Jo Yeates' landlord Chris Jefferies: 'I was painted a dark, macabre, sinister villain'
By The Bristol Post | Wednesday, October 03, 2012, 05:00
CHRIS Jefferies last night told the Labour Party conference of his ordeal during the Jo Yeates murder investigation.
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Chris Jefferies spoke to a fringe meeting at Labour conference
Mr Jefferies, the landlord of Ms Yeates' Clifton flat, recalled how he was vilified and painted as a "dark, macabre, sinister villain" after being arrested as a murder suspect.
He was later cleared of any wrongdoing and two newspapers were prosecuted for contempt of court over their reporting of his arrest.
Mr Jefferies, who has become a leading voice in calls to reform the media, was speaking at a debate organised by the campaign group Hacked Off ahead of the publication of the Leveson report into press standards.
"Immediately some sections of the press were willing to believe that the person arrested was the murderer," Mr Jefferies said. He was linked with a second murder, 30 years ago, before anonymous accounts of sexual harassment emerged in tabloid newspapers. "The tabloid world was not content with that. Perhaps to be a sexual predator was not spicy enough. Let's see what further perversion we could discover," he said. A tenuous connection with a convicted paedophile was then reported.
The Hacked Off debate looked at the forthcoming publication of the Leveson report.
Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, said Leveson was "a very important, historic opportunity to deal with a problem which has been wrong in our democracy for many decades".
Comments
It all went wrong when the Press deemed up he was gay and the Police really hate gays.
By Craigthatsme at 19:56 on 07/10/12
Reporti hope they have got it right in wales?!!
By robeno at 16:57 on 07/10/12
ReportHe is an odd guy, I see him him once or twice a week.
That said, simply 'being odd' should not be grounds alone to name him as a murder suspect...
A combination of Mr Jeffries weirdness, a police investigation under the media spotlight and sensationalism by certain sections of the tabloid press led to an innocent man being vilified.
The police got it wrong, but the tabloids played a part.
By whammmy at 15:42 on 03/10/12
ReportHe has made a few bob out of it mind you.
By pillowfight at 15:02 on 03/10/12
Report@divingbiker - I'm afraid the police very much ARE to blame here. Not for performing the investigation of Jefferies, which as you've mentioned is just a part of what they're duty bound to do, but most definitely for leaking confidential information and the identity of individuals to the press during an ongoing investigation. This was wrong for so many reasons, and if Jefferies had been charged, the level of press intrusion could have compromised any trial too.
It's not the first time Avon & Somerset have been accused of this either. From what I've seen, they routinely breach regulations, even laws on confidentiality, privacy and data protection. In this case, one man was dragged through the mud, which is bad enough. But in others, confidential details of informants have been left where suspects could have accessed them, potentially putting their lives at risk. Big changes need to be made, and soon.
By BristolMark2 at 15:02 on 03/10/12
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