Joanna Yeates Murder Trial Jury Sworn In

Joanna Yeates Murder Trial Jury Sworn In

A jury has been sworn in to try the neighbour accused of murdering landscape architect Joanna Yeates.

Vincent Tabak, 33, denies the premeditated killing of Miss Yeates, whose body was found on a snowy verge on Christmas morning.

Six men and six women were selected after a three-day process to pick jurors for the four-week trial at Bristol Crown Court.

Mr Justice Field told the jury the case would open on Monday.

Bespectacled Tabak sat with his chin in his hands as the judge repeated his warning to jurors to avoid reading any background material.

The jury was told Tabak had entered a not guilty plea to the murder of Miss Yeates between December 16 and 19 last year.

The judge told the court: "Put the case entirely out of your mind until Monday morning when the trial proceeds."

After opening statements, jurors will be taken on Tuesday to "various locations that you will hear about", he added.

Prosecutors will claim Tabak, who lived in a ground-floor flat adjoining Miss Yeates's home in Clifton, Bristol, murdered the 25-year-old after she went for festive drinks with colleagues.

She was reported missing two days after disappearing when her boyfriend Greg Reardon returned to their shared flat after a weekend visiting family in Sheffield. Following a string of appeals by relatives and police, her frozen corpse was found by dog walkers three miles from her home on a lane in Failand, north Somerset.

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