Leveson Inquiry: Chris Jefferies

Christopher Jefferies told the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking and media ethics how his life was turned upside down over a fortnight of press intrusion in December last year when he was arrested and released without charge over the murder of Bristol architect Joanna Yeates.

The retired schoolmaster said that allegations were made associating him with a convicted paedophile.

He said that person was somebody who was not on the staff of the establishment where he was teaching but had at one time lived in one of the flats in the building where he lives.

"He had sold that flat to somebody else, who sold it to another person, it was that person who I eventually bought the flat from. There was a very considerable gap."

Robert Jay QC says the allegations were "tenuous, indeed fatuous".

He went on to say that there were also claims that he was sexually perverted.

"It was certainly suggested that there may well have been some sort of sexual motivation for the murder of Joanna Yeates," he said.

He went on to say that some articles suggested that he was gay.

"So that created a bit of a problem as far as that particular line was concerned. I think it was then suggested in another article that the answer was that I was a bisexual. The press were trying to have it every possible way," he said.

Daily Telegraph blog.

I'll try and post the full transcript when it comes...