| Flowers in Gods Garden
- Articles |
12/12/01 - Life and times of a serial
defiler
by Phil Mills
Police have been able to find little in the family life
of Whiting to explain his horrific actions. He grew
up in a three-bed end-of-terrace house in Martyrs Avenue
in Langley Green, Crawley. His mother Pamela left the
family home when he was in his teens, leaving his father
George to bring up Whiting, his elder brother and sister
Gillian.
Pamela, now called Green, lives in Littlehampton. She
appeared in court several times during her son's three-week
trial, sitting anonymously in the public gallery. Whiting's
father and siblings did not attend. Neighbours remember
how, barely into his teens, Whiting was most often seen
in his blue boiler suit, covered head to foot in oil,
tinkering with vehicles on the road outside the family
home.
He attended the nearby Ifield School but struggled with
academic work and left aged 16 in 1975. After trying
his hand at a string of manual jobs he finally became
a mechanic, setting up on his own and building up trade
through word of mouth.
Throughout his teens and 20s Whiting devoted much of
his spare time to running a club for local teenagers,
repairing and racing bangers with help from his best
friend Ian Hodder, now club manager at Crawley RFC's
ground in Willoughby Fields. Mr Hodder refused to talk
about his one-time companion. Darren Ayling, 36, was
one of the team. He said: "I was about 14 when
I first went along there.
Roy and Ian were brilliant with us. "There were
two sheds on the adventure playground at the end of
Cherry Lane. One was used for table tennis and pool
and they used the other to do up these scrap cars. "They
taught us how to drive and I remember once they took
us up to a demolition derby in Wembley.
Roy did a lot for the kids in the area." In June
1986, aged 27, Whiting married the petrol pump attendant
whom he had met two years earlier on a filling station
forecourt. The couple moved to Bonnetts Lane, Ifield,
but their tempestuous relationship ended in separation
six months later. Four months on his estranged wife
gave birth to their son, now 15. They divorced in 1989.
Whiting was by then living in the room above his workshop
in Bonnetts Lane. Now 37, the mother of his teenage
son has not seen her ex-husband since 1995, the first
time he was imprisoned. The woman, who has reverted
to her maiden name, told how Whiting became consumed
with jealousy because she was earning more money than
he was. She said he became unbearable.
She has since destroyed almost all of her photographs
from their time together, including their wedding album.
If the breakdown of his marriage and, later, his business
triggered a spiral of decline it was not immediately
apparent. In 1987, he joined Kirkham Motors, an MOT
test centre on an industrial estate in Priestley Way,
Crawley.
Colleagues there remember him as being a "very
ordinary bloke." He left Kirkham Garage to join
a Renault workshop near Charlewood, north of Crawley,
in 1991. The garage has since closed down. By then friends
say he had hitched up with several different girls.
They remember one who was in her early 20s.
He stayed at the garage until the 1995 court case. It
was the first time he had been in serious trouble with
the law and it came like a bolt from the blue for his
colleagues. Mr Ayling said: "No one could believe
it when he was arrested. "After he had come out
of prison no one wanted to know him. He moved down to
Littlehampton. I guess he wanted to try to start a new
life."
Another old acquaintance said: "There was talk
he had split up with a girlfriend and that had pushed
him to it, but as far as we were all concerned he was
scum. "Now this has happened I think the only place
any of want to see him is rotting in prison." After
his release in late 1997, Whiting knew he would not
be welcome back in Crawley.
Instead he asked to be rehoused in Littlehampton, near
his mother, and found a bedsit on the seafront in St
Augustine Road. The run-down Regency house, converted
into eight flats, overlooks a children's' play area
with views out to sea. At first he did his best to fit
in, meeting up with a group of five regulars at Oscar's,
a cafe nearby.
A creature of habit, he always asked to sit at table
number seven and ordered a cheeseburger and two mugs
of tea. But the group fell apart and he became, say
police, an "archetypal Billy No-Mates". Those
who knew him noticed a lack of personal hygiene. He
was often scruffy and unshaven with lank, greasy hair.
He smoked heavily but proudly insists, like a recovering
alcoholic, he had not had a drink for 15 years.
In prison, instead of attending a class of rehabilitation
for sexual offenders, Whiting chose to learn basics
of the building trade. He worked as a jobbing builder
for at least two bosses who found they had little in
common with him and rarely socialised outside work.
One of his jobs led him to a house in East Preston,
near Kingston Gorse where, during lunchtimes, he walked
the owners' dog around nearby fields.
Police believe it may have been then that he first spotted
the secluded play area to which he returned on July
1. He had been off work for two weeks on the day he
snatched Sarah, complaining of a "twisted gut".
In fact, he had not been unwell but was considering
moving out of the area to try another fresh start in
Devon or Dover.
Whiting was picked up by police 24 hours after Sarah's
disappearance. He appeared flustered and unhelpful,
refusing to answer questions as detectives begged for
any information about Sarah. Det Sgt Steve Wagstaff
pulled up alongside his van and ordered him to step
outside. He said: "His demeanour was extremely
nervous. He was visibly shaking. He had problems turning
off the engine of the van.
His hands were shaking and he was sweating." Visiting
his squalid flat they found overflowing ashtrays, dirty
dishes and clothes strewn across the floor and the bath
encrusted with scum. There was no evidence Sarah had
been there. Detective Sergeant Chris Saunders said:
"We'd been out all day talking to members of the
public about Sarah and everyone was concerned and wanted
to help.
"With Whiting we just got a blank expression. There
was something about him. He wasn't concerned she had
gone missing. Even other people on the sex offenders'
list had been worried." Whiting was arrested and
questioned for 92 hours before being released without
charge. Police said he appeared unphased, calm and almost
bored with the proceedings. He certainly gave no indication
he understood the severity of the charge hanging over
him.
Det Insp Jeff Riley, who conducted the interview, said:
"He was cold. He was quite nonchalant. When you
put questions to him about what Sarah and her family
was going through there was absolute coldness."
Whiting was not able to return to the seafront flat
which had been sealed off for a forensic examination.
The other tenants were also moved out of the block as
detectives spent two weeks searching for clues.
Today, there are only two people living there, both
of whom have moved in during the past six months. Whiting
went back to live with his father in Crawley but both
were forced to leave two weeks later when, as the news
spread through the estate, a vigilante mob gathered
outside the house. The house is now home to an Asian
family who know nothing of its former occupants. A neighbour
said: "George lived on his own most of the time
but Roy's sister would visit quite often.
We never heard anything from Roy until the Sarah Payne
thing all started. "He came back to live here and
all hell broke loose on the estate, with reporters and
TV cameras everywhere." His father had to be escorted
under a blanket from his home past the baying crowds.
He no longer lives in Crawley, although it is thought
he wants to return to the town in the future.
Whiting began sleeping rough in a tent pitched in a
field behind houses in Crawley. As public feeling intensified
he became paranoid he would be hounded out again. He
took up home on the road in a stolen Vauxhall Nova.
On the night of July 22, five days after Sarah's body
was found, police recognised the vehicle as stolen and
tailed him.
He roared off, triggering a high-speed chase in which
he tried to ram two police cars, hurtled along pavements
and across playing fields, and reversed down a busy
A-road at 30mph. The Vauxhall was written off in the
chase and Whiting was arrested. He was eventually jailed
for 22 months after admitting dangerous driving and
taking a vehicle without consent. Prison was perhaps
the only place where he felt safe.
He was questioned for a second time about Sarah's disappearance
on July 31 when her naked body was found in a shallow
grave in Pulborough, 15 miles from the site where she
was abducted. He was finally charged on February 6 and
appeared in Chichester Magistrates Court the following
day.
When he later appeared at Lewes Crown Court, wearing
black jeans and a grey T-shirt, he smiled and yawned
through much of the ten-minute hearing. Back in court
for the trial, Whiting at first made little effort to
impress jurors with his demeanour. The heavy jowls of
his angular face fixed in an almost permanent sneer,
he yawned frequently, rocking back and forth in the
dock throughout the first trial.
When the jury was scrapped and the trial relaunched
he began to make notes, poring over the sheaves of evidence
as they were placed before him. But when he gave evidence
even his defence barrister Sally O'Neill confessed under
her breath: "He has completely ostracised the jury."
He made the choice to give evidence but became aggressive
and snappy as he struggled to answer Timothy Langdale
QC's barrage of questions.
It was as if he believed he could convince the jury
of his innocence simply by his down-to-earth responses:
"I've got nothing to hide." Only when his
barrister declined the opportunity to re-examine him
did he realise, maybe for the first time, the impression
he had made on the court. For the remaining days of
the trial he slouched in the dock, resting his head
on his hands. The sneer had vanished. |
| Contact : bernard.omahoney@bernardomahoney.com |
|
|
| Flowers in Gods Garden |
|
| Paul Pearson |
|
| Rosie Palmer |
|
| Sophie Hook |
|
| Sarah Payne |
|
| Victoria Climbie |
|
| Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman |
- Documents
- Audio
|
| The Yorkshire Ripper |
- Video
|
|
