Lifers

by Geoffrey Wansell

  As Whiting turned in the dock to be led down to the cells, Sarah’s grandfather, Terry Payne, shouted, ‘I hope you rot!’

  It was not until after the verdict, however, that it was revealed publicly that Whiting had been on the Sex Offenders’ Register when he killed Sarah Payne. The prosecuting authorities had been concerned that the jury’s judgement could have been swayed towards a conviction had they known that fact – which might, in turn, have given Whiting grounds for an appeal as he could have argued that he had not been given the benefit of a ‘fair’ trial.

  The jury were also never told that in his 1995 conviction for the abduction and indecent assault of an eight-year-old girl Whiting had used precisely the same technique as he had later used on Sarah Payne. He had bought a red Ford Sierra and then sold it quickly after the attack. In a carbon copy of his first attack, he did exactly the same thing – only in Sarah’s case it had been a white Fiat Ducato van.

  After the verdict had been announced, Timothy Langdale QC, for the prosecution, described in some detail Whiting’s 1995 attack, and explained that the defendant had thrown the girl into the back of a dirty car, locked the doors and told her to ‘shut up’ because he had a knife. ‘The defendant told the girl to take off her clothes. When she refused, he produced a knife from his pocket and threatened to tie her up.’ The girl was undressed and ‘subjected to a disgusting sexual assault’.

  The possibility that this was exactly what may have happened to Sarah stunned the crowded courtroom, reducing Sarah’s parents to tears. What few people there that day knew was that the parents and younger brother of Whiting’s first victim were there alongside the Paynes and weeping themselves.

  Inevitably, in the wake of the revelation that Whiting was a known child sex offender who had used the same modus operandi in a previous attack, there were significant and repeated calls from the public and the press for the government to allow ‘controlled’ public access to the Sex Offenders’ Register. But the Home Office pointed out the day after his conviction that such a system would be unworkable, as it would run the twin risks of driving paedophiles ‘underground’ as well as putting them in danger of vigilante attacks.

  Nevertheless, the controversy did not die down, and was taken still further with the help of the Sunday newspaper News of the World, which had been campaigning on the issue – with the help of Sarah’s mother, Sara – since Sarah’s disappearance in July 2000. Mrs Payne was anxious to see the introduction in Britain of a similar system to the American ‘Megan’s Law’, which gives parents and the public restricted rights to know about paedophiles living in a particular area.

  Megan’s Law was named in honour of seven-year-old Megan Kanka, who was raped and murdered by her neighbour Jesse Timmendequas in 1994. After the killer’s trial, it was revealed that he was a convicted child rapist. The American Megan’s Law shows photographs and addresses of sex offenders, but the proposed Sarah’s Law in Britain was never intended to go to such lengths. Nevertheless, it was fiercely debated in the years following Whiting’s conviction and a modified scheme in which parents could enquire about a named individual was introduced in four areas in England and Wales in September 2008. In 2010 the Home Office announced that the trial had been successful and the Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme was rolled out across England and Wales in 2011.

  As a result of the controversy and debate about Sarah’s Law, Roy Whiting did not sink into obscurity in prison. His name regularly incited the strongest possible reaction, among the public and prisoners alike, even though he had actually committed only one child murder – though a most heinous one.

  Perhaps inevitably, on 4 August 2002, only months after his conviction, Whiting was attacked with a razor by another prisoner while fetching hot water in Wakefield Prison. Convicted murderer Rickie Tregaskis, who was serving a life sentence for the murder of a disabled man in Cornwall, was found guilty of carrying out a slashing attack that left Whiting with a six-inch scar on his right cheek. He was later given a six-year sentence, to be served after the completion of his minimum term. The scar remains on Whiting’s cheek today.

  Yet Whiting continued to attract controversy, not least over the length of the life sentence he should serve in the wake of the trial judge’s recommendation that life should mean life. In fact, the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, decided that Whiting’s life sentence should attract a minimum term of twenty-eight years before he could be considered for release. It was a remarkably long minimum period at that time – although in the last dozen years ‘sentence creep’ has seen a minimum term reach forty-five years in the case of Michael Adebowale, one of the killers of Private Lee Rigby.

  The Lord Chief Justice’s decision provided the background to a series of heated clashes between himself and the Labour Home Secretary, David Blunkett, over the issue of politicians’ involvement in the judicial process. For his part, Blunkett was well aware that there was a strong possibility that the House of Lords would rule, following a judgement from the European Court of Human Rights and an appeal from the convicted British murderer Anthony Anderson, that the law should be altered to prevent politicians having any role whatever in the sentencing process.

  So, on 24 November 2002, Blunkett ordered that Whiting should serve a minimum of fifty years in prison, thereby making him ineligible even to be considered for parole until at least 2051, when Whiting would be ninety-two. It was a whole life term in all but name – and in line with the recommendation of the trial judge. Yet within forty-eight hours the Law Lords, following the European Court of Human Rights, declared that politicians should play no part in any decision regarding how long a murderer should be kept in prison. It was a decision that meant that Roy Whiting would be the last British murderer to have his term of imprisonment set by a Home Secretary.

  It also meant that Blunkett could present himself as a Home Secretary who was ‘tough on crime’ and as someone in tune with the public attitude to a murderer who had become one of the most reviled men in Britain during the previous two years. Naturally enough, the decision was welcomed by Sarah’s mother Sara and her father Michael, who saw it as a vindication of their view that Whiting’s life sentence should mean a life spent behind bars. That view was underscored by the continuing campaign for the introduction of ‘Sarah’s Law’, and the Home Secretary’s decision increased his popular reputation – not least because Whiting was still being portrayed in the media as a monster who had to be controlled at all costs.

  Whiting’s legal team were well aware, however, that the new Criminal Justice Act 2003, transferring sentencing powers once and for all from politicians to the judiciary, was passing into law, and so the former car mechanic remained studiously quiet for almost eighteen months after the Blunkett ruling that he should serve a minimum of fifty years for his crime. Indeed, it was not until June 2004, when the new Act was firmly in place, that the media reported that he would be appealing to the High Court for his sentence to be reduced.

  It would be six years before that appeal would finally be heard. It was not until Wednesday 9 June 2010 that Whiting’s case came before Mr Justice Simon in the Court of Appeal in London. Sarah Payne’s killer chose not to be present, but her mother was in the packed courtroom on the first floor of the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand. Other members of the Payne family were there too, as the single judge entered in front of them. His first words startled everyone.

  ‘I invite everyone present in the Court,’ Mr Justice Simon began, ‘before we go about our daily business, to pause and for a moment remember Sarah Payne who would no
w be eighteen if she had not been murdered, and reflect on the grave loss her death has caused to her family and others who loved her.’ It was an unprecedented statement in the Court of Appeal, and precisely represented the depth of feeling among the judiciary as well as the public about the significance of the case.

  As the judge made his remarks, Sarah’s mother linked hands with the man sitting next to her, but the judgement she was about to hear would not entirely please her. Mr Justice Simon explained that the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, had recommended that Whiting should serve a minimum term of twenty-eight years rather than the fifty years ordered by the former Home Secretary David Blunkett. That term had been accepted by the Crown Prosecution Service, but then he added, ‘The applicant [Whiting] submits that the appropriate term was the term of twenty-eight years which was recommended by the Lord Chief Justice … It is submitted that in this case a term of fifty years was disproportionate and the minimum term of twenty-eight years recommended should be imposed.’

  Mr Justice Simon then explained that he had considered the arguments, and that in his judgement the ‘appropriate’ minimum term should be set at forty years and that from that ‘must be deducted the time spent on remand which is calculated to be 234 days’. But he stressed that Whiting’s sentence remained one of life imprisonment and that he would be detained ‘unless and until the Parole Board is satisfied that he no longer presents a risk to the public’. The judge then reminded the packed court, ‘Even if the Parole Board decides then or at some time in the future to authorise his release, he will be on licence for the rest of his life.’

  The Court of Appeal’s decision meant that Whiting could now be considered for parole, bearing in mind Mr Justice Simon’s provisos, in 2041, when he would be aged eighty-two.

  Outside the High Court Sara Payne, now walking with a stick as the result of a stroke, spoke with quiet dignity and conviction, just as she had done throughout the ordeal that had lasted almost exactly a decade. Surrounded by her surviving children, Lee, aged twenty-three, Luke, aged twenty-one, and Charlotte, aged fifteen, Mrs Payne said firmly, ‘The family is clearly disappointed that the tariff has been reduced, but he will be well into his eighties before he is eligible, so it’s not a terrible, terrible thing, and could have been a lot worse, so we carry on as before.’

  ‘He’s in prison now,’ she went on, ‘he can’t hurt any children there. All the time it was fifty years my family and I could relax – there was no way he could be near any children and hurt them. Right now, of course, we are a little bit reeling … There is no end to this. This is our life from now on.’

  But then Sara Payne allowed herself to reveal how deeply she still felt the pain of her loss and the suffering she felt should have been inflicted on Roy Whiting. ‘The man is a danger to children and will remain so as long as he lives and breathes.’ When questioned by reporters she also insisted, ‘All the time it was fifty years it was a good message. Life meaning life is the only fair sentence. He should die in prison.’

  The impact that her daughter’s abduction and murder have had on Sara and Michael Payne’s lives is impossible to overestimate. Three years after Whiting’s conviction they split up after eighteen years of marriage, while Sara was pregnant with their fourth child. Michael then proceeded to descend into a severe alcoholic depression, angry that he had not been able ‘to protect my daughter’, while Sara suffered a stroke. Then in 2011 Michael was imprisoned for sixteen months for attacking his brother with a broken glass in the wake of another drinking spree, and on 31 October 2014 he was found dead in an armchair in his flat in Maidstone at the age of just forty-five.

  I am convinced that the Court of Appeal’s decision to reduce Whiting’s term to forty years was affected by the forty year minimum sentence given to Ian Huntley for the Soham murders five years earlier. But, just as in Huntley’s case, it raised the question of whether a crime that had attracted such public outcry and opprobrium – involving as both did the murder of a child or children – should attract such apparent leniency. What had started out as what looked like a whole life sentence from the trial judge in 2001 had slowly but steadily been diluted so that Whiting was to be allowed at least the possibility of release, even if as a very elderly man.

  There is the possibility, of course, that the Court of Appeal may have felt that they must differentiate carefully between the crimes of Huntley and Whiting, making it clear that the killing of a single person, even a child, does not warrant a whole life sentence. But Huntley killed two children and set fire to their bodies. Why does that not qualify for a whole life term if Michael Adebolajo – who killed only Private Lee Rigby (using grotesque and gratuitous violence) – does warrant one? The contradiction leads to a disturbing lack of clarity in the judicial approach to whole life terms of imprisonment.

  Or was there a more cynical reason at work? Is it possible that the public notoriety of both Whiting and Huntley would make the possibility of their release only that – a ‘possibility’ – as their notoriety and the infamy of their crimes will ensure that they will never actually be able to be freed, just as Myra Hindley had no hope of being freed and Ian Brady still has not been freed though he has long since passed his minimum term. The assumption that public opinion and the media will ensure that both men remain behind bars for the rest of their natural lives – no matter what their ‘tariff’ may say – is nothing if not disingenuous. For if that is the case, even the implicit case, I believe there is a compelling argument for reconsidering the sentencing guidelines for all murder – especially for the most heinous crimes – as there is little or no clarity over its interpretation now.

  Not that Roy Whiting’s period of imprisonment has been pleasant. As mentioned in Chapter 5, in November 2012, double murderer Gary Vinter, a whole life prisoner who at that time was still pursuing his appeal to the European Court, sneaked into Whiting’s jail cell in Wakefield Prison and attacked him with a sharpened plastic toilet brush handle, stabbing him in both eyes. Vinter told Newcastle Crown Court on 21 November 2012 that he had done it because Whiting was a ‘dirty little nonce’.

  In a statement read out in court, Whiting explained, ‘I was immediately punched and hit to the right eye and nose area and it made me stagger into the cell wall. I then felt a second punch or blow to the left side. Following the second blow I was aware of a severe pain in my eye and my vision was now blurred in my left eye. I slid down the wall to the floor and I raised my arms to defend myself but felt further kicks and punches.’

  Vinter, speaking from Long Lartin Prison in Worcestershire by video link, admitted wounding with intent and was given an indefinite sentence, with a notional minimum of five years. Mr Justice Openshaw explained, ‘The defendant derived and continues to derive considerable satisfaction from having committed this offence.’ After he was sentenced, Vinter said, ‘Thank you very much, judge. It has been a pleasure.’

  Roy Whiting’s notoriety in prison and beyond is not likely to disappear, and he will continue to be pilloried for his cruel depravity towards Sarah Payne, no matter where he may be. But his case represents a further insight into the ambiguity of the whole life term of imprisonment.

  If twenty-two-year-old Jamie Reynolds deserves a whole life term for committing a single murder, why should Roy Whiting not warrant exactly the same treatment? If Michael Adebolajo deserves a whole life term for the single murder of Lee Rigby, why should Ian Huntley not warrant that too? If Adebolajo’s associate Michael Adebowale warrants a minimum term of forty-five years, why should Huntley and Whiting be given minimum terms of forty yea
rs? It is a confusion I shall return to.

  15

  Charming Psychopaths

  Peter Tobin and Levi Bellfield

  There can be little doubt about it – the possibility of a ‘whole life’ term of imprisonment has almost no deterrent effect on the men and women who choose to commit the most heinous crimes. There is no sense of dread amongst the potential perpetrators, as there was, arguably, for those who faced the prospect of death by hanging before the abolition of the death penalty in England and Wales in 1965. When Labour backbencher Sydney Silverman’s private member’s bill became law that year it suspended the death penalty for five years and substituted a mandatory life sentence in its place. Four years later, the Labour Home Secretary James Callaghan proposed a resolution in the House of Commons making the suspension permanent on 16 December 1969. So it has remained ever since.

  No executions have taken place in this country since that suspension – no matter how dreadful the crime. In contrast, between 1900 and 1949 no fewer than 621 men and eleven women were executed in England and Wales, including ten German agents during World War One, and sixteen during World War Two. The concept that the death penalty might act as some form of deterrent – particularly to discourage the use of firearms during a robbery – has effectively disappeared. Those who commit the ‘worst of the worst’ crimes now know only too well that the worst fate that can befall them is a whole life term, which certainly does not seem to have deterred any of the more than fifty men and two women, who are now serving those sentences.