Where the jury was presented with testimonies from multiple witnesses. The principal witnesses included Sarah Payne's eldest brother, who reported seeing a scruffy-looking man with yellowish teeth driving through Kingston Gorse on the evening of Sarah Payne's disappearance. However, Lee Payne did not identify Whiting during the identity parade.

A member of the public discovered one of Payne's shoes in a rural lane, and forensic analysis revealed fibers from Whiting's van on the shoe, which was the only piece of Payne's clothing recovered. Additionally, a strand of blonde hair found on a T-shirt in Whiting's van underwent DNA testing, which indicated a one-in-a-billion likelihood that it belonged to anyone other than Payne.

The jury also heard from two motorists who remembered seeing a white van parked at the roadside and departing from a track on the evening of July 1, 2000, close to where Payne's body was eventually located.


On December 12, 2001, following a four-week trial presided over by Mr. Justice Curtis and a jury, Whiting was found guilty of the abduction and murder of Payne, receiving a life sentence. The trial judge remarked that this was an exceptional case warranting a life sentence that would indeed mean life.