13/12/01 - On the prowl for children
By MARTIN WALLACE
The Sun

SCHEMING Roy Whiting snatched Sarah Payne after spending a day on the prowl for a child. He drove his van to a string of places where he knew children would be playing. And poor Sarah was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time when the evil pervert chanced upon her on a warm summer evening.

Whiting had done it all before five years earlier, when he kidnapped and sexually abused a nine-year-old girl. He went to prison for that crime after letting his victim live. This time, as his vile urges surfaced again, he was determined he would not be caught. And Sarah's shocking fate was sealed.

Whiting bought an F-reg white Fiat Ducato van six days before he set out on his murderous mission, paying removal man Dean Fuller £400 in cash. His exact movements on July 1 last year may never be known. But most can be pieced together from the evidence he gave at his trial and witnesses who saw the van. Some time before 12.30pm.

Whiting went from his Littlehampton home to a Worthing garage to collect fittings he ordered for the van. He claimed he then drove to the sea to relieve a spell of boredom. He left the van in a Shoreham car park and went for a two-hour stroll along the beach. Then he drove to nearby Portslade, where he watched windsurfers on a boating lake.

Next stop was Hove, where he sat in a park for more than an hour eating sandwiches, smoking and reading a copy of The Mirror he bought at a nearby shop. At 4pm he drove to another park and sat on a bench watching kids play football. Just before 5pm he drove to a third park hosting a funfair. He watched children there for nearly two hours before driving back to Littlehampton.

Whiting did not get the chance to abduct a child during his tour ... but he knew another place where youngsters would be. He had been working on a house extension in Golden Avenue, East Preston - 500 yards from the cornfield where Sarah was playing with brothers Lee, 14, Luke, 13, and sister Charlotte, seven.

While doing the job he took home owner Brian Wawman's dog for a walk in the area nearly every day. And he would have known that the field near the Kingston Corse home of Sarah's grandparents had a tree swing popular with kiddies. The Payne children headed to the spot after playing on the beach at East Preston.

But Sarah banged her head when she was knocked over by Lee. The tearful girl walked alone out of the field on to Kingston Lane just after 7.30pm. It was the opportunity Whiting had been waiting for - and he struck with lightning speed. Lee went after Sarah but from the field he saw only the top of a white van. He stepped through a hedge to find Sarah had vanished and ran towards his gran's home in Peak Lane.

As he approached a junction, a van turned out of it and sped towards him. Whiting, who bundled Sarah into the front passenger footwell, grinned and waved at Lee as he drove off with wheels spinning. A neighbour setting off to babysit her grandchildren also saw the van shooting away. It is likely Whiting pulled into a layby north of Littlehampton and probably abused and murdered Sarah there.

The next sighting of him came at 9.53pm when he pulled into the Buck Barn filling station at West Grinstead, where he was given a £20 receipt for diesel. He then set off to dump Sarah's body near Pulborough an area criss-crossed by farm tracks familiar to Whiting. He had done numerous building jobs in the vicinity.

His van was seen parked on the side of the A29 by motorist Jacqueline Hallam at 10.15pm. He was probably scouring nearby fields for a suitable burial place. At 11.05pm. driver Bruce Pearce saw a white van, its lights switched off, reversing up a farm track. Sarah was found a few yards from the track in a weed-covered field.

Police experts say it would have taken Whiting just five minutes to dig a shallow grave, heave the body inside and cover it with earth. But the killer made the first of TWO major mistakes by failing to dig a deeper hole. Sarah's body was partially dragged out of the soil by foxes and was found 16 days after the murder by farm worker Luke Coleman.

A few minutes after Mr Pearce's sighting, motorist Sean Matthews - driving north on the A29 saw a white van pull on to the road from the track. He was forced to brake hard to avoid crashing into the rear of the unlit vehicle, which he described as "like a ghost van". He followed it for three miles until Whiting suddenly indicated and turned right towards Coolham. ft was then the killer made his second mistake.

He must have glanced down to see Sarah's right shoe lying in the passenger footwell. It was the only item of her clothing he had not disposed of. And in a panic he wound down his window and tossed it into the grass verge of the B2139. Motorist Deborah Bray noticed the shoe two days after Sarah vanished.

She thought nothing of it as the girl had gone missing more than 20 miles away. But when Sarah's body was found less than two miles away, she reported the sighting to police. She returned to the scene to search for the shoe and eventually found it squashed and tattered in a hedge.

It is a miracle vital forensic evidence found on its Velcro strap was not lost even though it had been knocked around by passing cars. Scientists recovered one fibre from a clown-pattern curtain and four from a red sweatshirt found in Whiting's van. They proved beyond doubt that Sarah had been inside.