THE FRONT PAGES REACHED A VERDICT

Joanna Yeates disappeared in Bristol on 17 December 2010 and was found dead on Christmas morning. Her landlord Christopher Jefferies, a 65-year-old retired English teacher, was arrested on 30 December on suspicion of her murder. He was released on unconditional police bail on the evening of 1 January 2011, and released from bail entirely on 4 March. He was never charged. Vincent Tabak, who lived in the neighbouring flat, was charged on 22 January and convicted of the murder in October 2011.

The coverage in the days around the arrest dwelt on his hair, his teaching manner decades earlier, the poetry he had taught, and claims about his personal life. His solicitor later told the High Court that more than forty articles were published in late December 2010 and early January 2011.

On 28 July 2011 eight newspapers apologised publicly at the High Court and paid substantial libel damages: the Sun, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, the Daily Mail, the Daily Record, the Daily Express, the Daily Star and the Scotsman. They accepted that the allegations were false.

That same afternoon the Divisional Court, sitting under the Lord Chief Justice, found the publishers of the Daily Mirror and the Sun in contempt of court over three articles, holding that they created a substantial risk of serious prejudice to any trial. The Mirror was fined £50,000 and the Sun £18,000, on a prosecution brought by the Attorney General. In November 2025 News Group Newspapers apologised again and paid damages over the News of the World's intrusion into his private life.

For four days a man against whom no case existed was presented to the country as the likely killer, while the man later convicted was neither identified nor in custody. The corrections were delivered in courtrooms, months afterwards, to audiences a fraction of the size. Fifteen years on, Jefferies is still introduced by way of explanation: the man who was wrongly suspected, which requires the suspicion to be repeated each time.

SOURCES