Jo Cox murder accused Thomas Mair refuses to give evidence in murder trial
Defence says only jury can decide if Mair 'will be forever remembered as the man who assassinated Jo'
MP Jo Cox was murdered in a brutal and callous assassination, her alleged killer’s lawyer told a jury Tuesday as his client refused to give evidence.
Thomas Mair, 53, sat slack-jawed in the dock of his Old Bailey trial as his silk Simon Russell Flint QC told the hushed hearing he would not be speaking.
He is accused of the brutal murder of Jo in a knife and gun attack on June 16 outside a constituency surgery in Birstall, West Yorks.
Jo’s husband Brendan Cox was at court for the first time since the trial began, alongside her sister Kim and mum and dad.
It has already heard how she had been targeted by Mair – who kept a hoard of Nazi memorabilia – a week before the EU referendum because her Remain view opposed his.
Defence lawyer Mr Russell Flint in a barely 15-minute closing statement told the jury: “She was brutally and callously murdered and there is no issue or dispute about that.
"Mrs Cox's death, you know, has touched many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people, some who knew her and knew her well – her parents, her sibling, her husband, her children, not forgetting her friends and her colleagues who will forever be scarred by what happened to her in the street of that small West Yorkshire town on that June afternoon and will forever mourn her passing.
"It is you and you alone who have been charged with the responsibility of determining what are the true verdicts on each of the counts on the indictment.
"You and you alone will determine whether Thomas Mair can return to his quiet and solitary existence or will be forever remembered as the man who assassinated Jo Cox."
Earlier in the day, the prosecution closed with the final piece of witness evidence from Stephen Kinnock, a fellow Labour MP and son of Lord Kinnock.
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His statement said: "Jo and I often talked about the work in the constituency being what kept us sane.
"I think that if the job was just about being in Parliament, Jo would have felt very frustrated.
"She liked being able to help local parties and enjoyed holding local surgeries and being active in the community.
“She was an internationalist and saw the world as actually being very small".
Mair denies murder, GBH on passerby Bernard Kenny and possession of a knife and gun.
