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13/12/01 - Sara sobbed ..at last
she had justice
by Gill Swain
The Mirror
ALL around them the Payne family hissed "Yesss!"
when the first verdict on the count of kidnapping rang
around the court but Mike and Sara waited. They had
already waited one year, 193 days, four hours and 15
minutes for justice for their little girl. They could
wait a few tense seconds more.
The young woman foreman of the jury listened to the
judge's request for their second verdict, the one on
the count of murder. Then in a strong voice she almost
shouted: "Guilty!" The wait was finally over.
Mike turned his glittering eyes on the hated figure
of Roy Whiting, twisted his mouth into a vicious snarl
and yelled: "YES!" Sara's head sank like a
stone. "I thought of Sarah," she said later
"and nothing else." Sarah, her precious little
girl with the gap-toothed smile and the trusting eyes,
whom she had last seen laughing on a beach on a glorious
summer day.
There were many tears. Mike's father, Terry, buried
his face in his hands while the rest of the family hugged
each other and Sara's sister wept bitterly with both
sadness and relief. On the other side of the dock the
parents of Whiting's first victim, who had attended
every day of the trial, waited for what everyone but
the jury knew was coming.
Crying quietly, the mother clasped her husband round
his arm, as if to restrain him from leaping over the
bench and throttling Whiting with his bare hands. Mike
and Sara brought in sons Lee and Luke to hear what the
man in the white van had done to that other child when
she was only nine and it was as if we were all listening
to a description of what probably happened to Sarah
too.
As the appalling details were read out in the silent
court, the jurors were visibly shocked. A man in the
back row began to cry and two of the women covered their
faces with their hands. Whiting, a normally fidgety
man whose arms flap about like a puppet whose strings
have come loose, sat still as stone, his arms folded
on the dock in front of him and his eyes fixed on the
judge, barely blinking.
He had worn the same clothes several days running throughout
the case and still looked scruffy yesterday in a shapeless
grey sweatshirt and baggy jeans. But for once he appeared
clean-shaven and his floppy hair had been recently washed.
When Whiting gave evidence, reporters sitting behind
the witness box noticed that he stank like someone who
had been sleeping rough for a fortnight. It was so bad
that his barrister, Sally O'Neill, told him to carry
a tablet of Lifebuoy soap in each trouser pocket to
counteract the stench.
Yesterday in court his white-haired mother, Pamela Green,
impassively folded her hands on her handbag on her knees
and waited. Then came the sentence. "Life,"
said the judge and Sara's knees buckled.
Terry shouted: "I hope you rot" at Whiting's
back as he was taken down but Sara only hung her head
and sobbed. She had heard what she wanted to hear. Life
for a precious life. Finally, it was justice for Sarah.
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