Missing BBC woman's husband still being questioned

Mrs Chenery-Wickens, a top BBC make-up artist, has not been seen since she was reported missing by her husband, David, last week.

Mr Chenery-Wickens, 51, was last night continuing to be questioned by some of Sussex Police's top detectives.

He is suspected of being involved in the disappearance of his 48-year-old wife, who he reported missing to Metropolitan Police officers on January 24 and claimed to be too 'distressed' to talk in the days that followed.

He has been held by Sussex Police since Thursday while search teams have scoured the couple's home in Duddleswell, near Uckfield.

Police are refusing to release any information about the investigation into the disappearance.

But anyone travelling through Duddleswell can see the scope of the huge operation underway.

Sniffer dogs spent yesterday helping in a search of the woodland surrounding the couple's home, the cars were removed from the drive and a tanker was brought in to pump out the waste tank.

Last night the best man at the wedding of Mr and Mrs Chenery-Wickens, an ex shipping broker who asked not to be named, appealed for anyone with any information about what has happened to come forward.

He described the suspect, who is thought to have two children, a boy and a girl, from a previous marriage, as someone who had become obsessed with mediums and spiritualism.

The friend met Mr Chenery-Wickens, who is originally from the Bromley area, when the suspect was working as a lorry driver in London.

It was through his deliveries to the BBC offices that Mr Chenery-Wickens met Diane, an award winning make-up artist there.

The friend's wife lived a couple of flats above Diane in a house in Battersea and the pair became close friends.

He said: "My wife and Diane went on holidays in Greece together and clubbing round London together.

"David was a lorry driver delivering to the BBC. I think he did spiritualist readings for some of the actresses there and someone introduced him to Diane.

"Eventually David moved in. He seemed to have little compared to Diane.

"I then employed him at my transport management firm in Essex. He didn't seem to socialise with men much. At work he wouldn't come and have lunch or drink with the rest of us.

"She may have been into spiritualism before she met him, I don't know, but he was obsessed, truly obsessed with a strange hokery-pokery.

The couple married at Wandsworth town hall in London in 1997 and held a spiritualist ceremony in Dorset a few days later.

The exclusive pictures here show the happy couple enjoying their big day.

Five years ago the pair moved to the £500,000 country cottage near Uckfield but according to friends they agreed to live together but separate not long after they arrived there.

One close friend said: "It was an arrangement whereby they stayed under the same roof. Diane was the kind of person who didn't want to show the world when things had gone wrong.

"There was a lot of love there at the beginning but there was also a long period of misery I would say.

"All I know is that recently there was a decision made to sell the house."

It was Mr Chenery-Wickens who first reported his wife missing on January 24.

He claimed he had travelled to London with her by train and seen her off at Kensington Olympia train station before she made her way to a business meeting in Shepherds Bush. Mr Chenery-Wickens told police he then went to meet her at a hairdressers later that afternoon and alerted them when she did not arrive.

He returned to the couple's home in Sussex later that evening and said he was too 'distressed' to talk to the media or the public about his wife's disappearance.

Diane's brother Russell Wickens and her sister Caroline are believed to be staying with their elderly parents in Sussex while the investigation continues.

Mr Wickens sent out desperate pleas for information in the days after Diane went missing, describing the disappearance as 'totally uncharacteristic.' Yesterday he described the extreme distress his parents were feeling.

Neighbours described Mr and Mrs Chenery-Wickens as having very busy and separate lives.

They said Mr Chenery-Wickens was a freelance reverend who travelled round country parishes doing charity work at hostels in the local area and providing spiritual guidance to the sick.

Marion Taylor, who worked with Mr Chenery-Wickens at the Lavender line preservation railway in nearby Isfield, told a national newspaper that he had done voluntary work at the railway shop on the Sunday after his wife had gone missing and had not mentioned it.

Mrs Taylor said: "David was doing all the cooking but seemed fine and didn't say that Diane had gone missing."

Early on Thursday morning the police arrested Mr Chenery-Wickens on suspicion of murder.

Detective Inspector Phil Mays, of Sussex Police, said officers had spent the intervening days scouring CCTV footage of the journey Mrs Chenery-Wickens was reported to have made that day and tracing phone calls.

For more than two days forensic tape has been tied around the sign for Hazelden Cottage and across the entrance to the couple's home. Three large search units have camped out in the car park opposite and the property is under 24-hour surveillance.

The case is being led by Detective Chief Inspector Steve Johns, one of Sussex Police's top murder investigators, and his team have been questioning Mr Chenery-Wickens in Eastbourne since his arrest.

Yesterday officers were granted an extra 36 hours to question the suspect on suspicion of the murder of his wife, allowing them to hold him until the early hours of Sunday morninbg when they must decide whether to charge him with any offences or release him.

They have still refused to reveal what the search has uncovered or whether the body of Mrs Chenery-Wickens or any clues to her disappearance have been found.

Anyone with any information should contact Sussex Police on 0845 6070999 quoting Operation Hartley or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

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