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08/12/01 - Jury in Sarah Payne murder
trial urged to be dispassionate
By Martin Hickman
The Independent
Jurors trying the man accused of killing eight-year-old
Sarah Payne were urged to avoid "demonising"
him because of their horror at the girl's death. Roy
Whiting's lawyer told Lewes Crown Court that anyone
accused of such a heinous crime faced the possibility
of being turned into a monster.
"There is a danger that anybody even charged with
this sort of offence, never mind convicted of it, is
at risk of being demonised in some sort of way,"
Sally O'Neill QC said. In her closing speech on the
16th day of the trial, she cast doubt on scientific
evidence that the prosecution claims proves a strong
link between Mr Whiting and the murder.
Fibres found on Sarah's shoe and in her hair could have
come from dozens of different sources and not only from
items in Mr Whiting's Fiat Ducato van, Ms O'Neill said.
She described prosecution claims that 22 fibres discovered
at Sarah's burial site provided a "perfect"
match to five items in the van as "a leap of faith".
She said the jury should disregard evidence about a
strand of Sarah's hair found on a sweatshirt belonging
to Mr Whiting because it could have been transferred
from a hairbrush taken by police from the Payne family
home. She suggested the prosecution's chief forensic
science witness, Ray Chapman, had been "unscientific"
by rejecting the chance of any such contamination.
Ms O'Neill said: "Ray Chapman is saying, 'I am
a scientist and you can trust me'. Maybe you will, maybe
you are satisfied. But we submit when you look at the
basis on which he is giving you his opinions, you cannot
be sure. And for him to stand there and say, 'This is
what I am telling you', simply is not enough."
She said Mr Whiting's decision to enter the witness
box helped to prove he had nothing to hide.
"Simply giving evidence, going into the witness
box, making an unnecessary trip and putting yourself
in that position is not consistent with the actions
of a guilty man," she said. Mr Whiting, 42, from
Littlehampton, West Sussex, denies kidnapping and murdering
Sarah.
She was abducted on 1 July last year from a country
lane near her grandparents' home at East Preston, West
Sussex. She was found dead 16 days later in a shallow
grave off the A29 at Pulborough, 20 miles away.
The judge, Mr Justice Curtis, is expected to sum up
the case on Monday. |
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