'Fatal evidence shows guilt of Sarah Payne's killer'
Damning forensic evidence provides the final pieces of the jigsaw which proves the guilt of British schoolgirl Sarah Payne’s alleged killer, a court was told today.
In his closing speech, Timothy Langdale QC, prosecuting, said there were enough pieces of the picture to prove that Roy Whiting kidnapped, killed and buried the eight-year-old.
Lewes Crown Court heard that a solitary blonde hair belonging to Sarah found on a red sweatshirt in Whiting’s van was ‘‘fatal’’ to the accused’s case.
The fact that 22 fibres from five items discovered in the white Fiat Ducato van were also found in clumps of Sarah’s hair close to her shallow grave helped build a clear picture that Whiting was the killer, Mr Langdale said.
‘‘The prosecution case is that scientific evidence, when you look at all of it, provides further and very important pieces to add to the jigsaw already taking shape with the other evidence in this case,’’ he said.
‘‘The prosecution submit that with these extra pieces provided by the scientific evidence, the picture emerges with unmistakable clarity.
‘‘This is not an instance of yet further coincidence, as Roy Whiting would have you believe. It is the case that the defendant is indeed the man responsible for these crimes. If that is the view that you all share, then the proper verdict is one of guilty in this case.’’
On day 15 of the trial the jury was taken through all the forensic evidence step-by-step by Mr Langdale who told them there were too many coincidences to support the alleged killer’s claim that he had been the victim of ‘‘bad luck’’.
He said: ‘‘Mr Whiting would have you believe he was the victim of an unfortunate coincidence. But it’s an awful lot of coincidences when you look at just the fibre evidence.’’
Of Sarah’s nine-inch hair, he told the jury: ‘‘If that hair was on Roy Whiting’s sweatshirt in his van, it’s absolutely damning evidence, is it not?’’
Mr Langdale said that the chance of the hair becoming detached from another exhibit and finding its way on to the sweat shirt were too remote to consider. The defence had claimed the sweatshirt had become contaminated.
Mr Langdale said: ‘‘It’s beyond the bounds of coincidence that there were all these connections between that garment and Sarah Payne and her burial.’’
The prosecutor added that Whiting’s testimony to the court and his constant ‘‘evasiveness’’ to ‘‘awkward questions’’ provide a ‘‘further pointer’’ to his guilt.
Mr Langdale said: ‘‘Sometimes the giving of evidence by a defendant is a useful insight into a case. The prosecution suggest that having seen Mr Whiting in the witness box having to answer questions about what happened, it in fact amounted to a further pointer to his guilt.’’
He claimed that Whiting was ‘‘clutching at straws’’ whenever a difficult question was put to him.
Mr Langdale added that Whiting had constantly lied and changed his story from the account he told police and the story he told the court.
‘‘It comes down to this, who do you believe?’’ he said.
Mr Langdale also asked the jury why Whiting had not declared a receipt from the Buck Barn garage retrieved from his van which showed he had filled up with diesel just before 10pm on Saturday July 1.
‘‘The one thing he did not want to mention to the police on that Sunday evening was that he had been at the garage at that time,’’ he said. ‘‘One can perhaps see the obvious reason why.
‘‘Nobody, save the man who had done it, knew where Sarah’s body was buried.’’
Mr Langdale said Whiting’s account of his movements on the day Sarah was snatched and other key items found in his van added pieces to the jigsaw.
He reminded the jury how a length of rope, two plastic ties, a knife and a bottle of baby oil were all discovered in the vehicle.
The prosecutor said it was the Crown’s case that Whiting drove back to Littlehampton far earlier on July 1 than he told police and that he deliberately went to the spot Sarah was kidnapped on the way.
He said: ‘‘He was someone on the prowl. Mr Whiting had been driving back from Hove rather earlier than he would have you believe. He was not going north at all but going back to Littlehampton, driving to a place where he knew there was a possibility that young children might be the rope swing in that field in East Preston.’’
The jury was told how Whiting had an intimate knowledge of both the area where Sarah was snatched and the site where her naked body was dumped just off the A29, near Pulborough, West Sussex.
Mr Langdale also questioned Whiting’s claims that he had stayed in his former flat in St Augustine Road, Littlehampton, on July 2 when he had actually cleaned up the back of his van.
He said: ‘‘You may conclude that he was not telling police what he was doing in relation to the van because he knew there was a risk that there might have been traces of Sarah’s presence in the back of his van.’’
Sarah was snatched from a country lane near her grandparents’ home in Kingston Gorse, West Sussex, on July 1 last year. Her naked body was discovered in a shallow grave on the edge of the A29 road near Pulborough 16 days later.
The case was adjourned until 10am tomorrow when Sally O’Neill QC, defending, will give her closing speech.
Whiting, 42, formerly of St Augustine Road, Littlehampton, West Sussex, denies kidnap and murder.
