Whiting: 'It wasn't me'

Roy Whiting today claimed he was the "victim of an extraordinary accident" and suffered from "bad luck" to even be suspected of kidnapping and killing Sarah Payne.

Whiting dismissed as "a coincidence" the presence of 22 fibres linking him and his clothing found in his white van to the eight-year-old.

The forensic evidence against Whiting included a nine-inch blonde hair found on his red sweatshirt in the van which contained a one-billion-to-one DNA profile link to Sarah.

In a series of electric exchanges, Timothy Langdale QC, prosecuting, told Whiting that it would have to be an "extraordinary accident" for that sweatshirt held in a sealed exhibits bag to have been contaminated with a dislodged hair protruding from another sealed package of Sarah's possessions. The defence has claimed that such contamination took place. "Either you are the most unfortunate man, would you not agree, and this is just bad luck as far as you are concerned?" asked Mr Langdale.

Whiting replied: "Yes." Mr Langdale continued: "Or the alternative is that barring that extraordinary accident it can only mean one thing, can't it?"

Whiting: "Yes." Mr Langdale: "That one thing is that you are the man who kidnapped her (Sarah), you are the man who killed that child and you are the man who buried her body - that is the only other alternative."

Whiting: "It wasn't me." Earlier Mr Langdale had outlined each of the forensic links including fibres indistinguishable from Whiting's sweatshirt being found on the Velcro strap of Sarah's shoe and in matted balls of her hair at the graveside.

Further fibres also found on these items and in the body bag containing Sarah's corpse variously matched a clown's patterned curtain found in Whiting's van, the front passenger seat cover, the driver's seat cover and a pair of Whiting's socks.

At first Whiting, in his second day in the witness box at Lewes Crown Court, just shrugged his shoulders.

To each forensic discovery Mr Langdale asked: "Is this another unfortunate coincidence?" and Whiting replied: "Yes."

"Some 22 fibres in all in relation to these five items; that cannot be a coincidence can it?" pressed Mr Langdale.

Whiting replied: "Yes, you don't know if she picked up these fibres herself, do you?"

Mr Langdale: "Here is the clearest possible evidence that she (Sarah) was in fact in your van."

Whiting: "No, I don't agree with that."

Mr Langdale: "You just cannot admit it."

Whiting: "I can't agree, you don't know what she picked up in the eight to 12 weeks she had the shoes or what she picked up on her clothes the day of or the day before she went down to Kingston Gorse."

Whiting, 42 a part-time builder and mechanic from Littlehampton, has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and murdering Sarah in July last year.

She disappeared from a quiet country lane after playing with her brothers and sister in a cornfield near her grandparents' home in Kingston Gorse, near Littlehampton, West Sussex. Her naked body was found 16 days later partially concealed in a field near the A29 near Pulborough, about 20 miles away.

Her brother Lee has described seeing a "scruffy, dirty" man with yellowish teeth driving a white van away from the spot where she was last seen grinning and waving at him.

The trial continues.