedophile,

and it does smack of
massive homophobia.

The media were looking at

potential links with other
unsolved murders of females,

particularly those around the
same age as Joanna Yeates.

Claudia Lawrence, who'd vanished
in York the year before.

There was Melanie Hall from
the late '90s who'd vanished.

Perhaps the most intriguing

was the case of Glenis Carruthers,

who had vanished a few hundred yards

from where Joanna
Yeates had disappeared.

If you look at the layout
of the newspaper pages,

Jo's completely absent.

The pictures of Chris
Jefferies are huge

and the pictures used of Jo

are either thumbnail tiny,
or in some cases, not at all.

This was no longer about Jo.

This was about this man,

and it was almost like
her death was incidental.

My phone again rang and
said the Attorney General

is commenting on
Christopher's case on Radio 4.

Dominic Grieve,

who was the attorney
general at that point,

he went on the World
at One on BBC Radio 4

to slap the wrist of the
media, to tell them off,

to basically say,
"You're going too far."

The Attorney General is

the sort of chief legal advisor

to the crown and the government.

It takes pretty bad press coverage

for the attorney general to step in.

It is highly unusual
and it just goes to show

that they had not
only crossed a line.

They had done some
sort of hurdle over it.

Of course, it was welcomed,

but a lot of the damage had been done

by the time the attorney
general had made those comments.

The coverage was extensive.

The content of some of the articles

was driving you towards thinking that

Christopher Jefferies
might be guilty,

and that is potentially
very problematic.

If there's lots of
information in those articles

that don't actually make
it into the courtroom,

then you may potentially have jurors

who remember things that they read

and they may be reaching
conclusions not based

from the evidence that they're
hearing in the courtroom.

How on earth can he have a fair trial

when there's been all this
negative publicity about him?

There were huge
pressures to come up with

big agenda-setting scoops.

Massive, massive pressure.

In 2010, the British
press was just coming out of

what has been described
as their worst year ever.

Circulation was
dropping dramatically,

and some publications,
such as The Mirror,

had actually seen a 55%
decrease in circulation

over that past decade.

The advertising revenue was
taking a massive plummet,

and at this point,

paginations were having
to decrease because of it

and it was looking pretty bleak.

The staff were under
pressure to get the story

because they know the
circulation is falling.

Bad news sells.

Murder is one of the strongest,

highest news values that there is.

The proprietor would ring
the editor on a Saturday night.

Wherever Rupert Murdoch
was in the world,

he would call in,
speak to the editor,

and if he wasn't happy,

there would just be
silence on the phone.

There was huge pressure
to get the story.

Don't worry how you get it.

Following Vincent Tabak's
phone call from the Netherlands

on the 30th of December,

DC Thomas was sent
out to interview him.

She got a really bad
feeling about Tabak.

Forensic strategy for a murder,

you take samples and
elimination swabs

from anybody that could
assist the inquiry.

She requested that he provide

a voluntary sample
of DNA, a mouth swab.

He seemed a little bit
weary of that process.

When DC Thomas returned
with the evidence

that she got from Tabak,
I spoke to her

and I knew that she had had
a bad feeling about Tabak,

and when I read the
statement, I did as well.

He made comments about his movement

the night that Jo was last
seen that would have put him

in proximity of the front
door of Joanna's flat.

Something wasn't quite right,

but when DC Thomas
presented the evidence

to certain senior officers,

it's fair to say that
they didn't embrace it.

All attention was still
going on Jefferies.

The press, the media, it was poison,

and it was certainly a
distraction for the police,

and I think no doubt influenced

mindsets of detectives
on that inquiry.

Confirmation bias means that

you pin everything on one
individual being responsible

and you only seek information
to confirm your suspicions

and you'll ignore or edit
or miss out information

that suggests they're
perhaps not guilty.

I believe confirmation bias

was prevalent in this investigation,

and it's a very dangerous mindset
for an investigator to have.

At 4:00 PM on the 31st,

there was an extension granted
by the magistrate's court

in order to further question
and detain Christopher.

Hearing that they'd got an
extension to keep holding him

did suggest that they had
some credible evidence.

We'd felt that the
police had got their man.

Four, three, two, one!

The media were camped
outside Jo's flat,

sat in vehicles in the cold,

waiting for an opportunity
to take photos of

detectives coming or
police doing searches.

They were everywhere.

Everyone wanted an angle.

The Sun, The Mirror, The Express,

The Mail, The News of the World.

The pressure was on to get a
splash as good as the last,

because you can't rest on
your laurels in newspapers.

You need to keep
feeding your readership

and the readership
needed to be entertained.

No one's forcing you to
pick up a tabloid paper

if you don't want to.

As a local crime
correspondent, it's not fun.

You have scores of journalists

competing over the same story.

The tabloids were
offering money to people

who lived inside the
cordon up in Clifton

near where Jo lived,

just so they could
sit in their lounges

and watch and look for
any police activity.

One of Jo's friends was
offered 20,000 pounds

to speak to a tabloid paper.

You have people
throwing money around,

paying for interviews,
paying for information,

which I didn't have.

Then I have my editor saying,
"Why haven't you got this story?"

And I'm thinking,
"Because it's rubbish."

Many of the comments in the
papers were unsubstantiated.

They were unnamed sources.

The Sun ran a story

with a woman who didn't
want to be named,

saying that Chris
Jefferies had stalked her.

The story was that he had chatted
to her at a local library,

and that whenever she
came into the library,

he would smile at her.

He said nice things
about her hair colour,

that he had chatted to
her in the supermarket

about the contents of
her supermarket trolley,

and that when she eventually said

that he was making her
feel uncomfortable,

he'd said something like,

"What do you take me for,
some kind of pervert?"

I think using the word "stalking"
was perhaps unreasonable.

I wonder why the woman
didn't want to be named.

An unnamed source could be

me talking to a senior police officer

and the police officer saying,
"We've got our man there.

We've got our man."

An unnamed source could be

somebody who knows the
person who's been arrested

and says, "I'll talk to you,

but I'll talk to you off the record."

In other words, you
can't name him or her.

The journalist must
always know their identity.

However, you as a journalist
never have to reveal your sources,

so you will never ever
have to give that name,

those details to anybody,
even in a courtroom.

So,

what stops you from making it up?

Very little.

The newspapers didn't really care

whether what they were saying
about Christopher was true,

because, ultimately,
I think they were gambling on

him being charged and
convicted of murder.

It was probably a calculated risk.

They had a look at the
bottom line and thought,

"Well, we might get sued,

but look at how much
we're gonna be making."

The editor of The Mirror,
Richard Wallace,

said they'd been told by the police

that Chris Jefferies was their man

in an off-the-record briefing.

Had Christopher Jefferies

actually been convicted of
the murder of Joanna Yeates,

from a libel perspective,

it would be very hard to
start mounting a claim.

There is no such thing
as defaming a murderer.

You can't lower that
person's reputation

because they don't have a
good reputation to start with.

The newspapers were so convinced

that he was about to be charged,

it was almost like
it was open season.

Whilst Christopher
was in police custody,

on occasions, he did
find it difficult.

He was a person of good character,

never been in trouble before.

He would've been in a
completely new environment,

somewhat intimidating, being
in a cell, being handcuffed.

At the back of one's mind,
one starts to feel,

well, possibly there is
something that I have done

that I've forgotten about

and they have discovered
some incriminating evidence.

The police were clearly affected by
what was being written in the papers.

There were newspaper articles
which portray Christopher

as having a bad temper.

Thereafter, in the interview,

the police are asking Christopher

as to whether he has
a bad temper or not.

I was obviously very
forthcoming in giving them

all sorts of details and
answers to their questions

since I knew I had nothing to hide.

Christopher said

he did have a bad temper
on certain occasions.

Christopher said he had a bad temper

for effect when teaching.

He could be quite
critical of bad grammar,

and I'm certainly aware
that he pointed out

a few inaccuracies in
the interview process,

which can probably only make people

feel more prickly towards him.

They were obviously
getting very frustrated

that they weren't getting anywhere.

They tried to put a bit
more pressure on me.

The evidence against
him was extremely flimsy.

The trainers found
belonging to Jefferies

in the flat with blood on them,

it turned out to be beef blood.

- Good evening.
- Within the last hour,

it's been confirmed that the
landlord of Joanna Yeates

is no longer in police custody.

Christopher was
released on police bail,

which means he is still a suspect.

After the three days I'd
spent in the police station,

I certainly was very angry
because I remember that

the first thing that I
said to the solicitor was,

"Somebody has got to
be sued for this."

We were very concerned for him.

The press were portraying
him in a very, very bad way.

Had somebody wanted to be
aggressive towards him,

threaten him, his address was
public, his house distinctive.

Of course, his photographs
were in all the papers.

It's just extremely dangerous.

Christopher couldn't go
back to his own house,

so essentially he went
back to a friend's house.

Christopher had no clothing

because they took all the
clothing for forensics,

so he felt that it
would be a good idea

to go to the local shopping center.

The last thing we wanted was

for somebody to either
attack him, abuse him,

and put him in a worse
position mentally or physically

than what he was.

We made sure that he lay low.

One of the points that I raised was

perhaps Christopher
changing his appearance.

And it was arranged

that I would go

late one afternoon
to the hairdresser.

Time for a change.
Time for a new look.

Christopher's life was disrupted.

He has to live with
what was said about him

and the way he was
portrayed in the media

for the rest of his life,

and I'm sure, even now, if
he's walking down the street,

someone will say,

"There's the guy that was
nicked for Joanna Yeates."

When Christopher
Jefferies is released,

we are then back to square one.

There's still a killer on the loose.

There is understandably
always concern.

In tandem with the
criminal investigation,

the police were doing

higher-profile patrols,
enhanced patrols,

more officers on the streets,
trying to reassure people.

A uniformed officer would turn up

to kind of deliver that
reassuring message,

warning women that, you know,

there's no great danger,
but just be careful,

particularly walking home at night.

The difficulty was that
there didn't appear to be

any other remotely obvious suspects.

And the killer hadn't been found.

That led to criticism
of the investigation.

Scrutiny then came back
on the police on things

that they could have, should
have done differently,

and that the relationship
with the media

became more fractious at that point,

The interest was still huge.

I was still down in Bristol.

I was under pressure
to do daily reports

to keep the whole Joanna
Yeates story going.

The media are clamouring
for their next headline,

their next update.

They want more information,

and if you can't provide it to them,

then they will look elsewhere,

and one of the things
you commonly see,

you see it a lot on TV,
they will bring out experts.

Messages are mixed

and even the experts are confused.

ITN took him up to the location

where Jo's body had been
found to seek his expert view.

This chat raised a number of,
in his professional opinion,

failings there in
the Somerset Police.

He found some litter at the scene.

I would've expected
to come along here

and seen absolutely nothing,

certainly nothing that
DNA could be taken from.

Who is this person,
first and foremost?

What gives him the credentials

and the expertise to to criticise us?

I was at the scene the
day Jo's body was found,

and I know that they didn't
leave a stone unturned

in terms of looking for evidence.

The upshot was that

Avon and Somerset
Police were so angry,

they banned ITN from
press conferences.

I think it was a
brave decision to make,

and I think sometimes you do
need to do things like that

because some elements of the media

do have this aura about them
where they feel untouchable

and they think that they
can push the boundaries

and get away with things.

I thought that was bizarre.

I thought that was
petulant of the police.

The police were cutting their
nose off to spite their face

because they were getting
rid of the possibility

that an ITN viewer

might be the very witness
that they're looking for.

The ban lasted no longer
than 48 hours in the end,

and one of the reasons
that it was lifted,

more than anything else,
is because of the backlash.

We've got the right to ask questions.

We've got a right for
this and a right for that

and freedom of the press.

That became the story,

and it was detracting from
what we needed the story to be,

which was the hunt
for Jo Yeates' killer.

The next day, The Sun
ran a front page story

saying that Joanna Yeates
was missing a ski sock

when her body was found.

Perhaps that was the murder weapon.

Maybe that's why a sock was missing,

that he'd strangled her with it,

or it had been taken as
a trophy by the killer.

The trouble was, a
couple of days before,

the investigation team had said that

she'd been fully clothed
when she was found.

The media felt like they
were withholding information.

One of Jo's socks was missing,

but there are certain things
you don't always tell the media

because if an independent
witness comes forward

and says something,
there might be a detail

that you haven't put
into the public domain,

that if they come to you with it,

you kind of think, "We've
got a credible lead here."

Once it became clear that

certainly at least one element
of the media knew about it,

we were gonna have to do
something about this now.

I'm here this morning to talk
to you about a missing sock.

We ended up buying a similar sock,
putting it into a case,

and holding it up at
the press conference.

The Sun often lead the rest of us
on those kind of stories.

Yeah, they clearly had a good source.

How did they find out?

We didn't know where
the media got that from.

I know it caused some concern
to the investigation team.

The murder investigation
team had a briefing room

that doubled up to brief the media.

There were some suggestions.

I wonder if the media
have bugged that room.

I wonder if they're getting
snippets of information

from bugging it,

but to my knowledge,
none were found.

I think, from that point
onwards, the relationship

between the media and the
police definitely changed.

The investigation team closed ranks.

By mid-January, the
relationship between

Avon and Somerset
Police and the media

was not in the best of places.

It became increasingly hard

to find any new angles to the story.

The Sun offered 50,000 pounds

for information that would lead to

the successful capture
of Jo's killer.

It is a little bit unusual
for a newspaper organization

to put up that amount of money,

especially if you think about
the financial dire straits

that the newspaper industry
were in at the time.

It was a very clever way of
keeping the story in the press.

There wasn't much happening

in terms of the police investigation.

Whatever work was going on

behind the scenes with forensics

was kept really tight because
of the media interest.

We didn't want any more speculation,

So when we discovered

that they were going
to do a reconstruction,

that was another story for me to do

to keep the Joanna Yeates
story in our bulletins.

When they started filming it,

we were there filming
from a distance,

and I think the police
were a bit annoyed

that we discovered it.

They didn't like the idea of
them losing control over it.

I remember the actress who
looked remarkably like Joanna,

wearing the same white skiing jacket

that you can see in those CCTV images

of her last movements on the night.

We'd all got used to reconstructions
being done a week after,

because if you do it a week after,

at the same time, you're far
more likely to find people

who remember what they
were doing at that time.

It seemed odd to wait a month
to do that reconstruction,

and there were genuine
questions about, you know,

well, where is this
investigation going?

The irony was that

the reconstruction that
was shot never got shown.

Police in Bristol say

that they have made a
significant breakthrough

in their hunt for the
killer of Joanna Yeates

after arresting a 32-year-old man.

The Avon and Somerset force

haven't named their latest suspect,

the police reacting
perhaps to criticisms

following some coverage
of their first suspect.

Somebody started running
on their ticker tape

quite early on

that it was Vincent Tabak
that had been arrested,

at which point I had a phone
call from Martin Brunt.

I said, "Look, another
media organisation

has named Vincent Tabak as
the man who's been arrested.

Is it him?"

I would never give you the
name of anybody we've arrested.

I can't help you.

If I repeat it,
am I gonna be in trouble?

Am I gonna cause myself
any legal problems?

If you were me, would you
follow what my rivals have done?

Looking for a nudge and a wink.

We don't confirm names.

We all identified Vincent Tabak

as the man who'd been arrested.

A reporter had
interviewed Vincent Tabak

before his arrest,

just as the neighbor, trying
to get a bit of background,

trying to get some
more colorful quotes.

He didn't raise any suspicions.

There was nothing that
you could describe as

being remotely eccentric about
his appearance or his manner.

Vincent Tabak was mild-mannered.

He had a decent job. He had a fiancée.

There was nothing really
sinister or suspicious about him.

I was driving back to
Bristol and got the news

that Vincent Tabak had been arrested,

and my immediate reaction
was I think it's very likely

that the police have
made another blunder.

He was a tenant who was,
in many ways, ideal.

During the 18 months
that I had known him,

he had given me absolutely
no cause whatsoever

to suggest that he was likely at all

to be involved in all this.

It had already been agreed

that I was gonna interview
the next suspect.

My passion as a detective

has always been
interviewing suspects.

I sat next to him on purpose.

I wanted to feel his leg
shaking against mine.

He denied all knowledge
of Jo's death,

and he, in fact, stated
through a prepared statement

that he'd never come
into contact with her,

knew who she was,
wished he could help us.

I know for a fact that the solicitor

and interpreter that
we ensured was present

in case there was any suggestion

that he didn't understand
questions put to him,

they were convinced that we
had an innocent man in custody.

Having spent three days in
the company of Vincent Tabak,

he was an extremely clever chap.

Analytical in his thinking.

Clearly not when it came
to internet search history.

Why was he researching

"how long does it take for a
body to decompose in the snow?"

Why was he looking at Longwood
Lane in his search history

prior to Jo even being found?

Why was he researching
bin collection in Clifton?

Why was he researching CCTV cameras?

Why was he researching

"can I serve my sentence
in the Netherlands?"

The moment that we started to
disclose evidence of forensics,

the interpreter stated to
me, "I no longer want to be

left in the consultation
room with that man."

They were now seeing the
game that he was playing.

We found from the forensic
examination of his computers

that he was a regular
user of hardcore porn,

and some of that porn
depicted women being strangled

the same way that Jo was killed.

There was an area on Jo's chest

that showed that he'd
come into contact with her

under the back of her
jeans behind the knee.

That was quite interesting,
because if you were going to

lift someone out of
the boot of a car,

where would you hold them?

The final nail in the coffin,

bearing in mind that he said that

he'd never had any
association with her,

we found microscopic specks of blood

in the boot of his car
that belonged to Jo.

We knew we had him.

I remember Tabak's trial,

the amount of media
in the public gallery.

It was taken over. You
couldn't get in there.

Journalists camped outside
the court, taking photographs.

I wonder how many
of those journalists

were the ones that blamed Chris.

During the trial, Tabak's body
language was almost pleading

to people around him
to give him sympathy.

Before his trial,

Vincent Tabak was held
on remand in custody.

He had made this confession
to the prison chaplain

that he confessed to the killing.

But in court, Tabak then
entered a manslaughter plea.

He was trying to mitigate

his involvement in
her death in some way,

and I was annoyed with that.

She deserved more.

His version of events was
that she'd been coming home

after a night out with friends

and that she'd invited him
in to her flat for a drink.

She had made a flirtatious
comment to him.

I don't believe that for a moment,
not for a moment.

He had gone to kiss her,
but she had screamed.

So he's put his hand over
her mouth because she screamed.

He's taken it away and
she screamed again,

and he squeezed for about 20 seconds.

He said he hadn't
meant to kill her,

but then panicked and
disposed of the body.

- That's nonsense.
- There was a struggle.

There were around about
43 other injuries to Jo,

including scratches to
her torso, her arms,

and even a fractured nose,
which showed that

there had certainly been a
struggle prior to her death.

And then the
prosecution believed that

he'd driven around Bristol,

visiting a supermarket with
Joanna's body in the car,

before he then drove across the river

and put her body on
the side of the road.

Joanna's family were distraught,
listening to

the horrific detail of what
happened to their daughter

at the hands of Vincent Tabak.

He knew that Greg wasn't there
and gone back to Sheffield,

so she was home alone.

He knew that his
girlfriend was gonna be out

'til the early hours of the morning.

It was cold, cold and calculating.

Vincent Tabak is beginning
a life sentence tonight

after a jury found him guilty of

the murder of his
neighbor Joanna Yeates.

Passing sentence, the
judge Mr. Justice Field,

described him as wicked,
deceitful, and manipulative.

You want to bring
closure to the family.

Here was a clearly heartbroken
family who wanted

there to be somebody brought
to justice for Jo's death.

I remember Jo's dad
coming to shake my hand

after I'd given evidence in court,

and he wouldn't let go of my hand,
and I've never forgotten it.

"Thank you. Thank you."

The Leveson Inquiry
was an investigation into

the culture and practice of the
ethics of the British press.

The reputation of the British press

was quickly disappearing down
the toilet, quite honestly.

The News of The World was all about

sex, drugs, and rock
and roll, really.

We used to pursue those
topics with vigor,

and it was right.

We needed to be tamed.

The Leveson Inquiry was born out of
the phone-hacking scandal.

A variety of celebrities came forward

that had their privacy breached,

but it was in particular
the press's hacking of

the phone of murdered
teenager Milly Dowler

that really brought
it into the forefront.

There really was a deep dive

into British press
standards at the time,

and in order for that
inquiry to have substance,

somebody like Christopher Jefferies

would be an important
person to hear from.

- So may I call now Mr.
- Christopher Jefferies?

I appeared at the Leveson Inquiry

to talk about my experience

of the press coverage.

The couple of months while
I was still under suspicion,

without doubt,

the most difficult period
I think I have spent.

Lord Leveson also took
evidence from journalists.

Everybody at The Daily Mirror

is very regretful of the coverage,

and, you know, we do
apologise to Mr. Jefferies

for vilifying him in such a way.

But I'd like to specify
my sincere personal regrets

that my actions contributed
to and exacerbated

the acute personal distress
felt by Mr. Jefferies.

The Leveson Inquiry

was also intended to investigate

potentially corrupt links

between the press and the police.

Several senior officers

in the Joanna Yeates investigation,

including the senior responsible
officer DCI Phil Jones

and the Chief Constable Colin Port,

gave evidence to the inquiry.

The inquiry was
looking at claims that

Avon and Somerset Police had been

institutionally leaking
information to the media.

The editor of The Mirror
gave a statement saying that

they'd been doing
off-the-record briefings

as part of the investigation.

The police do give
guidance on these issues,

and if they had not
indicated that they

had presumed they were
on the right track,

then I don't think the
journalists would've been

writing what they've been writing.

We don't give
off-the-record briefings,

and to behave in a collusive
manner is just abhorrent.

In the wake of Leveson,

police officers stopped
talking to people like me

for a long time.

I would send texts,
I'd ring my contacts,

and often they would either ignore me

or they would just say,
"Look, I can't talk to you

because Leveson decreed that
there should be a record of,

you know, contact between
journalists and reporters,

and no police officer
will want to be known

to be helping you."

After Leveson, the press were
trying to behave themselves

and had cleaned up their act.

I think that's fair to say,
and they needed to,

but at the end of the day,
it was too late.

The genie's out of the bottle.

Social media had completely exploded.

You've got Facebook,
TikTok, Instagram.

The world has suddenly
become a journalist,

and people were just
writing whatever they liked.

The whole media landscape has changed

and it's virtually unregulated.

This is really dangerous
territory we've landed ourself in.

Take, for instance, Nicola Bulley,

who tragically slipped

into a river near her home.

There were a lot of similarities

between Joanna Yeates
and Nicola Bulley.

They're both whites.

They're both middle class,

but that frenzy of interest,

back with Joanna, it was the press,

whereas with Nicola Bulley,
it was social media,

but it was the same kind of
hounding, relentless interest,

day after day updates,
kind of stopping at nothing

to get a new sliver of information.

They were both defamatory
in their own right.

We look at the level of defamation,

of false information in Nicola.

It was off the charts
compared to Joanna's case.

When Jo went missing,

there were less than a billion
social media users worldwide

on all platforms, but when
Nicola Bulley went missing,

that had grown to five billion.

Can you imagine what it would be like

if Jo had gone missing today?

It would be across Insta, TikTok, X.

It would be explosive,

and the fate of Christopher Jefferies

on those social media platforms,

it doesn't even bear thinking about.

It was the Nicola Bulley case

that has begun to turn the
tide in our relationship

to a point where
police chiefs in the UK

have now drawn up a
kind of new protocol

where we are beginning
to talk to each other

in the way that we used
to pre the Leveson report.

The funeral of murdered
landscape architect Jo Yeates

took place today in the Hampshire
village where she grew up.

Ms. Yeates' coffin was
followed by her parents,

David and Teresa, and
her brother Chris.

Greg Reardon, her boyfriend,
followed them.

Jo was one of the
world's good people.

She was a genuinely nice,
good person.

Jo was a young woman

recently in a relationship
with her boyfriend.

This was the first time

that they were going to
set up house together.

She was certainly very much in love.

She was somebody with a
promising career before her.

Particularly on this case,
you do think of, you know,

the sadness of her lost
life and her family.

They're still left with this
huge empty hole in their lives.

When people ask me about my
previous career in the police

and they learn about
the Jo Yeates case,

they always mention Chris Jefferies.

Not Tabak.

Not Jo.

That's people's memory of
this particular murder.

Perhaps they do
forget that, you know,

at the heart of this story

is the awful murder of a young woman.

There's cases that stay with you.

I often drive by the
scene and remember her,

and there's still flowers left there.