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| Yeates: desperate battle |
Joanna Yeates fought a desperate battle for survival against her killer, a court heard yesterday. The 25-year-old landscape architect suffered 43 injuries, mostly to the neck, as she fought for her life in her Bristol flat, the jury was told.
Vincent Tabak, 33, who admits killing his next-door neighbour but denies murder, was bigger, stronger and more powerful.
He knew that he was strangling her to death but he carried on the fatal attack regardless, the court was told.
On the second day of the trial at Bristol crown court, Nigel Lickley QC, prosecuting, told the jury of the forensic evidence discovered by a pathologist who examined Joanna’s body over three days.
Of the 43 injuries 12 were to her head and neck, two to her trunk, 21 to her arms and four to her legs, said the prosecutor.
The pathologist concluded that Joanna died as a result of compression of her neck as Tabak strangled her with both hands.
“It was not instantaneous, it took some time for her to suffocate and force to be used to kill her,” said Mr Lickley.
“Other injuries showed contact with a roughened surface while she was alive — a floor, the ground or a rough surface. Apart from the fear the attack caused her, it would have been painful. She would have resisted and struggled.
“The pathologist reveals that for at least one consistent period of time sufficient force was applied by the killer’s hands to her neck to kill her. Her neck was held for long enough and hard enough to kill. There was a violent struggle by Joanna to try and survive. Despite that Tabak continued to squeeze her neck to kill her.”
The court heard that Joanna’s blood alcohol level was 67 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, showing she had drunk between one and a half and two and a half pints of cider and was lower than the drink drive limit of 80/100.