http://littlemorsals.blogspot.com/2011/01/joanna-yeates-parents-video-appeal-with.html
Full transcript of Joanna Yeates parents press conference (15 minutes)
Joanna Yeates’ parents start their conference @1:10
Reporter: First of all, can you tell me a little bit about Jo, describe her to me.
Father: Hmm...[looks upwards to his right, sighs]...I think one of the papers used vivacious and that’s a really good description of her, she...loved life, she loved doing things with her boyfriend, she loved doing things around the home, she liked making a home, buying things for the home ermm...she’s a really loving daughter er...there’s a number of times she did some touching things for me which I didn’t expect, things she, she worried too much about when she had a lot on she still did these ...many small things were her but ...use to bring a lump to my throat ...I had to stop what I was saying because she would have thought, you know, ‘what’s wrong with him’ and er, she’s...over the last couple of years, probably since she’s grown actually...she’s blossomed into a classy lady, she had style er, if I had to pick a daughter I couldn’t pick anybody else and I miss her terribly, it’s breaking me up
Reporter: What I was going to say is that, clearly you’re so distraught about this. What is it that you are missing most at the moment? Can I...ask you first...
Mother: I’m missing not being able to hold her and cuddle her and say everything’s alright and I just want her back, wherever she is, Jo, my little Jo come back. If anybody’s got her, don’t keep her, give her back to us. We miss her so much. I know that’s obvious and nobody can feel the pain that we feel, but we want to thank absolutely everybody that’s been helping us, her school friends, her best friends, her college friends, just everyone, Becky and all her friends, and, her cousins and everything. Just want to thank everyone for what they’ve done, they’ve done posters and way beyond, and Greg and Facebook which we know nothing about but all the youngster just done what they can with what they know ...just come back Jo...
Reporter: I’d like to just ask you a bit about the last time you were in contact with her and the last time you spoke
Mother nods: Yeah
Reporter: What was that conversation like and how did she sound?
Mother: Well...erm...I, I came down to Bristol a couple of weeks ago because I was going with a couple of friends to ‘Deal or no Deal’ and I said to Jo, “can I come and stay the night?” you know and I don’t assume anything and she said, great, love to see you Mum. And so when I spent the evening with her and Greg in the flat and I stayed there and then the next morning I went off quite early and erm, they were still there and we were possibly going to meet up later, erm, we didn’t because the thing ended quite early and she had meetings and I just texted her and she texted me saying ‘did you get there okay?’ and I think that was the last time I really had that much contact with her. I think we spoke a bit about Christmas and I said can you make some mince pies and that’s what she was going to do this, this weekend. She’d, she’s printed something off the internet, I saw it in her diary and I knew she was going to do that.
Reporter: Because I understand she was going to be with you at Christmas...
Mother: Yeah
Reporter: ...I mean...
Mother: Coming up tomorrow
Reporter: how do you think you’re going to be able to cope this Christmas?
Father: Christmas is suspended so to speak
Mother: There’s no Christmas
Father: Until Jo comes back so, everything’s on hold and..Erm, it’s difficult, it’s a difficult time but we can’t celebrate anything [?] and er, we don’t want to be, we just want to be by ourselves erm rather than be with anybody else and erm, I think basically because we...[expressions and sighs]...Greg, Chris and Anna and the two of us we share something, close relations, we also share a lot of it but not quite the same extent I don’t think, we just want to talk and think about Jo in our own way, you know, and we just pray, hope and pray that if she’s being held by somebody that...please let her go..ermm...[shakes his head from side to side slightly]
Reporter: What do you think has happened to Jo?
Father: I think, my personal feelings, I think she was abducted, er, from her flat after getting home from her flat. We can’t, we’ve got no idea the circumstances of the abduction but because of what was left behind in the flat we feel that she wouldn’t have gone out by herself, erm, leaving all those things behind, maybe one of them, and erm she was taken away somewhere, we don’t know by whom or by what people erm...
Mother: She’s a sensible girl
Father: She...
Mother: She’s so sensible
Father: She is...she’s a professional; she’s a professional lady and erm...
Mother: She’s twenty-five, she’s sensible...she wanted to be in that night and the whole weekend and her plans were to be at home, I mean, she had a party on Tuesday, she would have wanted..it was a new flat, a new things and she’d want it to be special
Father: Her Christmas plans – her plans for the weekend were filled with Christmas shopping and then to do some cooking and baking which she also enjoyed er for Tuesday I think when her friends were due to come round, their having their sort of Bristol Christmas party. Erm, so there’s was nothing planned...she did have the weekend planned.
Reporter: Obviously you’re saying that you suspect she’s been abducted
Father: Yes
Reporter: All sorts of things must have gone through your mind. Have you thought at all of the possibility that she may have chosen to go away on that ...
Father and mother in unison: No, no, no
Mother: Absolutely not. We have no reason...
Father: This is a picture of our daughter when erm she had her graduation which was a few, a few days..couple of weeks before her and Greg were totally in love, they were devoted to each other. She had nothing to..., she didn’t have, she had all, all the space she wanted; she had no work worries; she had no money worries; she had nothing that was worrying her. If she went away, if she chose to go away she would have taken some of her things with her [Mother: she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t have gone away] er...er..like er...her purse, phone etcetera. I don’t think for a second, I never thought for a second that she would ever leave on her own perdition, erm, Greg has been away before and he’s, he’s come back ...every, every time he’s come back Jo’s been there and so this isn’t the first time Jo er Greg has gone away or anything like that and Jo, Jo sort of does her own thing during the weekend and he always keeps in touch with Jo and this time there’s no answer from her phone, we actually rang her as well.
Reporter: You mention then Greg tried to get in touch with her, you tried to get in touch with her. It was a long time between the Friday when we think she went missing and the Sunday that was reported to the police. At what point did you start to worry and what was going through your mind at that time?
Father: We only became aware of it when Greg....Jo wasn’t the...she didn’t always answer her phone in a timely manner, let’s put it that way. Greg thought it strange that he, that she didn’t respond on Friday, this is what he told me. Erm, but he was concerned ...he was con...
Mother interrupts: He was consistent with what she would be like...
Father: She, it wasn’t totally out of character. The concern was raised when, after Greg got back home and after waiting a couple of hours there was no sign of Jo and then Jo...then, then Greg found the things that she would have carried with her and became incredibly concerned and then he phoned us and we talked, talked to him very briefly and erm then he phoned the police and erm, I’m not sure what time, I think Greg, about half past eight, I’m not sure what time Greg phoned us, everything happened in....
Mother: At midnight. I mean when you get a call at midnight...
Father: Everything was a blur, I mean, we, we immediately decided that we’d have come down because something was definitely wrong and erm, we knew Jo wouldn’t take off by herself, she’s never done it before, erm, she’s always had her own space and er...it, it isn’t fair. She loved the position she was in. She adored it.
Reporter: Obviously, you must be turning this over and over in your mind and many scenarios must go through your mind. Has the thought occurred to you that someone close to Jo may have been involved in her disappearance? And, how do you cope with that?
Mother: I don’t think anybody close has been involved with her disappearance.
Father: Not close
Mother: No
Father: Erm, unless something happened which somebody got out of control like erm, I don’t know what close people Jo has down here erm, but of the people that we know down here I ... no [shakes his head; smiles] no...not for a second.
Reporter: Then again, forgive me for asking this, but when you go through all these scenarios you must have contemplated that there could be a dreadful outcome [mother nods]...how do you cope with that Mrs Yeates? I’ll ask you that.
Mother: [thinks] I go numb. With all this snow around us I sometimes picture her lying ... if some reason she had collapsed or had been discarded and she was alive, with all the snow and the cold I just...(breaks down)...I can’t bear the thought of it ... I don’t go with it.
Father: For me, it’s not the end; it’s what’s happened to her in between. I stood outside having a cigarette and it was cold and I was thinking my daughter ...maybe she’s out there somewhere by herself in the snow, frozen...it breaks me up that I wasn’t there to hold her.
Mother lays her head on her husband’s shoulder.
Father: Oh it’s,....
Reporter: Do you believe that Jo’s alive?
Father: I’ve got to believe that she’s alive. She had too much life in her. Erm, if the..ever, if it turns out that she isn’t I still want her back. I still want to hold her at least one last time. I just want her back! That’s what I want. Whatever state she’s in I just want her back
Reporter: Seeing you here together, you’re obviously very close. How are you supporting each other and the whole family?
Mother: Sometimes it’s long periods of silence, sometimes it’s thinking through scenarios erm, the three of us here sitting at the kitchen table on computers, I mean I don’t know what we’re looking for but it’s, all of it’s a comfort, we’re all in the same room hours on end just..if one of us is upset then the others....
Father: you have to keep leaving the room from time to time. It’s just doing what we can, put things in motion, as I say to try and get people ...the eyes and ears of the people we just don’t know to help us...
Mother: And, and Russ our liaison officer is excellent
Father: yeah
Mother: He keeps in touch with us all the time. If we’ve got any questions we can call him. I think we need to say that the police are...we know they’re doing everything ..we’re just trying to be as helpful as we can.
[Cuts into the parent’s video appeal]
Mother: If there is anyone out there who is with Jo, seen somebody who looks like her or just heard something really unusual or weird, however small it is, please contact the relevant people ermm..
Father: Just let her go
Mother: Just let her go if you’ve got her. Let her go and let her come back to me and her dad and her family. Please.
Father: If you have, if she is dead, please tell somebody where she is. We want her back, whatever....
Reporter: Thank you both very much indeed
