Judging by the mood on Twitter - not to mention comments on newspaper websites - the public is seething. People are obviously appalled by Vincent Tabak’s crime, but they are equally livid at the law - and, specifically, the judge who deemed inadmissible so much of the evidence about his character.

A suspect’s record is generally not disclosed to a jury during their trial, and for good reason. The person in the dock may have a string of convictions for similar offences, but that is not proof of guilt for this one.

A change to this practice (although similar fact evidence is admissible) could only harm the rule of law and interests of justice, tempting police and prosecutors in search of a conviction to rely on an individual’s past to secure an otherwise unwinnable case.

Yet so much of Tabak’s background and character was withheld from the public that many will struggle to comprehend how it was not deemed relevant to his prosecution.

Tabak was convicted on Friday by a majority verdict of murdering Joanna Yeates. He strangled the young woman in her flat before dumping the body on the side of the road. The judge in the case decided jurors would not be told of Tabak’s use of sex workers on business trips to Los Angeles, despite his pleas as a committed boyfriend forming part of his defence.

They were not informed that Tabak’s computer had numerous links to hardcore pornography sites, with images of men having sex while holding their hands around the neck of a woman and one picture in particular of a woman resembling Yeates.

With the outpouring of this nature, we can be thankful the jury recorded the verdict it did, but should this information have been allowed to be presented in court? There is a fine line between information that prejudices a case, and the case itself.

Tabak’s fondness for pornography does not make him a pre-meditated killer, but the nature and content of the material he enjoyed - and the obvious parallels with elements of this case - do point to information that was relevant.

Certainly we can expect a degree of revulsion from the public at the withholding of this information. The jury deliberated for two and a half days, and there will be anger that Tabak was seemingly in with a chance of being acquitted of murder.

But the level of public interest in the case is probably the biggest reason why the judge rightly erred on the side of caution.

This was a case that provoked extreme emotion and would surely have been familiar to members of the jury. It is understandable that the judge sought to separate conjecture from fact. His job was to ensure a fair trial, and the evidence against Tabak was overwhelming enough to convict without the jury seeing the contents of his computer.

If they had known, there is almost no doubt that 12 rather than 10 would have been convinced of his guilt. But how many would have assumed Tabak’s guilt on account of his behaviour rather than his actions?

The law will be deemed an ass by many, but in this case it seems to me that justice has been done.