Evil Whiting jailed for life

Roy Whiting was jailed for life today for the murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne and told that he will never be released.

The judge told Whiting: "You are indeed an evil man." He said he would recommend to the Home Secretary "that you be kept in prison for the rest of your life". For the first time it can be revealed that six years ago Whiting had snatched a nine-year-old girl off the streets in identical fashion to Sarah and molested her before releasing her. Today Mr Justice Curtis at Lewes

Crown Court said that Whiting, having ruined the lives of the family of that girl and the entire Payne family, must never be allowed the chance to damage a third family.

He told Whiting he was a " cunning and glib liar" and that having kidnapped Sarah he turned his white van into "a moving prison for her".

The jury of nine men and three women took more than 11 hours to reach unanimous verdicts of guilty to kidnap and murder which were greeted with screams of delight in the packed public galleries.

Sarah's parents Sara and Michael dissolved into tears and sat in their seats hugging each other, while the parents of the earlier victim held hands as their son cried.

As details of the previous kidnap and indecent assault were given to the jury for the first time, the forewoman burst into tears and the two other women sat with their heads in their hands.

Sarah's brothers Lee, now 14, and Luke, 12, were brought into court to see their sister's killer sentenced, on the advice of a psychiatrist who believed that this would help them come to terms with her death and see the man responsible to effect "closure" in their minds and help them to stop blaming themselves.

Sentencing Whiting, who had stood poker-faced in the dock, the judge said: "You had a fair trial. I deliberately ordered that you be tried on the facts of this matter, not the past kidnap and your criminal record which the jury has not heard until it was read out in court.

"You are every parent's and every grandparent's nightmare come true.

"It is important in ordinary life that children are allowed some freedom by their parents and others so that they learn self-reliance and enjoy their childhood by doing things their own way.

"You have exploited this for your own abnormal sexual desires. You took her away in a few moments. I am satisfied that you were looking for such a child along the south coast of Sussex that evening.

"You had that van and it is ludicrous to suggest that you needed it for the job you were doing. It was a moving prison for her and anybody else you could get." Mr Justice Curtis said that Whiting's "innate intelligence and previous brush with the law made you more likely to be caught if you used your car".

The judge detailed exactly what Whiting had inside his van when he set out to seize a young girl. It included rope, plastic hand ties, a knife, a cushion and baby oil. He added: "I am quite satisfied that you indecently assaulted Sarah in it."

He continued: "One of the many articles had a small trace of semen on it. This is the only indication that survived your work of getting rid of all the evidence by pressure-washing the van and getting rid of all her clothes, plus removing the panelling and back doors in order to destroy any evidence that Sarah Payne had been in that van.

"As we all know, you stripped her naked after you had suffocated her, and buried her and got rid of her clothes - you are indeed an evil man.

"What is more, in early 1995 you did the same thing. That girl mercifully you did not kill. The medical evidence says that you are in no way mentally unwell."

Decrying the way Whiting had invented a totally false alibi for the night he killed Sarah and had continued with his lies in the witness box for two days, the judge told him that "in my opinion you are a cunning and glib liar".

Referring to a psychiatrist's report presented to the court in 1995, the judge pointed out that he was assessed then as a "high-risk repeat offender" - and how "right he was".

"The totally appalling facts of this kidnap and murder means that my judgment is that you are and will remain an absolute menace to any little girl," Mr Justice Curtis continued.

"This is one of those rare cases in which I will recommend to the appropriate authorities that you be kept in prison for the rest of your life."

As the court cheered, Sarah's grandfather Terry Payne lent over the steps from the dock to the cells and shouted "I hope you rot".

The judge ordered that Whiting's van be seized and destroyed.

He awarded Deborah Bray, the woman who found Sarah's shoe - a vital piece of forensic evidence - £500 from public funds.

Whiting had seized Sarah from a country lane in July last year as she played with her two brothers and sister in a cornfield near her grandparents' home at Kingston Gorse near Littlehampton. The child's body was discovered 16 days later in a field on the A29 near Pulborough, about 20 miles away.

Sarah's brother Lee had seen a "dirty, scruffy" driver with yellowish teeth grinning and waving at him as he sped off in a white van from the lane where Sarah had disappeared.

With Whiting's criminal record, the police were on his doorstep 24 hours later and arrested him in his van, later found to contain a treasure trove of forensic evidence, including a nine-inch hair from Sarah on his red sweatshirt, providing a one billion to one certainty that she had been in the van.

Despite the mountain of evidence against him, Whiting refused to confess and sneeringly replied "no comment" to every question in police interviews.

Bailed pending the outcome of the forensic tests, he went to live with his father in Crawley - the scene of his first child abduction in 1995 - but was forced out by a vigilante mob.

Three weeks after killing Sarah, Whiting stole a Vauxhall Nova and tried to ram two police cars. He was sentenced to 22 months in prison and, on the day of his release after half the term, was immediately rearrested and charged with Sarah's murder.

In court he continued to protest his innocence in the face of the overwhelming evidence against him, claiming it was all a coincidence. Through his counsel, Sally O'Neill, QC, he mounted a furious attack on the police and forensic scientists who had gathered the evidence against him.

In the witness box Whiting claimed he had been sitting on a park bench in Hove when he was, in truth, bundling Sarah in to his van 25 miles away.

He invented a ludicrous story of trying to drive from Brighton to Crawley, then changing his mind and going back to Littlehampton, in order to explain a receipt for diesel found in his van which placed him on the A29 near Pulborough at 10pm on the night Sarah disappeared.

Whiting played the system, then killed
A man who revelled in his own filth
Verdict salvages police reputation
Campaign that led to mob attacks
Whiting revisited makeshift grave
Death sparked outpouring of grief
Fibres that linked Sarah to her killer