Killer's computer full of porn images

File Photo / APN

When Vincent Tabak told friends at a dinner party soon after Joanna Yeates' death that her killer must have been a "detached, crazy" person, no one at the table thought that he, more than anyone else, knew the truth.

After all, the 33-year-old Dutchman appeared polite, considerate, hard working and highly educated. He was noted for his quiet but cheerful nature.

Yet the seemingly devoted boyfriend was in fact a fan of submission pornography in which women were choked, bound and gagged. His computers revealed images of females being held by the neck, degraded and sexually abused. He surfed sex sites for escorts, using the cover of business trips for his assignations.

He had been looking at online pornography the morning of last December 17 - the day that prosecutors said he murdered Yeates.

His double life can only be revealed now, after a jury rejected his claim that he had strangled his 25-year-old neighbour to death by mistake.

After three weeks of harrowing evidence and 14 hours of deliberation, jurors found him guilty of murder by a majority of 10 to 2.

Tabak - at 1.93m a giant of a man compared with his victim, who struggled so hard in vain and received 43 injuries - simply hung his head in the dock when he was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 20 years as police revealed that his DNA had been sent out to forces around the UK, as well as his native Holland, to see if it matched with other sex attacks.

It had been a dreadful, evil act against a vulnerable young woman, which caused devastation to her family, said Justice Field. For Joanna Yeates' parents, David and Teresa, as well as her boyfriend, Greg Reardon, 28, the verdict brought little relief. Her parents said they wished it was possible for him to receive a death sentence.

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

Bristol Crown Court heard how Yeates, a landscape architect, had enjoyed drinks with colleagues before heading home that night to the flat in Clifton she shared with her boyfriend.

Within minutes of her return, her neighbours heard screams as she fought for her life. Tabak strangled her to death. He then bundled her body into the boot of his car and drove to Asda, where he texted his girlfriend, Tanja Morson, at her works party to say he was bored.

Tabak, who admitted manslaughter but denied murder, would later insist he had misread Yeates' "flirty" signals and simply placed his hand over her mouth when she screamed because he tried to kiss her. The prosecution called him a deceitful liar and the jury agreed.

- Independent