Verdict salvages police reputation

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.