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Dutch engineer tells crown court he wanted to kiss his next-door neighbour but sex was not on his mind Vincent Tabak denied that he derived sexual gratification when he held Joanna Yeates by the throat and rejected the notion he was sexually aroused as he killed her. On his second day in the witness box at Bristol crown court, the Dutch engineer conceded that after Yeates’s death he researched the definition of sexual assault because he was worried that a “pass” he had made at her could be seen as sexual conduct. Tabak, 33, denied his admission that he wanted to kiss his next-door neighbour showed he had intended to commit a sexual act. “I wanted to kiss her. It’s nice to kiss,” he told the jury. At the end of his six-hour stint in the witness box Tabak again rejected the allegation that he had meant to kill or seriously harm the 25-year-old landscape architect. Yeates’s mother, Teresa, was not present when Tabak resumed giving evidence. Her father, David, was on the front row of the public gallery, within touching distance of Tabak as he walked from the dock to the witness box. Mr Yeates did not look at Tabak as he passed. Continuing his cross-examination, Nigel Lickley QC, for the prosecution, began by asking Tabak about his attempt to kiss Yeates. Tabak claims he made a pass at his neighbour at flats in Clifton, Bristol, after she made a “flirty” remark. “I thought she wanted me to kiss her,” he said. Lickley asked if he had intended to put his tongue in her mouth. “I was not thinking of that at that moment,” Tabak replied. Lickley asked Tabak if holding her throat was sexual, if he derived sexual gratification from it and if he was sexually aroused while he did it. Three times Tabak replied: “Definitely not.” The prosecutor suggested to Tabak that he may have used Yeates’s cat – which occasionally strayed into his flat – as an excuse to knock on her door. Tabak rejected the idea. Lickley questioned Tabak about online research he had done after the killing on subjects such as the difference between manslaughter and murder and the definition of sexual assault. Tabak said: “I was a bit worried if my pass could be seen as sexual conduct.” Bespectacled Tabak ran his fingers through his hair as Lickley showed him a full-length photograph of how Yeates’s body appeared after it was found on a roadside verge on Christmas Day. Her pink shirt was rucked up showing her bra and exposing part of one breast. Lickley suggested Tabak had pulled her top up. “No I didn’t, not intentionally at least,” he said. Lickley asked Tabak if pulling her top up made her scream. “That is not what made her scream,” he replied. The prosecutor pointed out that Yeates’s injuries had included bruises to her ribs and her back. “You had her up against something,” said Lickley. “Was it a wall? Was it the floor?” Tabak replied: “Definitely not the floor.” Lickley then silently counted out 20 seconds – the time the defence has suggested Tabak may have held Yeates around the neck. “Is that the time you had your hand around her throat?” asked Lickley. “I can’t remember,” Tabak replied. Lickley went on: “You squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.” “I had my hand around her neck, yes,” Tabak answered, rejecting the suggestion he had used two hands. The defendant, who admits manslaughter but denies murder, apologised again to Yeates’s family and boyfriend, Greg Reardon, for his crime. This time he also said sorry to his own family and his girlfriend, Tanja Morson. Tabak denied that there had been a struggle when he attacked Yeates. He told the court: “I was not being aggressive. She was not resisting me.” “That’s a lie, Vincent Tabak,” Lickley said. Tabak was probed about minor arm injuries he was found to have when he was arrested. He said he could not remember how he had got the injuries. Lickley concluded by putting to Tabak that Yeates was not “interested” in him. She may have invited him into her flat to be neighbourly. “She showed interest in me, she invited me in,” replied Tabak. Lickley alleged that it had been a sexual attack and Tabak had meant to kill or seriously harm Yeates. “Not true,” he replied. The forensic pathologist Nat Cary, the second witness called by the defence, said there was no evidence that Yeates’s genital area had been interfered with. He could not exclude the possibility that her breasts had been interfered with but there was “nothing positive” to suggest that. He said Yeates’s top could have been rucked up as her body was moved. It was “largely speculative” that Tabak’s motive for killing Yeates was sexual, Cary said. He told the jury that asphyxiation could form part of a sexually motivated attack. “There are some people, probably a pretty small number in the population, who become sexually aroused by asphyxiating someone,” he said. Cary said Yeates’s death would not have been “instantaneous” but likely to have taken a “period of time such as 20 seconds or more”. The trial continues. Joanna Yeates Crime Bristol Steven Morris guardian.co.uk