Police continue to quiz suspect in Yeates killing

DETECTIVES were last night granted more time to continue questioning Joanna Yeates’s landlord on suspicion of her murder.

Chris Jefferies, 65, was arrested Thursday morning and a magistrate granted Avon and Somerset Police an extension to hold him beyond 7pm last night.

The development came after officers spent the day talking to Peter Stanley, 56, a neighbour of the retired public school teacher in Clifton, Bristol, who said he and Jefferies helped start Joanna Yeates’s boyfriend’s car the day she vanished.

A force spokesman said: “Police have today, Friday, December 31, been granted more time to question a 65-year-old man, arrested on suspicion of murder on Thursday, December 30, by magistrates.”

Stanley recalled how he and Jefferies used jump leads to start Greg Reardon’s car, sending him on his way to Sheffield.

“It was a non-event at the time, but absolutely poignant now — what if we didn’t get the car to start?” said Stanley.

Hours after successfully starting the car, Yeates, a landscape architect, disappeared and her snow-covered body was discovered more than a week later on Christmas Day.

Stanley, who lives in a flat in the mansion to the right of Jefferies’ in Canynge Road, Clifton, is being treated by police as a witness, they confirmed last night. He drove away from his home in his maroon BMW with a detective and returned later in a marked police car before officers left him.

Stanley said he did not think Jefferies spoke to Reardon about going away for the weekend, and added: “I wouldn’t say there was anything tense between them.”

He added: “I got a phone call from Mr Jefferies. I was asleep at the time and it was early evening. He asked if his tenant could borrow my jump leads.

“I think Chris Jefferies wanted to borrow my car, but I said I didn’t want to take all the power out of it. So he said ‘fine’, and he then brought his car — I think it was the Chrysler.

“I met Greg and Chris Jefferies at the edge of the property and walked toward the car.

“I got Chris Jeffries to position his car so the bonnets were alongside each other.

“Greg’s car was in the gutter of the road, and Chris Jefferies’ car was in the road.”

Joanna Yeates, who is originally from Hampshire, is known to have left the Ram pub, on Park Street, at about 8pm on the night she disappeared.

Police have issued CCTV images of her then visiting a Waitrose store on The Triangle, a Bargain Booze shop, and a Tesco Express near her flat.

She bought a pizza at the Tesco store, but, while the receipt was found at her flat, no trace has been found of the food or its wrapper.

Crimestoppers has offered a £10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of her killer.