Sarah Payne jury is told of gruesome discovery

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Sarah Payne's family flee from court ordeal

The farm labourer who discovered the body of Sarah Payne thought at first that the remains had belonged to an animal, a court was told on Tuesday.

Luke Coleman was clearing ragwort from a field on the edge of the A29 near Pulborough, West Sussex, on 17 July last year, the prosecution told Lewes Crown Court.

"Ragwort was growing in such a way that I was working across the field towards the main road," Mr Coleman had said. "As I approached I saw what I thought to be a dead deer. It was situated about 7ft away from the road. As I approached I could see it was not a deer but the body of a child.

"I could see a leg with a foot pointing diagonally upwards and I could see it was naked. It was lying long-ways parallel to the hedge. It did not appear to have any hair on the head. And I could tell from the smell in the air that the body was decomposing. It looked to me as if animals had interfered with it.

"I was so shocked that I could not remember if it was face down or on its side."

Mr Coleman did not see the face of the dead girl. "The ground appeared to have been interfered with. It looked as if someone or something had dug an area and placed it there. It was not very well covered," he said. He ran home and contacted the police.

The farmer had said that the area of the field was isolated. A driveway leading to the field had been used on several occasions for the illegal dumping of rubbish. "I don't know of anyone else who uses this area. It's an isolated spot and not used by dog walkers."

When Timothy Langdale QC, counsel for the prosecution, read from the statement that animals appeared to have tampered with Sarah, Michael Payne, of Hersham, Surrey, put his arm around his wife, Sara, and stared at the back of the defendant, Roy Whiting, from their seats in the public gallery. Later, they fled from the court.

The court was also told by several motorists that they had seen a white van at the site where Sarah vanished on 1 July. She had been playing a game of hide-and-seek with her brothers Lee, 14, and Luke, 13, and her sister Charlotte, aged six. The witnesses said the van had also been seen at the spot where Sarah was found.

Cynthia Read said she saw a van drive past a "give way" sign as it pulled out from Kingston Lane into North Lane at about 7.40pm on 1 July. She said the van showed "no hesitation" and sped away.

Sean Matthews, from Croydon, south London, was travelling on the A29 after visiting his mother in Bognor Regis when he saw a van pull out from a hedgerow at Pulborough at 11pm. It was revealed later that the spot was close to where Sarah was found.

Jacqueline Hallam, who was driving from Haywards Heath to her home near Pulborough at 10.15pm on 1 July, said she saw a white van parked by the road. She said it had struck her as odd because there were no footpaths in the area.

PC Paul Jeacock said that Sarah's brother Lee had spoken of seeing a man in a white van who smiled and waved at him before speeding off, shortly after his sister disappeared.

Lee had told the policeman that he did not want to worry anybody and had not mentioned it when the children retraced Sarah's last steps near their grandparents' home in Kingston Gorse, West Sussex.

Roy Whiting, 42, of Littlehampton, West Sussex, denies any part in the eight-year-old's abduction and murder. The trial continues today.