Blue ribbons worn in Becky’s memory

Thursday November 5

The Prosecutor has been giving his closing speech and indeed has now finished it, so we are close to the end of this upsetting trial, but first the defence teams will get their chance starting tomorrow to have their final say as well – then it will be down to the saddened Jury to deliberate and give their verdicts, won’t it?

The claim is that the murder defendants lived in a fantasy world and that they lied and lied and lied again– but has the Prosecutor been able to ‘prove’ that in open Court? The Jury have to be convinced by the Prosecution’s evidence that Nathan Matthews & his girlfriend Shauna Hoare operated as a team from start to finish, plotted to kidnap teenager Becky Watts, and had a shared motive of using her as a sexual plaything – but did the Prosecution actually do that?

In the case of Matthews, has he really demonstrated that his violent killing of Becky Watts was an unfortunate accident? Was that indicated by his subsequent grotesque treatment of her dead body – stabbing it with a knife fifteen times, cutting off her head and dismembering the rest? Did he tell the Jury what really happened, or was he basically trying to get away with murder and a reduced prison sentence for Becky’s killing? Was he a complete psychopath, as described by his girlfriend when she was told by police of his confession? Were the Jury convinced by his performances in Court as a pathetic sad kind of man, sobbing, wringing his hands with head bowed – when he was someone capable of mutilating his stepsister’s body and yet acting normally?

Hoare falls into a different category though, doesn’t she? There has been little evidence apart from some DNA, to link her directly with the crimes committed, hasn’t there? She seems to have been a confident, calculating and cold person in all her police interviews and in giving court evidence – was she simply feigning innocence though? Unquestionably she swapped texts with her boyfriend about kidnapping pretty petite teenage girls (like Becky). Her story of total non-involvement and wholesale lack of knowledge about events where she was definitely very close-by if not present, is farfetched to say the least. She was certainly at the house when Becky was killed, in the car used to transport the dead body (Becky’s hair was found in the boot), and indeed in her home when Becky was cut-up with a power saw in their bathroom and the pieces lengthily packaged in cling film, before disposal in a storage box and suitcases. She was also involved a couple of days after the killing in the shop for forty quid’s worth of household cleaning products including bleach, rubber gloves, and extra strong rubble sacks – did she really think Matthews was suddenly embarking on an unprecedented cleaning spree? Was she actually such a heavy sleeper that she slept through a lot of Matthews’ goings-on during the nights after the killing? Does all the pieces fit together to complete a compelling reliable picture?

The Defence barristers will no doubt be robustly defending their client’s actions and behaviour in the next days, but will they be able to totally undermine the Prosecution’s case, eh? We will see, won’t we?

[Becky Watts’ family and friends are wearing a blue ribbon in her memory during the trial].