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00:00:00PHONE RINGS
00:00:02Please have the help, Jay.
00:00:04Hello, I want to report a missing person.
00:00:06Teach them out for my children.
00:00:08What's the circumstances when she's gone missing?
00:00:10Tuesday night, she came home, and then we went to bed,
00:00:14and then when me and the kids woke up in the morning,
00:00:16she wasn't there.
00:00:17And did she go missing before, or is this out of character?
00:00:19She hasn't gone missing before,
00:00:21but she's got a bit of a weird life, let's go that way.
00:00:24Have you got any idea where she might be?
00:00:27No, I don't.
00:00:29I'm fine, fine, yeah.
00:00:54It's Friday night, it's about 10 o'clock, I think.
00:00:56And I thought, I'll go to bed, just check my phone.
00:00:59And found the post.
00:01:05So I kind of recognised the picture on the post
00:01:09as a familiar one of the kids from the village.
00:01:12And the post said, can anybody help?
00:01:16My mum's gone missing.
00:01:18My heart just went out.
00:01:21Immediately, I felt very uneasy about it,
00:01:24and very almost compelled, obsessively compelled to follow it.
00:01:31There were a lot of comments going, oh, she'll be home.
00:01:34It's all right, mate.
00:01:35Don't worry.
00:01:36And I thought, no, I am worried.
00:01:38I am worried.
00:01:39And it just played in my mind.
00:01:40And I thought, we've got to do something.
00:01:45So I put a shout-out saying,
00:01:46there's a member of our community missing.
00:01:48If anybody's got time,
00:01:50we are going to be going out and have a look for her.
00:01:53It's a very close community.
00:01:56Most of us take great pride in the village,
00:01:59and we look after each other.
00:02:02I saw Sharon's post, and I felt like I had to go.
00:02:07Sarah was about the same sort of age as me.
00:02:10She was a mum,
00:02:11and I just felt that if that was me that was missing,
00:02:14then I would like to think somebody would come out
00:02:17and help my children.
00:02:18I tried to call her, and I had no answer.
00:02:22I spoke to my nan, who tried as well.
00:02:25Couldn't get hold of her.
00:02:28My mum always used to have her phone on her.
00:02:29You'd always be able to get hold of her.
00:02:31It was definitely out of character.
00:02:33Me and my brother Jack were living down in Portsmouth at the time.
00:02:36There wasn't a lot that we could do.
00:02:38I turned to social media.
00:02:40We tried contacting friends, anybody close to her.
00:02:43We just wanted to know where she was.
00:02:50My name is Carla.
00:02:51I'm Sarah Wellgreen's friend for 20 years.
00:02:57When I first got the message that she hadn't been seen,
00:03:00I thought it was rather strange,
00:03:01because Sarah wouldn't have left the children for a long period of time.
00:03:05She wouldn't go off and not tell anyone where.
00:03:07She would have told someone where she was going.
00:03:09We were all worried.
00:03:12Nobody had seen her or spoken to her in about 24 hours.
00:03:18Ben and my mum were split up at the time, but they were both living in the ash green, co-parenting my three siblings.
00:03:27So when I called Ben, it was early afternoon and I'd woke him up and I asked him if he'd seen my mum.
00:03:36He said no, he hadn't seen her.
00:03:38If none of us had heard from her within like another 24 hours, then that he would phone the police.
00:03:45Kind of all became a little bit more real and a little bit more serious.
00:03:49And I want to report a missing person.
00:03:53She's the mother of my children.
00:03:55You live with this person?
00:03:57Yeah, she lives with me, yeah.
00:03:58So he's your partner, is it?
00:04:00No, she's the mother of my twin up together.
00:04:02We live together.
00:04:03You said that she went to bed Tuesday night when you woke up Wednesday morning and she wasn't there?
00:04:16Yes, exactly.
00:04:17Yeah?
00:04:18You haven't heard from her since?
00:04:19No, I texted her yesterday morning just to see if she was all right and stuff, but I haven't been replying.
00:04:26On Thursday the 11th of October, Kent police received a call from Ben Lacombe.
00:04:31People are reported missing, sadly, quite often.
00:04:36More often than not, that person would be found or come home very quickly.
00:04:41We need to have a look at what's gone on, but the risk isn't really high at this stage.
00:04:46When are you going to be at home?
00:04:47We need to attend your address, Ben.
00:04:49I've got my kids there.
00:04:51I'm a bit concerned.
00:04:52It's my son's birthday today.
00:04:53I don't want them getting worried.
00:04:55They're already a bit confused as it is.
00:04:57So, a police officer was deployed to search the home address to see if there was any initial clues that might help locate or understand what might have happened.
00:05:09Looking through the address, Sarah's keys and her handbag were still there.
00:05:17Sarah's car was still outside.
00:05:19If Sarah was going to go out for any reason, surely she'd have taken those items with her.
00:05:24And that was something that just didn't sit wide.
00:05:29And what was really interesting was that the day that we went was their son's birthday.
00:05:35And there was plans that Sarah had made for when he'd got home from school.
00:05:40So, when she missed one of my youngest brother's birthdays, it was completely out of character for her and something that she'd never do.
00:05:51Where's she gone?
00:05:53Because she would never miss any of the kids' birthdays.
00:05:56Never.
00:05:57Never, ever miss one of the kids' birthdays.
00:05:59That was the thing that pushed my thinking over the edge.
00:06:04That was the thing that said to me, Sarah's not missing of her own free will.
00:06:09We had to reassess the risk level of Sarah being missing as high.
00:06:19We raised an appeal in the local media and in the local press.
00:06:24The thought process at that point is, has Sarah left the address on foot?
00:06:30Had she gone for a walk or a run and had an accident?
00:06:35So, we began the search in the new ash green and surrounding area.
00:06:44I called the police and I said, would it help if I got a few people together and we had a look around?
00:06:52And they went, no, that would be great.
00:06:54Let us know where and when.
00:07:00I thought maybe nobody had come.
00:07:01And we ended up with a room with about 40 people in.
00:07:06And we had people there that maybe had known her, but 90% of the people had never met Sarah.
00:07:13Yet they were there and saying we're ready.
00:07:18With the advice of the police, we were all out looking for a potential runner who had had an accident, had a fall.
00:07:25So we were checking all the roads and several metres either side.
00:07:31And we covered every road, every path, looking for this down and injured lady.
00:07:39We had specially trained police officers searching with police dogs.
00:07:43But we also had the community that stood up and they helped us.
00:07:49In those first few hours really, there was nothing that was giving any sort of indication that she had left that house of her own free will.
00:07:58And that was something that right from the start was playing in the back of my mind.
00:08:02Sarah could be in danger and we need to find her as soon as possible.
00:08:07This morning police headed to a new location to continue their search into the disappearance of the mother of five, Sarah Wellgreen.
00:08:25But at the weekend, a really strong turnout from the volunteer operation.
00:08:30More than 300 people coming to search.
00:08:33And not just people around the Newmash Green and Bases Shore area and around that five mile radius which police had put in, but from around the county as well.
00:08:43It would take a lot of resources to cover that ground.
00:08:46And we were trying to work very quickly.
00:08:49We worked with police search teams.
00:08:50We had experts to do confined space searching, waterborne searching and underwater searching.
00:08:59And we hadn't found her.
00:09:01We were getting more concerned at what might have happened to Sarah.
00:09:05Where might she have gone?
00:09:09While the searches were going on, we're also carrying out other inquiries.
00:09:13When somebody goes missing, it's really important to find out as much as we can about their life to understand what might have happened to cause them to go missing.
00:09:20And where they might be.
00:09:21We spoke to lots of Sarah's family.
00:09:23We spoke to lots of her friends.
00:09:24We spoke to lots of her friends.
00:09:25She was a very social person.
00:09:27She had quite a wide network of friends.
00:09:35My mum met Ben when I was around eight years old.
00:09:39They met on a dating site.
00:09:41When I first knew about Ben, we were heading to Spain, me and Sarah, for a girly holiday.
00:09:48They lived out in Palma.
00:09:50It was the honeymoon stage, I think, for Ben and Sarah.
00:09:54It was constant phone calls.
00:09:57I think he painted such a big picture of sun, sea and sunsets that you couldn't refuse.
00:10:06So my mum moved me and my brother Jack over to Mallorca.
00:10:13They built a life together there.
00:10:15They had a son.
00:10:17But after a couple of years, it started to get financially troubling for them.
00:10:22And they came back to the UK.
00:10:23They had two more children together, and life seemed to be normal for them.
00:10:32Sarah as a friend was very funny.
00:10:37Great to be around.
00:10:39Our kids grew up together, and we both bounced off each other's parenting.
00:10:43It was always just a fun time.
00:10:47When Sarah came round and said that she's pregnant and she's having a girl,
00:10:51well, we just stood there screaming, because she liked her makeup.
00:10:55She liked looking nice.
00:10:56And being a beautician, having that little girl to dress up, was just amazing.
00:11:03And we had all these things planned.
00:11:05I know she loved Kent. She loved the house.
00:11:10But down the line, I could hear that she wasn't happy.
00:11:15I think their relationship kind of fizzled out.
00:11:19Just kind of stopped getting along with each other.
00:11:21So my mum and Ben were living in the Ash Green with my three siblings.
00:11:27They'd have their own separate lives.
00:11:29They'd both go off to, like, their work and things like that.
00:11:30And I think she fell trapped, because financially it was her only option.
00:11:35Sarah said, he's got his own room, I've got my room.
00:11:39The children have got their room.
00:11:41For her kids' sake, she'd do anything that she could to make those kids happy.
00:11:53My mum was great.
00:11:55She was a really, really good mum.
00:11:56There's five of us in total.
00:12:00I was, like, older.
00:12:02So, like, I could have more of a laugh and a joke with her.
00:12:05And a lot of conversations.
00:12:06I could have a drink with her.
00:12:09She was always there when I needed her.
00:12:13The children were her life.
00:12:15She was just a brilliant mum.
00:12:17I had this horrible, sickly feeling, because she's not contacted anyone.
00:12:33I'm building up a picture of Sarah and her life.
00:12:35She's got a house.
00:12:37She's got lots of friends and family around her.
00:12:40And I'm looking at her thinking, you're not the type of person that voluntarily goes missing.
00:12:46That initial call, reporting Sarah Wellgreen as missing, was fairly typical.
00:12:54Ben Lacombe provided quite a lot of information that he felt was important that we knew about Sarah.
00:13:00So, you live together with your children, but you're not partners with your friends now, yeah?
00:13:04Yeah.
00:13:06Yeah, we're sort of co-parenting, sort of living in the same house, I think.
00:13:09She's got her boyfriend and all that sort of stuff.
00:13:12What's his name, please?
00:13:14His name is Neil James.
00:13:15What we learned about Sarah is that she lived with Ben Lacombe.
00:13:23They were separated.
00:13:25We also learned of another relationship in Sarah's life, and that was with a chap called Neil James.
00:13:30Somebody we understood she'd recently got engaged to, that had had an on-off relationship for a few years.
00:13:37He lived away from Ken in Surrey, but she was contacting him regularly and seeing him regularly, too.
00:13:42Can I show his boyfriend's number and address?
00:13:46I do know his number, because he texted me last night.
00:13:49What did he text you saying? Does he know that she's missing?
00:13:52Yeah, he said, hi Ben, have you heard know where Sarah is?
00:13:55Her mum, Lewis, Jack, haven't heard from her all day and no messages delivering in any media.
00:14:01We're all worried.
00:14:03So, if you can let us know if you've seen her or me and her mum are going to have to start a police search as it's been 24 hours.
00:14:10Thanks, Neil.
00:14:12Obviously, I need to consider everyone's status within an investigation.
00:14:17And yes, part of that is building suspicions around people.
00:14:22Neil James was someone that I needed to understand more about.
00:14:27He was the person that perhaps she is closest to at that point in her life.
00:14:31My mum had split with Ben. A few years later, she met Neil. It was definitely nice to see my mum meet someone new. Got on well with him. And the way she was with Neil, it was good.
00:14:45Happy birthday to you.
00:14:49But my mum and Ben were living together because her relationship with Neil was a bit on and off. It was very rocky at that moment.
00:14:57Had things been going on between them, was there a reason why he would have travelled to Kent the night that Sarah disappeared?
00:15:03Is there any ongoing bullying or harassment or anything like that at all?
00:15:11I would say, yeah, the main... When you say, like, bullying and stuff, I'd say, like, really, he's her boyfriend, really.
00:15:17Like, really paranoid about her, like, where she doesn't trust her and that.
00:15:22She's got quite a complicated life, and it's just a bit messy, really.
00:15:32I'm Andy Robinson, and in 2018, I was a reporter at Kent Live.
00:15:38This messing person's case felt different almost from the off,
00:15:41and you just felt this was something more than someone who had ran off and would return home of their own accord.
00:15:47I put Sarah's name into Facebook, and I could see that the Search for Sarah Wellgreen group had already started to develop
00:15:55and was posting appeals, trying to find her.
00:15:58Every day, more people came.
00:16:01We realised, because there's so many exits to the village on foot, running tracks through the woods,
00:16:07that we needed to get a copy of the Ordnance survey map.
00:16:11It wasn't always just about the routes on the map itself.
00:16:14It was local knowledge, people offering information that only locals know.
00:16:23When we started up to have a Facebook group, we were sort of aware that somebody called Neil was posting,
00:16:29Sarah, where are you? I'm looking for you, or I miss you.
00:16:31But we'd never seen him on the search.
00:16:34So, that was obviously really strange for us.
00:16:38If my loved one went missing, I'd want to be out there looking.
00:16:41All we were reading about was how heartbroken he was and how much he loved her, which is great.
00:16:49Absolutely beautiful.
00:16:50But we're out there looking for her. Where are you?
00:16:53I'm piecing together a timeline of Sarah's last movements before she went missing.
00:17:05We got hold of neighbouring CCTV that showed us the comings and goings and Sarah Wellgreen.
00:17:15And we know from looking at the CCTV on the 9th of October, she took the children to school in the morning as normal.
00:17:26She returns. She doesn't go back into the address.
00:17:29She goes straight to her car to go about her day's work appointments.
00:17:32She works, like, one or two days a week at the salon, and she's a beauty therapist, so she does, like, private clients as well.
00:17:40And she does private clients all over, in Cairns, in Farnham, in Portsmouth.
00:17:45She was a travelling beauty therapist, and she would see clients at their home addresses,
00:17:51and she carried out a number of those appointments through the day.
00:17:55We spoke to some of Sarah's clients who she'd visited on the 9th of October.
00:17:59They told us that Sarah was chatty, seemed happy, was positive, seemed her bouncy self.
00:18:07There was nothing that any of her clients told us that day gave calls for concern.
00:18:12Sarah came home just before 8pm, and she parked in a normal parking space.
00:18:18We saw from the CCTV that she got out of the car.
00:18:21She was on her own, and she walked into her home address.
00:18:24We asked Ben had there been any conversation that evening, had there been any argument, any dispute.
00:18:31How were things between the two of them that evening?
00:18:35He told us that she was fine, that she'd come in, they'd just had a conversation about the children.
00:18:41She'd read her younger children's story, and that she'd gone up to her room.
00:18:45He said nothing untoward had happened.
00:18:48He said that he'd heard that she was talking to her friends,
00:18:52because he could hear through from the other room.
00:18:54But it was a normal evening, as far as Ben was concerned.
00:18:57Phone records are absolutely key in any investigation.
00:19:10They're an insight into someone's world and their private life.
00:19:15Sarah had a couple of handsets.
00:19:18There was one handset identified that we weren't able to locate.
00:19:21We didn't have Sarah's personal mobile phone, but we knew Sarah's phone number.
00:19:28And from that, we were able to gather some data from her phone records.
00:19:32I can see that in that hour after it's apparent that she's gone to bed,
00:19:37so between 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock at night, there was a flurry of text messages between Sarah and Neil James.
00:19:44But what I don't know at that stage is what that conversation is about.
00:19:48We carry out proof-of-life inquiries on everything that we know about Sarah.
00:19:54So phone records, financial, any other social media.
00:19:59There's no interaction with hospitals, with her doctor's surgery at all,
00:20:04or any other NHS service.
00:20:09One of the last people that Sarah had been in contact with that evening
00:20:13was her boyfriend, Neil James.
00:20:15I need to go and see him and understand what was taking place in those text messages
00:20:21and what he can tell me about Sarah.
00:20:23And more importantly, where was he on the night that Sarah went missing?
00:20:27Empty switchboard.
00:20:31My name's Neil James.
00:20:33And who are you in connection with this call?
00:20:35I'm her partner.
00:20:37And what's her name, please?
00:20:38Sarah Wellgreen.
00:20:40And can I ask the later of your call?
00:20:42Well, I have information. I can't even.
00:20:45Maybe a whereabouts. I don't know.
00:20:47Neil James told us that he was home alone on the night of Sarah's disappearance.
00:21:08So at that stage, I need to look for other means to corroborate what Neil James is telling us.
00:21:15I'm dispatching officers to Neil James' home address to check out the CCTV,
00:21:20see if there's anything that can help us identify his movements.
00:21:23I'm doing the checks in relation to his car, the ANPR.
00:21:29We're also at that stage looking at his phone.
00:21:33I don't know the context of those text messages.
00:21:36And the only person at that point that can give me that content
00:21:40and what the relevance is, is Neil James.
00:21:43I need to understand quickly this picture
00:21:46because ultimately we need to find Sarah.
00:21:47I'm Neil James. I am prime suspect number one.
00:22:06I met Sarah over the Internet.
00:22:09We kicked it off straight away.
00:22:11And it was perfect because I had two kids
00:22:14and Sarah's children were roughly about the same age.
00:22:19So it all just, it all just fitted in.
00:22:22How they got on.
00:22:24That relationship to me was like heaven.
00:22:28She was just the perfect mother.
00:22:31One night she said to me,
00:22:34how would you feel if we got married?
00:22:36I said, I'd be delighted.
00:22:38We envisioned
00:22:41growing old together.
00:22:42Every night we would obviously speak on the phone.
00:22:47It would be like, night darling, love you.
00:22:50And every morning whoever was up first is, morning, love you.
00:22:55By religion we would do it every single day.
00:22:58Every single day.
00:23:06My message to her that evening,
00:23:08and we basically said, good night.
00:23:12And then the next morning I messaged her to say,
00:23:17morning darling, how are you? Love you.
00:23:20And the message didn't deliver.
00:23:23Which I thought, well, that's a bit strange.
00:23:25Sarah's phone was always on.
00:23:29I text Sarah a couple of messages.
00:23:34None of them got to do it.
00:23:39I even left a whistmail saying, where are you honey?
00:23:44We're missing you.
00:23:46What the hell is going on here?
00:23:48There's something not quite right.
00:23:50So I raised the alarm.
00:23:53I spoke to Sarah's mum and dad.
00:23:57Then I spoke to Lewis.
00:24:02Then I messaged Ben to say whether he'd seen her.
00:24:08Didn't hear anything back from him.
00:24:13I was speaking to all and sundry.
00:24:15I was desperate to try and find where Sarah was and what was happening,
00:24:21because this was so unlikely.
00:24:24I just couldn't get it out of my head what was going on.
00:24:27It's truly a living nightmare.
00:24:30The police phoned me and said, whereabouts are you?
00:24:45I didn't know how to feel.
00:24:46I was worried as hell.
00:24:48Thinking they could just arrest me under suspicion of murder.
00:24:53Even after nothing.
00:24:55They wanted to search the house.
00:24:58They wanted to ask me questions.
00:25:01Do they really think this is me?
00:25:12The reason why I didn't join the search...
00:25:15Now, I lived an hour and a half away.
00:25:18My daughter was three at the time.
00:25:22And what if I did find her?
00:25:24I wouldn't want to be that person that found her.
00:25:27I'd be distraught.
00:25:29No.
00:25:37We knew where he was when he was on his phone.
00:25:41He lives in another county.
00:25:43The routes between the two were checked.
00:25:45In his car was not flagged up on any ANPR or any cameras.
00:25:50There was everything to show he was where he says he was.
00:25:53He was nowhere near New Ash Green that evening.
00:25:58Neil James isn't a suspect.
00:26:00And was able to give us an insight into Sarah's life that other people weren't.
00:26:06There was a sense of relief that I can't have been cleared of any sort of suspicion.
00:26:14Because the most important thing was finding out where she was.
00:26:17The missing person search continued over the next few days.
00:26:29Unsuccessfully, lots of police officer activity, lots of community support trying to find where Sarah was.
00:26:35Family liaison officers who had been appointed to work with the family had gone out to see Ben to take a formal statement from him.
00:26:45He was saying that Sarah's life was in a downward spiral of on and off depression.
00:26:50And possibly even considering self harm.
00:26:55So our search strategy changed.
00:26:57The police said, could you ask your searchers to look up?
00:27:04Look up.
00:27:08Which indicated she might well have taken a life.
00:27:15I found that really difficult standing in front of people.
00:27:19Having to even make that suggestion.
00:27:21We then retraced the steps, thinking, OK, so if that is a possibility, we need to go further out from the roads.
00:27:34I really wasn't prepared for that.
00:27:36When you go from looking for a lady that's injured to looking for somebody's body.
00:27:44We were so immersed in it.
00:27:47We so wanted to find her.
00:27:49And all I could remember was Lewis's post that night.
00:27:53And I think it was the same for everybody else.
00:28:02Sarah Wellgreen's last proof of life is 10pm.
00:28:07That's when the last text message was sent on her phone.
00:28:11We know her phone is on the network until 4am.
00:28:14So our critical time window was from 10 o'clock in the evening on the 9th through to 4 o'clock in the morning on the 10th.
00:28:23What has happened to Sarah during that time window?
00:28:28I already know that there's CCTV coverage immediately around the address.
00:28:33From the search of Basie Shaw, I knew that the CCTV where Sarah and Ben were living was absolutely critical.
00:28:44It was CCTV that could give us the answers to all of our questions.
00:28:49I've got CCTV on my house as well.
00:28:55Yeah?
00:28:57And when I looked on that, it was off.
00:28:59Like the switch had been turned off.
00:29:01So I can't check on that.
00:29:02And Lewis has texted me today to say, er...
00:29:06He said,
00:29:07Nanny asked if you can check your CCTV to see if she got into another car.
00:29:11But the thing is, it was turned off, the plug.
00:29:15I saw that.
00:29:16But the thing is, my CCTV doesn't record.
00:29:19Like the hard disk doesn't work anymore.
00:29:22That answer concerns me.
00:29:23That's a really convenient set of circumstances, is what I'm being told by Ben La Comba, a lie.
00:29:36Ben La Comba is now the main focus.
00:29:42Tracing Ben La Comba's movements the night leading up to Sarah's disappearance.
00:29:47The vehicles that are known to us are Ben La Comba's red Vauxhall Zafira.
00:29:54Ben was a taxi driver.
00:29:56He used his own vehicle for taxiing.
00:30:00He had a last pick-up, a last job, just before 5pm on the 9th.
00:30:06Following that, he booked off and he arrives back at the home address just after 5pm.
00:30:10And usually on that day, when Ben came home just after 5pm, he didn't park in the communal car park right next to his home.
00:30:21He chose to park in a different car park, which was a bit further away from his home.
00:30:27Very secluded and dark.
00:30:29In contrast to what he would normally do.
00:30:32We knew he returned home, could see him on the CCTV, but we couldn't see his car.
00:30:37And that was something that was a bit strange.
00:30:48Suspicions around Ben are growing.
00:30:51Our officers went to speak to Ben La Comba on the 14th of October.
00:30:55And they asked for him to provide his phone for a voluntary download.
00:31:00So we're not seizing that phone from him using any police powers.
00:31:05And initially, he appeared happy to do so.
00:31:11The officers noted that he seemed to be deleting things as they were talking to him.
00:31:16And he makes a comment about, why would I want you to look at deleted material?
00:31:21I've deleted it for a reason.
00:31:22He said, I'm going to keep my phone. I'm going to go to bed. I'm tired. I will bring my phone to you tomorrow.
00:31:30That's an alarm bell. Why doesn't he want us to look at his phone?
00:31:34The morning of the 15th of October comes and goes. No Ben La Comba. No mobile phone.
00:31:47He doesn't turn up at the police station. Doesn't make any contact with us at all.
00:31:52Ben La Comba had become very suspicious to me in his behavior.
00:31:57So I sent officers to Ben La Comba's home, but he wasn't there. But his mother was.
00:32:04She said that after officers had left, having asked him for his phone the night before, he went out.
00:32:13He was away for a few hours.
00:32:18We believe in that time that he's disposed of his phone and who knows what else.
00:32:23Can I please control room? How can I help?
00:32:38Hello. My daughter was reporting missing.
00:32:41And I'm really concerned. The person that called her in is the situation.
00:32:47He's the ex-partner.
00:32:49They're sharing the haste.
00:32:52But for the last five years they've been backwards and forwards to court, arguing about the children.
00:32:58Things have been really vicious and acrimonious.
00:33:01We learned that there was a lot of family court activity.
00:33:06There was a lot of custody battles with the children.
00:33:09There was a lot of animosity between the couple.
00:33:12I think he was trying to paint her as a bad person at that time.
00:33:17So she was working harder to prove she could provide the mortgage payments and look after the children properly.
00:33:25He was nasty towards her, spiteful, horrible.
00:33:31He took a toll on her. She just wanted their kids back.
00:33:34By 2018, Sarah had prime custody of their three children.
00:33:41And she was looking to buy Ben out of the house.
00:33:47In the few days leading up to her going missing, Sarah had a job interview for a new job, understood that she was successful in that job and therefore had a future that she was building.
00:34:00It was definitely a new opportunity for her. It was like a salary job, company car, so it had its perks.
00:34:07By the night of Sarah's disappearance, we were able to find through messaging that Ben was aware that Sarah had a mortgage offer and was going to be able to buy him out of the property.
00:34:20Sarah mentioned that she had told Ben about a new job, earning way more money than what he was earning.
00:34:31Financially, she'd be secure for her and the children, which effectively was going to make Ben homeless.
00:34:40And I think he hated that fact.
00:34:43So there was a very strong motive, I felt, for Ben to have Sarah disappear.
00:34:57We tracked Ben Lacombe down at the family courts on the 16th.
00:35:02The mother of his children is missing.
00:35:05There's a big police investigation going on, and he's trying to obtain a custody order for the children.
00:35:11What was the urgency? Why was he doing that, potentially knowing that Sarah was not going to come back?
00:35:26There's several things that concern us about the circumstances of her disappearance.
00:35:32So this has moved from a missing persons investigation to potentially a murder investigation.
00:35:37Ben Lacombe was arrested on suspicion of murder.
00:35:47Following extensive investigations and inquiries and also searching, we're now treating this as a potential homicide investigation.
00:35:57First time it being called a murder investigation becomes sort of surreal, and you kind of get the feeling that she's not coming back anymore.
00:36:07I know something was wrong.
00:36:11It was wrong.
00:36:12But to hear it, to be told it, it's totally different, and I don't think I'd... I still don't believe it.
00:36:24Someone so beautiful doesn't deserve that.
00:36:27It was so difficult because we'd all so wanted to find her alive.
00:36:41I just felt awful for the family because I could see what they were going through, and I just wanted to help them.
00:36:48I just wanted to protect them. It was just a natural mother's instinct, I guess.
00:36:51Officers have been in Dartford today. They've extended their search as far as Dartford town centre, searching even bins in the town centre area in a bid to find any loose clues that could potentially lead to her whereabouts.
00:37:04And eyewitnesses said that they saw rescue teams, police dogs, two fire engines and a forensic van all at the scene.
00:37:11So clearly, police pulling out all stocks here to find Sarah.
00:37:22With Ben Lacombe in custody, we've got a limited time period in which to gather enough information to charge with the murder of Sarah Welby.
00:37:30We now carried out forensic examinations both in his car that he used as a taxi and at the home address to see if we could find any trace and help us understand of what might have happened to Sarah.
00:37:45The strongest hypothesis I had was that Sarah had been harmed in the home address and that she'd been taken somewhere and her body concealed somewhere.
00:37:54So that changed the dynamics of the search.
00:37:59We very, very quickly found out a little bit about Ben.
00:38:04He was predominantly a taxi driver, cab driver.
00:38:09And so therefore he had a really, really good knowledge of New Ash Green and the surrounding areas.
00:38:15We then had to bring the search back in and go again, but moving out to 25 metres either side of a road.
00:38:31The weather had been really dry and hot all summer. Everything was parched.
00:38:37It made it really easy for searching.
00:38:38We were saying look for a recent pile, recently dug soil because there was just one goal and that was finding Sarah.
00:38:57You are under arrest today on suspicion of the murder of your ex-partner.
00:39:04And I understand current, um, you still live in the same address, that's Sarah Wellgreen.
00:39:12Okay?
00:39:14We believe she may be dead and that may be at your hand.
00:39:19So, did you kill her?
00:39:25Ben Comber was with us for three days.
00:39:28He was interviewed extensively over that time and didn't say a word to us.
00:39:32So, I'm not clear at the moment, Ben, whether you're just trying to think of an answer...
00:39:39...or whether you've decided not to answer the question.
00:39:45That was another flag for me because somebody that is innocent...
00:39:50...somebody that may be concerned about the disappearance of the mother of their children...
00:39:56...I'd have thought that they might want to give us something to try and help.
00:40:03I was convinced that Sarah was dead and I was convinced that Ben La Comber was the person responsible for that.
00:40:10Everything we had was circumstantial evidence.
00:40:14We didn't have any forensic evidence.
00:40:17We didn't have Sarah.
00:40:19We didn't have that smoking gun.
00:40:23And so, on the 19th of October, he was bailed from the police station.
00:40:27It's a difficult pill to swallow.
00:40:38We're confused because, did it mean that they thought we didn't do it?
00:40:43He's seen going about the village. He is carrying on. He is still working.
00:40:47He's the person we think has done it. He knows something about where Sarah is.
00:40:53But he's carrying on.
00:40:59The aim is to establish what Ben La Comber did with Sarah Wellgreen's body.
00:41:06I've got to focus on CCTV.
00:41:09We were looking at Ben's movements on the 9th of October.
00:41:15The night Sarah went missing.
00:41:18We knew he'd been working. He's a taxi driver.
00:41:21And we had a capture of him on a CCTV camera locally.
00:41:25And his car was spotlessly clean.
00:41:29What we then noticed when the vehicle was being driven on the morning of the 10th
00:41:33was that there appeared to be mud by the wheel arches
00:41:39and around the bumper area of the vehicle.
00:41:43By 10.30 that morning, we pick him up again on CCTV outside his workplace.
00:41:51And we could see that his car now, again, is spotlessly clean.
00:41:55We believe Ben's been out that night to dispose of Sarah.
00:42:03He's been somewhere where his car could go off-road.
00:42:08Where have that car been?
00:42:14We searched every exit route out of New Ash Green Village itself
00:42:19to try and seize and view as much footage as we could find.
00:42:22It turned into the biggest CCTV operation that the forces had.
00:42:28There was over 22,000 hours' worth of footage that we recovered.
00:42:33Soon after we'd started the process of viewing all of the CCTV,
00:42:39we had a breakthrough.
00:42:43There were seven properties along a route
00:42:47that captured various different aspects and angles
00:42:52of a vehicle that we believed to be Ben Lecombe's vehicle.
00:42:57Now, some of those were just headlights flashing by at the right time.
00:43:01But then maybe half a mile or a mile on, you then get a better shot.
00:43:06And it all came to a head with one property
00:43:08that gave us an absolutely perfect image of his car going past
00:43:15at approximately 2.20 in the morning.
00:43:18And because it's a taxi,
00:43:20it's got some quite distinctive marking on it.
00:43:22So we get it going past seven houses in one direction.
00:43:312.20 in the morning, we then lose the vehicle.
00:43:38Two hours later, give or take a few seconds,
00:43:42the same vehicle is coming back along the same route,
00:43:46going back past the same cameras and back towards Baysay Shore.
00:43:49We knew that Ben Lecombe had parked his car in a different car park
00:43:57a bit further away from his house.
00:43:59Around 4.30 in the morning,
00:44:02we could see from the neighbor's rear CCTV
00:44:06that Ben Lecombe's car had been locked.
00:44:09The amber lights on his car flashed three times.
00:44:12He was insistent that he'd just been asleep in his home,
00:44:20that he'd gone to bed late on the 9th of October.
00:44:23We checked Ben Lecombe's taxi records.
00:44:27He wasn't at work during the night of the 9th into the 10th.
00:44:30Finally, we could show to a good standard of evidence
00:44:36that Ben Lecombe wasn't at home when he said he was.
00:44:41That vehicle had been somewhere where it had got muddy.
00:44:46And it's at that same time that Sarah has gone missing.
00:44:49And that was the moment we thought we'd got in.
00:45:02It was time to re-arrest Ben Lecombe and ask him some more questions.
00:45:08There's movement here.
00:45:09Hello, sir, please. Can you open the door, please?
00:45:23Morning.
00:45:27The time is 6.05.
00:45:30You are further under arrest,
00:45:32especially in a mode of sound or well-being.
00:45:34This is a further arrest on the discovery of fresh evidence.
00:45:36This evidence provides inconsistencies with statements provided.
00:45:41If you're causing a missing,
00:45:43your arrest is necessary so that there's been questions about your face.
00:45:46Yes, sir.
00:45:49Having been arrested for the murder of Sarah Wellgreen,
00:45:53Ben Lecombe didn't react in any way.
00:45:56He didn't ask any questions of the officer.
00:45:59He didn't seem surprised.
00:46:03When I first learned of Ben's arrest,
00:46:04I was angry.
00:46:06Real angry.
00:46:08He brought me up as a kid.
00:46:10I was suspicious of him to be in with.
00:46:12I don't know why I didn't try and piece a little bit more of it together.
00:46:18It was weird because he was being helpful.
00:46:21We knew we had to move. We had to find her because otherwise there's a chance he was going to get off.
00:46:35We started phoning people, pulling in favours.
00:46:38People were coming down from way, way up north with their dogs to do tracking work.
00:46:44We left no stone unturned.
00:46:48A lot of effort was going in to the searches, both police and community.
00:46:54They were doing a hell of a lot.
00:46:57It was reassuring and it was good to see the community come together to help out.
00:47:01It's difficult to explain, like, the feelings of it.
00:47:06You're no longer looking for your mum anymore.
00:47:10You're just looking for a body.
00:47:12He's been arrested but Sarah's still not been found.
00:47:20And you're so worried he's going to get off with it, you are desperate to find her.
00:47:26So the searches did continue.
00:47:29We were walking and in the distance I could see these white things.
00:47:33And the closer we were getting to it, the more it looked like bones.
00:47:43I was scared.
00:47:48The police had given us a measuring tool that we could use if we find any bones.
00:47:53We had to put it up and take the photographs.
00:47:55We've sent all the stuff across to the police and we're just waiting because the frenzies wanted to come out.
00:48:05One part you're thinking, we finally found her.
00:48:09But the other part you're thinking, oh my God, this is the kid's mum.
00:48:16When there was a find on the searches, the whole room held its breath.
00:48:22Forensics checked and there were only more bones.
00:48:28I think I really took that one to heart.
00:48:32That's when I really realised we're looking for Sarah's remains.
00:48:36I'm not looking for Sarah anymore.
00:48:43We had assessed and graded over two and a half thousand search areas.
00:48:48We'd used resources from across the country.
00:48:50Numerous experts in scientific fields.
00:48:54But by the time we got to trial in September 2019, we still hadn't found Sarah's body.
00:49:03I'd been in Major Crime Department for ten years and I'd not dealt with and wasn't aware of another bodyless murder investigation that had been charged, let alone take to court and convicted.
00:49:14One of my biggest fears was that Ben Lacombe could walk free.
00:49:18A year after Sarah Wellgreen initially went missing, there was finally a trial at the Willich Crown Court day one and very quickly gained a sense that this was a big trial, a big prosecution case.
00:49:35Sarah's family, volunteers from the search team, police, prosecutors all turned up and for Ben, just his mum, which was quite telling.
00:49:56It's a weird feeling being in court. Everything just becomes sort of surreal. The man who murders your mum walk past you and you can't do anything about her. Like nothing at all.
00:50:10The prosecution case was quite lengthy. Obviously there was so much evidence to hear.
00:50:16Key piece of evidence was Ben Lacombe's own CCTV system on his house.
00:50:23I've got CCTV on my house as well. And when I looked on that, it was off. Like the switch had been turned off. So I can't check on that.
00:50:33But we discovered when we looked at night through the neighbor CCTV that you could see the infrared light from Ben Lacombe's cameras going on and off at certain times.
00:50:47On the night that Sarah went missing, we could see those cameras were turned off just after midnight.
00:50:54The logs showed us that the system was powered down at the same time that we've seen the lights go off.
00:51:04That's Ben Lacombe preparing for the fact that he either just has or is about to kill Sarah and then needs to take her body from that house without anyone or anything seeing him do that.
00:51:18We then needed to find some other evidence to support that timeline.
00:51:28It was a difficult decision to make, but the decision was made that we needed to speak to the children.
00:51:39They played a video of one of my siblings doing their interview, which kind of broke me.
00:51:47I pulled my eyes out while Ben just looked like he sat there expressionless.
00:51:55They said they went to try and find daddy in the middle of the night. Daddy wasn't there.
00:52:00So they went downstairs and watched television in the conservatory.
00:52:06What we were able to capture on CCTV to corroborate the story from the neighbor's camera,
00:52:12you can just about see the conservatory light come on in the middle of the night.
00:52:20Later, we find that conservatory light is switched off at their home.
00:52:26Now that's Ben putting the children back to bed.
00:52:29Heartbreaking, honestly. That was awful.
00:52:33One of the people that had gone out and searched came back and said,
00:52:43we've searched over in the Baisley Shore area.
00:52:46Did you know how many cameras were up?
00:52:49And it was mind blowing.
00:52:51We're not a high crime risk area.
00:52:53Yet his whole house was surrounded by cameras.
00:52:59Is he either paranoid?
00:53:02Is he very controlling?
00:53:04We couldn't make our mind up what the need for all these cameras are.
00:53:12We had quite a few conversations about Ben and the way he is.
00:53:17It was very controlling.
00:53:20He needed to know where she was and what she was doing.
00:53:26He had screens in his room so he could watch the footage and he knew the coverage of the cameras.
00:53:34She tried not to talk to him.
00:53:36She said she'd just go upstairs in her room.
00:53:39It was really sad because that living situation was horrendous for her.
00:53:45She hated it.
00:53:51A moment that stood out to me in the case was when the prosecution brought out this six-foot shovel.
00:53:57When we went back to research Baisley Shore, we were looking to see whether there was any evidence of where Sarah might have been harmed.
00:54:04But we didn't find anything significant.
00:54:08But there was one thing that did jump out.
00:54:11And that was a shovel that we found in the shed.
00:54:14Ben claimed he had got for his mum as a Christmas present because she wanted to dig a border around his front garden.
00:54:22We all just looked at each other and I thought, there is no way that lady could even lift it, let alone shovel with it.
00:54:30This was not a shovel that you would tend the front of a garden flower bed.
00:54:35This was a shovel that looked like something a grave digger would use.
00:54:39It felt like this was a huge moment where this lie had been exposed and the prosecutor described it as complete nonsense.
00:54:48Ben took the stand to give evidence which all of us as press were very surprised by, considering he'd had days of interview with police and not said anything.
00:54:57So now we were going to hear for the first time answers to some of those questions.
00:55:03The first thing he was asked by the prosecutor was, where is she? You know, where's Sarah? Where's the body? Did you kill her?
00:55:12It was a really intense grilling and he was a rabbit in the headlights.
00:55:15One of the most interesting pieces of Ben's evidence was when the prosecutor questioned him about this phone.
00:55:26At the point of arrest, Ben Lacombe's phone is downloaded and we can identify a unique number that tells us it's a completely different device.
00:55:36We had the information from Ben's mother that on the Sunday evening he left the home. We saw that on CCTV.
00:55:46We then had to look wider outside of New Ash Green to see where he'd gone.
00:55:51Saw his car on a number of cameras and travelling out to the Greenhold area.
00:55:56We see him get out of the car and walk towards the river and a few minutes come back and drive off.
00:56:05To me, that's the actions of somebody who's trying to hide evidence.
00:56:11He claims that he had written nasty messages to Sarah and he believed that was going to make him look like he was a suspect.
00:56:23That was something I did not believe at all.
00:56:32The next day, we captured him on CCTV on the Monday afternoon, buying this new handset.
00:56:38Hello, erm, I want to report missing person.
00:56:43And did she go missing before or is this out of character?
00:56:46Erm, she hasn't gone missing before, but she's got a bit of a weird life, let's be that way.
00:56:52I'm sorry, it's just quite...
00:56:54No, that's all right, that's all right, I just want to make sure we get all the details.
00:56:57I'm just trying to be quite... She's got quite a complicated life, like...
00:57:01And, erm, it's just a bit messy, really, like...
00:57:04Even just his voice would just, like, annoy me.
00:57:09It's just infuriating. Erm, it just makes me really, really angry.
00:57:14Knowing what he'd done, and for him to just sit there and try and, like, lie his way out of it.
00:57:19Ben Lacombe was pointing us in all different directions away from him.
00:57:23It paints a picture that we now know was very, er, untrue.
00:57:28It was certainly not what we know Sarah's life to have been.
00:57:35Sarah's life is very much on the up.
00:57:37She had a new job offer she was going to start. She had custody of her children. She was going to be financially stable, and she was going to be able to have a home with her and her children.
00:57:53Ben Lacombe was the contrary. He was about to lose a lot.
00:57:58This was not a domestic incident that went wrong. This was a premeditated murder.
00:58:03You all definitely knew that he was guilty.
00:58:09But there's always one side of you that thinks,
00:58:13well, what if part of the jury doesn't believe it?
00:58:33I'm a senior investigating officer running this case, but I'm human.
00:58:39And you do feel pressure, and you do feel you really need to get this right result home.
00:58:47Not just for justice, but for the family, because I will walk away and go on to my next case and my next job.
00:58:56This family have got this for the rest of their life.
00:58:58They found Ben Lacombe guilty of the murder of Sarah Wellgreen.
00:59:09I broke down. Like, I was crying my absolute eyes out, but I was, I was happy. Then found him guilty, and that he'd actually go down for it.
00:59:26The relief, the joy, the pride, feeling that we'd achieved at least something for Sarah's family.
00:59:40You can't help but feel some of their pain and their distress.
00:59:52We hope he will never be released unless he admits his guilt and reveals the location of her grave.
00:59:59To date, he has shown no remorse or care for either Sarah or his own children.
01:00:03Even though Ben Lacombe has been convicted, we continued to search over 1,400 search areas physically.
01:00:14The search was such a vast area. This was such a rural area.
01:00:20Ben Lacombe had been out in his car for over two hours.
01:00:23You can get a long way and back in two hours, had he prepared a deposition site prior.
01:00:32We knew the family by this stage, and we knew how desperately they need closure.
01:00:40And that's driven us all the way, really.
01:00:44That's just been the, the driving force.
01:00:46You've gone this far, you cannot now back out.
01:00:51You don't just wake up one day and say, do you know what, I can't do this anymore.
01:00:55Your day, yeah, whatever you're doing, you're getting on with your work day, your family life,
01:00:59and in the back of your mind is Sarah.
01:01:03And you can be carrying on, and then you get a message come through.
01:01:09And you all might mobilise again.
01:01:12Psychics did get in touch quite a few.
01:01:17A lady contacted us from Ireland, and she pinpointed the location and said to her, you need to go there.
01:01:24And as mad as it seems, you are frightened not to follow up on those things.
01:01:30We were in a field, speaking to a psychic.
01:01:34There was like a woodshed, and we saw this freezer.
01:01:43And we had that sort of feeling, oh my God, is she going to be in the freezer?
01:01:50After much deliberation, Gaz took the short straw and went and opened it.
01:01:58And it was the most frightening thing I think I've ever done.
01:02:13But he opened it, it was clear.
01:02:15We all sighed with relief, but then the disappointment set in because we still hadn't found her.
01:02:27She wasn't there.
01:02:29We did everything that we could through a long period of time, nearly two years, to try and find Sarah.
01:02:36Until we got to a point where we were then into an element of a needle in a haystack.
01:02:42And unfortunately, the focus of the search then had to stop.
01:02:46There was nowhere left to search where our information and intelligence suggested it was possible that she might be.
01:02:56When the police slowed down the search, we felt for the family.
01:03:03I always remember the day that I stood in front of Lewis and said, we will find your mum.
01:03:09And I feel like I've hugely let him down.
01:03:13And I know the people with me at the time were feeling the same.
01:03:22Finally, we would like to say a massive thank you to the founding members of the Search for Sarah Welgram Facebook team.
01:03:28And all the volunteers who have continued to search for Sarah in all weather conditions.
01:03:32We are internally grateful to you all.
01:03:43My mother still hasn't been found today.
01:03:47It's difficult because you can't finish mourning until she's been laid to rest.
01:03:59After Ben Lacombeau was convicted, Helen's Law was enacted, which is a piece of legislation,
01:04:06which means that the parole board will have to take into account the fact that Ben Lacombeau hasn't disclosed where Sarah's remains are before considering parole.
01:04:18I've tried to contact Ben a few times to see if I'll be able to get put on the visitations list.
01:04:27He said no, initially, that he doesn't want any contact at this time.
01:04:32So at least once a year, I'll try again. Once a year, every year.
01:04:36I'm now retired from my role, but Kent police officers will continue and keep this case open when fresh information comes alight to try and find Sarah.
01:04:53It's something that still saddens me now because it's something that I was never able to achieve for the family, to find their daughter, their sister, their mum.
01:05:06It has been seven years now. You never forget about it because it will always be with you, but you have to move past it and you've got to carry on with your life.
01:05:19I hope that she is found for family, for the children's sake. They're coming along great, you know, and she'll be proud. She'll be very proud.
01:05:42I think she'll be happy with our... we've all turned up.
01:05:54What I've lost in Sarah is a companion that I thought I'd have for life.
01:06:02After seven years, then, when you're so close to somebody, there's nothing that really goes away.
01:06:13My mum was a loving, caring person. She was a really, really good mum. Always there for anything you needed.
01:06:22It's just kind of keeping the memory of her alive so that she can be remembered.
01:06:28For the person she was, not for what happened to her.
01:06:31If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this programme, please go to channel5.com slash helplines for information and support.
01:06:49And series one and two of A Killer Makes A Call is ready to be viewed. Stream now on Vive.
01:06:54Next, my lover, my killer.
01:06:56Bye.
01:06:57Bye.
01:06:58Bye.
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