| Flowers in Gods Garden
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12/12/01 - Verdict salvages police
reputation
by Paul Cheston and Bob McGowan
The arrest of Roy Whiting was a textbook operation of
solid detective work and the gut instincts of ordinary
coppers and could not have come a moment too soon for
the battered reputation of Sussex Police.
Today's verdict is a huge and welldeserved boost to
a force savaged for its handling of the shooting of
a naked man in Hastings by armed officers and the failure
of the high-profile prosecution of five officers involved.
The affair dragged on for more than three years until
Chief Constable Paul Whitehouse was forced to resign
after promoting two of the senior officers involved
and giving them a back-dated pay rise. The Chief Constable's
deputy Mark Jordan was also suspended and has now retired
on medical grounds, which means he avoids facing a disciplinary
inquiry.
A devastating report into the fiasco found "prima
facie" evidence of wilful neglect of duty against
Whitehouse, and his force was accused of a "complete
corporate failure in duty to society". The disappearance
of Sarah Payne also awakened memories of how police
had bungled the "Babes in the Wood" murders
of two young girls in Brighton when the key evidence
against Russell Bishop was first lost and then contaminated.
Bishop was cleared and went on to kidnap, sexually assault
and leave for dead another little girl before being
jailed for life. But the Payne case has done much to
repair the confidence of the public even though senior
officers admitted to " sleepless nights" before
scientists were able to confirm forensically what they
had suspected virtually from day one.
Success was based on the speed of reaction from local
officers who responded to the 999 call from Sarah's
mother to Divisional Inspector Jeff Lister. He risked
rebuke by phoning Detective Superintendent Alan Ladley
at home on that Saturday night, suspecting this was
more than just a missing girl.
Mr Ladley led a team which drew up an immediate ad hoc
list of the six most likely paedophiles to have carried
out the snatch - and Roy Whiting was number one. Pc
Christopher Saunders and Dc Richard Gardham knocked
on Whiting's door on Sunday night and - with nothing
more to go on than some evasive answers, a white van,
a white T-shirt and bad teeth which matched the description
of the suspect provided by Sarah's brother Lee - sensed
they could have their man.
Joined by Detective Sergeant Steve Wagstaff, they waited
for two hours outside Whiting's flat watching him coming
and going to the van. When he drove off they had a major
dilemma - should they follow him in the hope he would
lead them to Sarah or stop him? However tempting the
first choice, they had to move in.
Said Mr Ladley: "You can't do surveillance like
they do in The Bill with just one car. The officers
had a snap decision to make and thankfully it was the
right one. Had we lost him we might never have got his
van back." In fact Sarah was already dead. Whiting
was shaking and sweating so much he had trouble even
turning off the engine.
He was arrested and the van was found to contain the
treasure trove of forensic evidence linking him to Sarah.
Asked if that was the best decision he had ever made,
Mr Wagstaff replied, after long reflection: "I've
made worse." It was to be many months before the
forensic results came through, and, having arrested
Whiting twice without shaking his protestations of innocence,
detectives were starting to get a bit edgy.
Mr Ladley said: "For six months we were questioning
whether we had been just too lucky to have the prime
suspect so quickly - there were a lot of sleepless nights."
DI Paul Williams added: "We would have been complacent
to have put all our eggs in the Whiting basket. Every
sex offender in Sussex was looked at."
In the end the one billion to one DNA evidence from
Sarah's hair on Whiting's red sweatshirt and the dozens
of microscopic fibres sealed what was already a strong
circumstantial case against him. But the otherwise immaculate
inquiry was to have one final twist.
The stray hairs protruding from the sealed exhibit bag
containing Sarah's possessions were stored in the same
room as the sealed exhibit bag containing the sweatshirt,
leading to defence allegations of possible contamination
explaining the DNA link. "I was very disappointed
when I found out," said Mr Ladley with remarkable
understatement.
"But contamination was so unlikely as to be an
unrealistic proposition." The jury agreed and completed
the rehabilitation of a force that was once in crisis. |
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