Sarah accused was "on the prowl"

Summing up the prosecution's case at Lewes Crown Court today, Timothy Langdale, QC, said evidence had built a jigsaw which provided a "compelling picture" of Whiting's guilt.

He said: "His evidence has done nothing to diminish the force of the case against him."

After reminding the court Whiting had said he had been driving about in his white van on July 1 last year at "a loose end", Mr Langdale said: "You may conclude the person who sees an opportunity, because that's what it was, provided itself which no one could have predicted.

"The person who seized Sarah Payne was someone who was out and about checking on places where children might be.

"Someone who was on the prowl."

Mr Langdale told the court of items found inside Whiting's van when it was seized on the day after his arrest on July 2 last year. He said there was rope, two plastic gardening ties looped together, a small knife and baby oil.

He said: "We do not know, none of us know, what happened to Sarah when the man snatched her and carried her off in his van but certainly those items were in Whiting's van."

Mr Langdale said Whiting had not been in the least curious when he was told about Sarah's disappearance despite being familiar with the area from where she had vanished, a country lane in Kingston Gorse, Littlehampton.

The court has heard from detectives who visited Whiting the day after the eight-year-old vanished and spoke to him at his flat in St Augustine Road, Littlehampton.

Mr Langdale said: "It's a feature in this case that this man, who has been working at Golden Avenue and who knows Kingston Lane and who knows at the very least some of the fields and who had only stopped working there on June 17, being told two weeks later by two policemen who had come to his flat an eight-year-old girl had gone missing.

"There was not one query, not one comment, not a word from Roy Whiting.

"He clammed up at all times when the issue ever arose about his knowledge of Kingston Gorse.

"You may conclude the reason he didn't ask was because he didn't need to ask."

Mr Langdale said Whiting had been: "Evasive and deceptive about his knowledge of not only the country lanes from where the schoolgirl disappeared but also the field where her body was found 16 days later off the A29 near Pulborough."

Drawing his cross-examination of Whiting to a close yesterday, Mr Langdale focused on a single strand of blonde hair, which the prosecution alleges provides a billion-to-one link.

The nine-inch strand was found on a sweatshirt recovered from Whiting's white van seized by police on July 2.

Mr Langdale said the solitary hair proved Whiting, 42, had kidnapped, killed and buried her.

Whiting, who denies kidnap and murder, replied the discovery was a "coincidence".

Earlier, Ray Chapman, the scientist who oversaw the forensic investigation, had admitted there was a chance it could have found its way on to the garment through contamination between exhibits but said it was "very unlikely".

Mr Langdale said to the part-time builder and mechanic: "Either you are the unfortunate victim of an extraordinary accident whereby Sarah's hair became dislodged from an exhibit package taken from her home, somehow got on the bag within which your red sweatshirt was and somehow attached itself to your red sweatshirt where it was found.

"It would have been bad luck so far as you are concerned?

"The alternative is that barring an extraordinary accident it can only mean one thing: You were the man who kidnapped, you were the man who killed that child and you were the man who buried her body.

"That is the only other alternative is it not?"

Whiting replied: "It was not me."

Mr Langdale went on to question him on how 22 fibres indistinguishable from material taken from the sweatshirt and a clown-patterned curtain also in Whiting's van were found on Sarah's black shoe - the only item of her clothing recovered.

He asked how fibres identical to those from the sweatshirt, the van's seat covers and a pair of Whiting's socks were extracted from clumps of Sarah's hair lying at the burial site.

Whiting said: "It could be coincidence. We don't know, in the eight to 12 weeks she had those shoes, what fibres she might have picked up or what fibres she picked up on her clothes before coming down to Kingston Gorse."

Whiting had already dismissed as "coincidence" other planks of the prosecution evidence, saying it was "pure chance" he had been driving around in a van matching the description given by Sarah's brother Lee, then 13.

He has also said it was coincidental Lee gave a description of the driver of the van wearing a white T-shirt and checked shirt.

Earlier, Whiting was asked why he made no comment during three separate sets of police interviews on the day after Sarah vanished, two weeks after her body was found and shortly after results of forensic evidence were returned.

He said he found it difficult to maintain his silence but was acting on the advice of his solicitor.

Referring to the last interview, on February 6, Mr Langdale said: "You must have been appalled to discover that you, an entirely innocent man, found there were fibres linking you to the death of that little girl. The game was up was it not?"

Whiting replied: "No."

He was then asked if he sustained three scratches on his chest and arms when the eight-year-old was in the back of his van.

Mr Langdale, referring to a curved scratch on Whiting's chest, said: "Was it a possibility that you were not wearing anything on the top half of your body?

"Has it got anything to do with that girl in your van? "

Whiting said: "No, it has got nothing to do with the fact."

Earlier, Mr Langdale asked Whiting about clothes he had been wearing on the night Sarah was snatched.

In a statement read by detectives, the jury heard Whiting had been wearing a white T-shirt. But he told the court the detectives' note may not have been accurate.

Mr Langdale asked him: "Are you suggesting the police were aware the man driving the van was wearing a white T-shirt and have deliberately chosen a white T-shirt as being your description of what you were wearing when you did not say that at all?"

Whiting replied: "There could have been confusion."

Mr Langdale said: "I'm not talking about confusion. Were you not suggesting they had done that deliberately because they were looking for someone wearing a white T-shirt?"

Whiting replied: "It's possibly what they have done.

"I don't take much notice of what T-shirt I have on, I haven't got a specific shirt for each day."

Mr Langdale pressed: "Were the police trying to pin a white T-shirt on you? Did they also say, 'Well Roy, were you wearing a checked shirt?'?"

Whiting said: "They didn't mention the checked shirt."

Mr Langdale said: "No. They could have pinned a checked shirt on you easily, couldn't they? There's not a word of truth in what you are saying, is there?"

At the end of Whiting's cross-examination, Miss Sally O'Neill QC, defending Whiting, made no re-examination of her client.

The trial continues.

The trial in full: thisisworthing.co.uk