Sara Payne - Letters to Sarah--A Child Lost Forever, a Mothers Grief and a Love That Will Never Die

O n Saturday, 1 July 2000, eight-year-old Sarah Payne was playing with her two brothers and sister near the home of her grand-parents in West Sussex. The children argued and Sarah wandered off at around 8pm on that summers eve. No one saw her again. Sara Payne reported her missing daughter and local emergency service teams, combined with police, searched all night, with no success.

By the next day, more than fifty officers and almost one hundred volunteers undertook a fingertip search of the area. Sarahs brother Lee revealed that he saw a white van and a grinning man in the lane where she would have walked. That day, a known paedophile called Roy Whiting, then aged forty-one, was arrested but later released on bail.

On the Monday, Sara and Michael Payne made their first televised appeal for the return of their little girl it was to be one of many. The country immediately rallied to the side of the distraught couple, and in particular reached out to Sara, who spoke to all parents as she beggedfor her daughter to come home. It was on that day that the police first admitted that Sarah could have been taken by a stranger. Two days later, they staged an identity parade, which included Whiting, but were forced to release him again on bail, this time pending further inquiries.

It turned into a horrific waiting game. As the days passed, everyones worst fears were turning into the most likely reality. By 6 July, every police force in the UK was involved in the hunt for Sarah, but the actual search was scaled down so that the inquiry could focus on specific leads. The next day, the police staged a reconstruction of the little girls last-known movements in an attempt to jog the memory of anyone who might have seen her. This resulted in more than 3,000 calls from the public. Roadblocks were set up and motorists quizzed to see if anyone else recalled the white van seen by thirteen-year-old Lee. Along with his eleven-year-old brother Luke, and six-year-old sister Charlotte, Lee helped the police all he could, but there was not the swift resolution hoped for by the whole nation. There soon followed another emotional televised appeal, but the search entered a second week amid fears of how it might end.

The entire country waited and the story spread across the world. Each news bulletin led with updates and Sarah Payne was fast becoming recognised by everyone, but on 13 July, her mother was told to prepare for the worst. The emphasis of the inquiry had shifted and it became unlikely that Sarah would be found safe and well. Two days later, the whole family returned to the beach where the children had been playing just before Sarah disappeared, but any hope they might have had was soon shattered when, on the Monday, police found a body.

On Tuesday, 18 July, they confirmed that it was indeed Sarah and opened a murder investigation.

At the end of July, Roy Whiting was again arrested and again released on police bail. But it was not until after a further Crimewatch appeal on BBC1 in January 2001 that he was finally charged with Sarahs murder. On 12 December 2001, he was found guilty of abducting and murdering little Sarah, and jailed for life.

Over those eighteen months, Sara Payne never rested. Knowing that her child had been the victim of a convicted paedophile made her convinced that there needed to be a change in the law so that ordinary people could find out when there was an offender living nearby. It transpired that Whiting had a 1995 conviction for sexually assaulting another young girl, and it was this knowledge that finally convinced Sara there should be new legislation to, hopefully, prevent the same thing ever happening again. Sara fought for a version of Megans Law, an American statute whereby communities were told the whereabouts of known paedophiles. Sarahs Law would be a testament to the little girl who had touched the hearts of a nation and it was to be the campaign that continued to endear her mother to everyone.

Sara Payne told her story in the aftermath of those early events, but hers is a tale that never ends. With a daughter whose name is still a byword for victims rights and a character that endeared her to a nation, now is the time for her to tell exactly what happened in the years that followed and how she has survived every parents worst nightmare.