- 6 weeks ago
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00:00:01Can police come to help you?
00:00:04Hello, I want to report a missing person.
00:00:06She's the mum of 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 be that way.
00:00:24Have you got any idea where she might be?
00:00:27No, I don't.
00:00:29I'm fine following you.
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.
00:01:00And 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.
00:01:13And the post said, can anybody help?
00:01:16My mum's gone missing.
00:01:18My heart just went out.
00:01:20Immediately, 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, don'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, and I thought,
00:01:41we've got to do something.
00:01:43So I put a shout out saying, there's a member of our community missing.
00:01:48If anybody's got time, we 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, and we look after each other.
00:02:01I 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, and I just felt that if that was me that was missing,
00:02:15then I would like to think somebody would come out and 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, couldn't get hold of her.
00:02:26My 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.
00:02:52I am Sarah Wellgreen's friend for 20 years.
00:02:55When I first got the message that she hadn't been seen,
00:03:00I thought it was rather strange because Sarah wouldn't have left the children
00:03:04for a long period of time.
00:03:05She wouldn't go off and not tell anyone where.
00:03:08She would have told someone where she was going.
00:03:10We were all worried.
00:03:14Nobody had seen her or spoken to her in about 24 hours.
00:03:19Ben and my mum were split up at the time, but they were both living in the ash green,
00:03:25co-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.
00:03:37He said no, he hadn't seen her.
00:03:39If none of us had heard from her within like another 24 hours, then that he would phone the police.
00:03:46It kind of all became a little bit more real and a little bit more serious.
00:03:50Hello, Lorna, report a missing person. She'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 mine. We're not together. We live together.
00:04:12You 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? You haven't heard from her since?
00:04:19No, I texted her yesterday morning just to see if she was all right and stuff.
00:04:23But I don't know where they're 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 going on, but the risk isn't really high at this stage.
00:04:46When are you going to be at home because we need to attend your address then?
00:04:50I've got my kids there. I'm a bit concerned.
00:04:52It's my son's birthday today. I don't want them getting worried and stuff.
00:04:55They're already a bit confused as it is.
00:04:58So a police officer was deployed to search the home address
00:05:03to 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 right.
00:05:27And 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.
00:05:49Where she got. Because she would never miss any of the kids' birthdays. Never. Never ever miss one of the kids' birthdays.
00:06:01That was the thing that pushed my thinking over the edge.
00:06:05That was the thing that said to me, Sarah's not missing of her own free will.
00:06:12We 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?
00:06:31Had she gone for a walk or a run and had an accident?
00:06:39So we began the search in the new ash green and surrounding area.
00:06:42I 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. Let us know where and when.
00:06:55I thought maybe nobody had come. And 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.
00:07:12Yet 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.
00:07:24So we were checking all the roads and several metres either side and we covered every road, every path, looking for this down and injured lady.
00:07:38We had specially trained police officers searching with police dogs.
00:07:45But 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.
00:08:03Sarah could be in danger and we need to find her as soon as possible.
00:08:19This morning, police headed to a new location to continue their search into the disappearance of the mother of five, Sarah Wellgreen.
00:08:26But at the weekend, a really strong turnout from the volunteer operation, more than 300 people coming to search.
00:08:33And not just people around the New Ash Green and Bases Shore area and around that five mile radius which police have 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.
00:08:48We worked with police search teams.
00:08:51We had experts to do confined space searching, waterborne searching and underwater searching.
00:08:59And we hadn't found her.
00:09:02We 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.
00:09:12When 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 and where they might be.
00:09:21We spoke to lots of Sarah's family.
00:09:23We spoke to lots of her friends.
00:09:25She was a very social person.
00:09:27She had quite a wide network of friends.
00:09:29My 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.
00:09:49He lived out in Palma.
00:09:50It was the honeymoon stage, I think, for Ben and Sarah.
00:09:54It was constant phone calls.
00:09:56I think he painted such a big picture of sun, sea and sunsets that you couldn't refuse.
00:10:09So my mum moved me and my brother Jack over to Mallorca.
00:10:14They built a life together there.
00:10:15They had a son.
00:10:16But after a couple of years, it started to get financially troubling for them and they came back to the UK.
00:10:25They had two more children together and life seemed to be normal for them.
00:10:30Sarah as a friend was very funny, great to be around.
00:10:39Our kids grew up together and we both bounced off each other's parenting.
00:10:44It was always just a fun time.
00:10:45When 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 and being a beautician.
00:10:58Having that little girl to dress up was just amazing and we had all these things planned.
00:11:04I know she loved Kent, she loved the house, but down the line I could hear that she wasn't happy.
00:11:15I think the relationship kind of fizzled out, just kind of stopped getting along with each other.
00:11:20So, 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 their work and things like that.
00:11:32I think she felt trapped because financially it was our only option.
00:11:35Sarah said he's got his own room, I've got my room, the children have got their room.
00:11:41For her kids' sake, she'd do anything that she could to make those kids happy.
00:11:45My mum was great. She 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, add up conversations,
00:12:07I could have a drink with her.
00:12:09She was always there when I needed her.
00:12:11The children were her life.
00:12:15She was just a brilliant mum.
00:12:20I had this horrible, sickly feeling because she's not contacted anyone.
00:12:26I'm building up a picture of Sarah and her life.
00:12:36She's got a house.
00:12:38She's got lots of friends and family around her.
00:12:41And I'm looking at her thinking,
00:12:43you're not the type of person that voluntarily goes missing.
00:12:45That initial call reporting Sarah Wellgreen is missing was fairly typical.
00:12:53Ben Lacombe provided quite a lot of information that he felt was important that we knew about Sarah.
00:12:59So you live together with your children, but you're not partners with your friends now, yeah?
00:13:04Yeah, yeah, 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?
00:13:13His name is Neil James.
00:13:19What 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,
00:13:28and that was with a chap called Neil James.
00:13:30Somebody we understood she'd recently got engaged to,
00:13:34that had had an on-off relationship for a few years.
00:13:36He lived away from Kent in Surrey,
00:13:39but she was contacting him regularly and seeing him regularly too.
00:13:43Can I show his boyfriend's number and address?
00:13:47I do know his number because he texted me last night.
00:13:50What did he text you saying?
00:13:51Does he know that she's missing?
00:13:52Yeah, he said,
00:13:53Hi Ben, have you heard, know where Sarah is?
00:13:56A mum, Lewis, Jack, haven't heard from her all day,
00:13:59and no messages delivering in any media.
00:14:01We're all worried.
00:14:02So if you can let us know if you've seen her or me,
00:14:06and her mum are going to have to start a police search
00:14:09as it's been 24 hours.
00:14:10Thanks, Neil.
00:14:12Obviously, I need to consider everyone's status
00:14:15within an investigation.
00:14:17And yes, part of that is building suspicions around people.
00:14:23Neil James was someone that I needed to understand more about.
00:14:28He was the person that perhaps she is closest to
00:14:30at that point in her life.
00:14:33My mum went split with Ben.
00:14:38A few years later, she met Neil.
00:14:40It was definitely nice to see my mum meet someone new.
00:14:42Got on well with him.
00:14:43And the way she was with Neil, it was good.
00:14:46Happy birthday to you.
00:14:49But my mum and Ben were living together
00:14:51because her relationship with Neil was a bit on and off.
00:14:54It was very rocky at that moment.
00:14:56Had things been going on between them, was there a reason why he would have travelled to Kent the night that Sarah disappeared?
00:15:07Is there any ongoing bullying or harassment or anything like that at all?
00:15:10I would say, yeah, the main...
00:15:12When you say, like, bullying and stuff, I'd say, like, really, it'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.
00:15:26I'm Andy Robinson and in 2018, I was a reporter at Kent Live.
00:15:38This mess-in-persons case felt different almost from the off.
00:15:41And you just felt this was something more than someone who had ran off
00:15:45and would return home of their own accord.
00:15:48I put Sarah's name into Facebook
00:15:50and 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.
00:15:59Every day more people came.
00:16:01We realised, because there's so many exits to the village on foot,
00:16:05running tracks through the woods,
00:16:07that we needed to get a copy of the Ordnance survey map.
00:16:12It wasn't always just about the routes on the map itself,
00:16:15it was local knowledge,
00:16:16people offering information that only locals know.
00:16:23When we started up to have a Facebook group,
00:16:25we were sort of aware that somebody called Neil was posting,
00:16:28Sarah, where are you? I'm looking for you or I miss you.
00:16:32But we'd never seen him on the search.
00:16:34So that was obviously really strange for us.
00:16:39If my loved one went missing, I'd want to be out there looking.
00:16:42All we were reading about was how heartbroken he was
00:16:46and how much he loved her, which is great, absolutely 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.
00:17:06We 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,
00:17:22she took the children to school in the morning as normal.
00:17:25She returns, she doesn't go back into the address,
00:17:27she 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.
00:17:36And she's a beauty therapist, so she does like private clients as well.
00:17:40And she does private clients all over in Cairn, in Farnham, in Portsmouth.
00:17:45She was a travelling beauty therapist and she would see clients at their home addresses.
00:17:50And she carried out a number of those appointments through the day.
00:17:54We 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.
00:18:06There was nothing that any of her clients told us that day, gave calls for concern.
00:18:11Sarah came home just before 8pm and she parked in a normal parking space.
00:18:17We saw from the CCTV that she got out of the car.
00:18:20She was on her own and she walked into her home address.
00:18:26We asked Ben, had there been any conversation that evening?
00:18:30Had there been any argument, any dispute?
00:18:32How were things between the two of them that evening?
00:18:35He told us that she was fine, that she'd come in.
00:18:39They'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.
00:18:46He said nothing untoward had happened.
00:18:48He said that he'd heard that she was talking to her friends
00:18:51because he could hear through from the other room.
00:18:54But it was a normal evening as far as Ben was concerned.
00:18:58Phone records are absolutely key in any investigation.
00:19:10They're an insight into someone's world and their private life.
00:19:14Sarah had a couple of handsets.
00:19:17There 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,
00:19:39there was a flurry of text messages between Sarah and Neil James.
00:19:43But what I don't know at that stage is what that conversation is about.
00:19:49We 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
00:20:03or any other NHS service.
00:20:06One of the last people that Sarah had been in contact with
00:20:12that evening was her boyfriend, Neil James.
00:20:16I need to go and see him and understand what was taking place
00:20:20in those text messages and what he can tell me about Sarah.
00:20:23And more importantly, where was he on the night that Sarah went missing?
00:20:30Empty 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.
00:20:40Can I ask the nature of your call?
00:20:42Well, I have information.
00:20:44I can't.
00:20:45Maybe a whereabouts.
00:20:47I don't know.
00:20:48Neil James told us that he was home alone on the night of Sarah's disappearance.
00:20:56So at that stage, I need to look for other means to corroborate what Neil James is telling us.
00:21:02I'm dispatching officers to Neil James' home address to check out the CCTV, see if there's anything that can help us identify his movements.
00:21:16I'm doing the checks in relation to his car, the ANPR.
00:21:30We'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 and what the relevance is, is Neil James.
00:21:42I need to understand quickly this picture, because ultimately we need to find Sarah.
00:21:56I'm Neil James.
00:21:57I 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 and 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.
00:22:25That relationship to me was like heaven.
00:22:28She was just the perfect mother.
00:22:31One night she said to me, how would you feel if we got married?
00:22:35I said I'd be delighted.
00:22:38We envisions growing old together.
00:22:45Every night we'd obviously speak on the phone.
00:22:47It'd be like, night darling, love you.
00:22:50And every morning whoever was up first is, morning, love you.
00:22:56By 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.
00:23:13And then the next morning, I messaged her to say, morning darling, how are you?
00:23:19Love you.
00:23:21And the message didn't deliver.
00:23:23Which I thought, well, that's a bit strange.
00:23:25Sarah's phone was always on.
00:23:30I text Sarah a couple of messages.
00:23:37None of them got to do it.
00:23:40I even left a voicemail 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.
00:23:52I spoke to Sarah's mum and dad.
00:23:58Then I spoke to Lewis.
00:24:03Then I messaged Ben to say whether he'd seen her.
00:24:09Didn't hear anything back from him.
00:24:11I was speaking to all and sundry.
00:24:15I was desperate to try and find where Sarah was and what was happening because this was so unlikely.
00:24:22I 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.
00:24:51Even after nothing.
00:24:53They wanted to search the house.
00:24:55They wanted to ask me questions.
00:24:57Do they really think this is me?
00:24:59The reason why I didn't join the search.
00:25:00Now I lived an hour and a half away.
00:25:02My daughter was three at the time.
00:25:04And what if I did find her?
00:25:06I wouldn't want to be that person that found her.
00:25:08I'd be distraught.
00:25:10No.
00:25:11We knew where he was when he was on his phone.
00:25:12He was not one of his friends.
00:25:14It was an hour and a half of his friends.
00:25:18But the reason why I didn't join the search.
00:25:19I lived an hour and a half away.
00:25:21My daughter was three at the time.
00:25:23And what if I did find her?
00:25:25I wouldn't want to be that person that found her.
00:25:27I'd be distraught.
00:25:29No.
00:25:38We knew where he was when he was on his phone.
00:25:40his phone he lives in another county and the routes between the two were checked
00:25:44there in his car was not flagged up on any ampr or any cameras there was
00:25:50everything to show he was where he says he was he was nowhere near new ash
00:25:54green that evening
00:25:57Neil James isn't a suspect and was able to give us an insight into Sarah's life
00:26:04that other people weren't there was a sense of relief that I'd kind of been
00:26:11cleared of any sort of suspicion because the most important thing was finding out
00:26:17where she was
00:26:24the missing person search continued over the next few days unsuccessfully lots of
00:26:31police officer activity lots of community support trying to find where
00:26:35Sarah was
00:26:37family liaison officers who've been appointed to work with family had gone
00:26:41out to see Ben to take a formal statement from him he was saying that Sarah's life
00:26:47was in a downward spiral of on-and-off depression and possibly even
00:26:53considering self-harm so our search strategy changed
00:26:59the police said could you ask your searchers to look up
00:27:05look up
00:27:06look up
00:27:07which indicated she might well have
00:27:10taken a life
00:27:13I found that really difficult standing in front of people having to even make that suggestion
00:27:18we then retrace the steps thinking okay so if that is a possibility we need to go further out from the roads
00:27:33I really wasn't prepared for that when you go from looking for a lady that's injured to looking for somebody's body
00:27:40we were so immersed in it we so wanted to find her and all I could remember was Lewis's post that night and I think it was the same for everybody else
00:27:55Sarah well brings last proof of life is 10 p.m. that's when the last text message was sent on her phone
00:28:10we know her phone is on the network until 4 a.m. so 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
00:28:33but from the search of Basie Shaw
00:28:36I knew that the CCTV where Sarah and Ben were living was absolutely critical
00:28:43it was CCTV that could give us the answers to all of our questions
00:28:48I've got CCTV on my house as well
00:28:54yeah
00:28:55and when I looked on that it was off
00:28:58like the switch had been turned off
00:29:00so I can't check on that and so Lewis has texted me today
00:29:03to say er
00:29:05he said nanny asked if you can check your CCTV to see if she got into another car
00:29:10but the thing is it was turned off at the plug
00:29:14I saw that but the thing is my CCTV doesn't record
00:29:18like the hard disk doesn't work anymore
00:29:20that answer concerns me
00:29:23that's a really convenient set of circumstances
00:29:26is what I'm being told by Ben LaComba a lie
00:29:35Ben LaComba is now the main focus
00:29:38tracing Ben LaComba's movements the night leading up to Sarah's disappearance
00:29:47the vehicles that are known to us are Ben LaComba's red Vauxhall Zafira
00:29:53Ben was a taxi driver
00:29:55he used his own vehicle for taxiing
00:29:58he had a last pickup, a last job just before 5pm on the 9th
00:30:05following that he booked off
00:30:07and he arrives back at the home address just after 5pm
00:30:12and usually on that day when Ben came home just after 5pm
00:30:16he didn't park in the communal car park right next to his home
00:30:20he chose to park in a different car park
00:30:23which was a bit further away from his home
00:30:26and very secluded and dark
00:30:28in contrast to what he would normally do
00:30:31we knew he returned home
00:30:34could see him on the CCTV
00:30:36but we couldn't see his car
00:30:38and that was something that was a bit strange
00:30:48suspicions around Ben are growing
00:30:50our officers went to speak to Ben LaComba on the 14th of October
00:30:54and they asked for him to provide his phone for a voluntary download
00:31:01so 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
00:31:15and he makes a comment about why would I want you to look at deleted material
00:31:21I've deleted it for a reason
00:31:23he said I'm going to keep my phone
00:31:26I'm going to go to bed
00:31:27I'm tired
00:31:28I will bring my phone to you tomorrow
00:31:30that's an alarm bell
00:31:32why doesn't he want us to look at his phone
00:31:34the morning of the 15th of October comes and goes
00:31:45no Ben LaComba
00:31:46no mobile phone
00:31:47he doesn't turn up at the police station
00:31:49doesn't make any contact with us at all
00:31:52Ben LaComba had become very suspicious to me in his behaviour
00:31:58so I sent officers to Ben LaComba's home
00:32:01but he wasn't there
00:32:03but his mother was
00:32:05she said that after officers had left
00:32:08having asked him for his phone
00:32:10the night before
00:32:12he went out
00:32:13he was away for a few hours
00:32:18we believe in that time
00:32:20that he's disposed of his phone
00:32:22and who knows what else
00:32:31can't please control room
00:32:32how can I help?
00:32:34hello
00:32:35my daughter was reporting missing
00:32:37and I'm really concerned
00:32:39the person that called her in
00:32:41the situation is
00:32:43he's an ex-partner
00:32:45they're sharing the house
00:32:47but
00:32:48for the last five years
00:32:49they've been backwards and forwards to court
00:32:51arguing about the children
00:32:53things have been really vicious and acrimonious
00:32:55we learned that there was a lot of family court activity
00:32:58there was a lot of custody battles with the children
00:33:00there was a lot of animosity between the couple
00:33:02I think he was trying to paint her as a bad person at that time
00:33:17so she was working harder
00:33:20to prove she could provide the mortgage payments
00:33:23and look after the children properly
00:33:27he was nasty towards her
00:33:29spiteful, horrible
00:33:31he took a toll on her
00:33:32she just wanted their kids back
00:33:36by 2018
00:33:38Sarah had prime custody of their three children
00:33:42and she was looking to buy Ben
00:33:44out of the house
00:33:49in the few days leading up to her going missing
00:33:52Sarah had a job interview
00:33:53for a new job
00:33:55understood that she was successful in that job
00:33:57and therefore
00:33:59had a future that she was building
00:34:01it was definitely a new opportunity for her
00:34:03it was like a salary job
00:34:05company car, so it had its perks
00:34:08by the night of Sarah's disappearance
00:34:10we were able to find through messaging
00:34:12that Ben was aware that
00:34:15Sarah had a mortgage offer
00:34:18and was going to be able to buy him out of the property
00:34:21Sarah mentioned that she had told Ben about a new job
00:34:26earning way more money than what he was earning
00:34:31financially she'd be secure
00:34:34for her and the children
00:34:35which effectively was going to make Ben homeless
00:34:39and I think
00:34:41he hated that fact
00:34:43so there was a very strong motive I felt
00:34:47for Ben
00:34:49to have Sarah disappear
00:34:50we tracked Ben LaCombe down at the family courts on the 16th
00:35:01the mother of his children is missing
00:35:05there's a big police investigation going on
00:35:08and he's trying to obtain a custody order for the children
00:35:12what was the urgency?
00:35:15why was he doing that?
00:35:18potentially knowing that Sarah was not going to come back
00:35:22there's several things that concern us about the circumstances of her disappearance
00:35:29so this has moved from a missing persons investigation to potentially a murder investigation
00:35:40Ben LaCombe was arrested on suspicion of murder
00:35:47following extensive investigations and inquiries and also searching
00:35:54we're now treating this as a potential homicide investigation
00:35:58first time it being called a murder investigation becomes sort of surreal
00:36:03and you kind of get the feeling that she's not coming back anymore
00:36:07I know something was wrong
00:36:11but to hear it
00:36:14to be told it
00:36:16it's totally different
00:36:17and I don't think I'd
00:36:19I still don't believe it
00:36:24someone so beautiful doesn't deserve that
00:36:35was so difficult because we'd all so wanted to find her alive
00:36:39I just felt awful for the family because I could see what they were going through
00:36:46and I just wanted to help them
00:36:48I just wanted to protect them
00:36:50it was just a natural mother's instinct I guess
00:36:52officers have been in Dartford today
00:36:55they've extended their search as far as Dartford town centre
00:36:58searching even bins in the town centre area
00:37:00in a bed to find any loose clues
00:37:02that could potentially lead to her whereabouts
00:37:04and eyewitnesses said that they saw rescue teams, police dogs, two fire engines
00:37:09and a forensic van all out the scene
00:37:12so clearly police pulling out all stocks here to find Sarah
00:37:19With Ben Lacombe in custody
00:37:23we've got a limited time period in which to gather enough information to charge with the murder of Sarah Welby
00:37:31we now carried out forensic examinations both in his car that he used as a taxi
00:37:38and 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
00:37:50and that she'd been taken somewhere and her body concealed somewhere
00:37:55so that changed the dynamics of the search
00:37:58we 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
00:38:25but moving out to 25 metres either side of a road
00:38:30the weather had been really dry and hot all summer
00:38:35everything was parched
00:38:37it made it really easy for searching
00:38:38we were saying look for a recent pile, recently dug soil
00:38:44because there was just one goal and that was finding Sarah
00:38:57you are under arrest today
00:39:00on suspicion of the murder of your ex-partner
00:39:04and I understand the current term, you are still living in the same address
00:39:10that's Sarah Wellgreen
00:39:13we believe she may be dead and that may be at your hand
00:39:18so, did you kill her?
00:39:25Ben Comber was with us for three days
00:39:28he was interviewed extensively over that time
00:39:31and didn't say a word to us
00:39:32so, I'm not clear at the moment Ben
00:39:37whether you are just trying to think of an answer
00:39:39or whether you have decided not to answer the question
00:39:45that was another flag for me
00:39:48because somebody that is innocent
00:39:51somebody that may be concerned about the disappearance of the mother of their children
00:39:57I would have thought that they might want to give us something to try and help
00:40:00I was convinced that Sarah was dead
00:40:05and I was convinced that Ben Macomber was the person that was 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
00:40:21that smoking gun
00:40:22and so on the 19th of October
00:40:25he was bailed from the police station
00:40:28it's a difficult pill to swallow
00:40:31we're confused because
00:40:41did it mean that they thought we didn't do it
00:40:43he's seen going about the village
00:40:45he is carrying on, he's still working
00:40:48he's the person we think has done it
00:40:50he knows something about where Sarah is
00:40:52but he's carrying on
00:40:55the aim is to establish
00:41:02what Ben Macomber did
00:41:04with Sarah Wellgreen's body
00:41:06I've got to focus on CCTV
00:41:08we were looking at Ben's movements on the 9th of October
00:41:14the night Sarah went missing
00:41:17we knew he'd been working
00:41:19he's a taxi driver
00:41:21and we had a capture of him
00:41:23on a CCTV camera locally
00:41:25and his car was spotlessly clean
00:41:28what we then noticed
00:41:30when the vehicle was being driven
00:41:32on the morning of the 10th
00:41:34was that there appeared to be mud
00:41:37by the wheel arches
00:41:39and around the bumper area of the vehicle
00:41:41by 10.30 that morning
00:41:44we picked him up again on CCTV
00:41:47outside his workplace
00:41:50and we could see that his car now
00:41:53again is spotlessly clean
00:41:55we believe Ben's been out that night
00:42:01to dispose of Sarah
00:42:03he's been somewhere where his car
00:42:05could go off road
00:42:07where have that car been?
00:42:08we searched every exit route out of New Ash Green Village itself
00:42:18to try and seize and view as much footage as we could find
00:42:23we 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
00:42:36all of the CCTV we had a breakthrough
00:42:40there were seven properties along a route that captured various different aspects and angles
00:42:51of a vehicle that we believed to be Ben Lecombe's vehicle
00:42:56now some of those were just headlights flashing by at the right time
00:42:59but 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 that gave us an absolutely perfect image
00:43:12of his car going past at approximately 2.20 in the morning
00:43:17and because it's a taxi it's got some quite distinctive marking on it
00:43:26so we get it going past seven houses in one direction
00:43:312.20 in the morning we then lose the vehicle
00:43:362 hours later give or take a few seconds
00:43:392 hours later give or take a few seconds
00:43:42the same vehicle is coming back along the same route
00:43:45going 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 neighbours 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
00:44:19that 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
00:44:31finally we could show to a good standard of evidence
00:44:36that Ben Lecombe wasn't at home when he said he was
00:44:39that vehicle had been somewhere where it got muddy
00:44:46and it's at that same time that Sarah has gone missing
00:44:50and that was the moment we thought we got in
00:44:54it was time to re-arrest Ben Lecombe and ask him some more questions
00:45:06there's movement here
00:45:10hello sir police can you open the door please
00:45:13good morning
00:45:15good morning
00:45:18good morning
00:45:23good morning
00:45:26there you go
00:45:28the line is 6 off to 5
00:45:30you are further under the arrest
00:45:32suspicion of murder of Sarah Wellgreen
00:45:34this is a further arrest for the discovery of fresh evidence
00:45:37this evidence provides that the consistency of the state is provided
00:45:41that your cause of the missing
00:45:43your arrest is necessary to know you to be questioned
00:45:45thanks sir
00:45:49having been arrested for the murder of Sarah Wellgreen
00:45:52Ben Lecombe
00:45:54didn't react in any way
00:45:56he didn't ask any questions of the officer
00:45:59he didn't seem surprised
00:46:00when I first learned of Ben's arrest
00:46:05I was angry
00:46:07real 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
00:46:17it was weird
00:46:19because he was being helpful
00:46:21we knew we had to move we had to find her because otherwise there's a chance
00:46:33he was going to get off
00:46:35we started phoning people pulling in favours people coming down from way way up north
00:46:41with their dogs to do tracking work
00:46:45we left no stone unturned
00:46:47a lot of effort was going in to the searches
00:46:52both police and community
00:46:54they were doing a hell of a lot
00:46:56it was reassuring and good to see the community come together to help out
00:47:02it'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
00:47:11he'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
00:47:24you are desperate to find her
00:47:26so the searches did continue
00:47:28we were walking and in the distance I could see these white things
00:47:33and the closer we were getting to it
00:47:38the more it looked like bones
00:47:43I was scared
00:47:47the police had given us a measuring tool that we could use if we find any bones
00:47:52we had to put it up and take photographs
00:47:56we've sent all the stuff across to the police and we're just waiting
00:48:02because the frenzies wanted to come out
00:48:04in one part you're thinking we finally found her
00:48:08but the other part you're thinking oh my god this is the kid's mum
00:48:11this is the kid's mum
00:48:16when there was a find on the searches
00:48:19the whole room held its breath
00:48:25forensics checked and there were any 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
00:48:39we had assessed and graded over two and a half thousand search areas
00:48:47we'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
00:48:58we still hadn't found Sarah's body
00:49:01I'd been in the major crime department for ten years
00:49:05and I'd not dealt with and wasn't aware of another bodyless murder investigation that had been charged
00:49:12let alone take to court and convicted
00:49:15one of my biggest fears was that Ben Lacombe could walk free
00:49:19a year after Sarah Wellgreen initially went missing there was finally a trial at the Willich Crown Court
00:49:27day one of them very quickly gained a sense that this was a big trial a big prosecution case
00:49:33Sarah's family volunteers from the search team police police prosecutors all turned up and for Ben just his mum which was quite telling
00:49:40it's a weird feeling being in court
00:49:41it's a weird feeling being in court everything just becomes sort of surreal
00:49:45the man who murders your mum walk past you and you can't do anything about it
00:49:46like nothing at all
00:49:47the prosecution case was quite lengthy and you can't do anything about it
00:49:48it was a big trial a big prosecution case
00:49:52Sarah's family volunteers from the search team police police prosecutors all turned up and for Ben just his mum which was quite telling
00:49:57it's a weird feeling being in court everything just becomes sort of surreal the man who's murdered your mum walk past you and you can't do anything about it like nothing at all
00:50:12the prosecution case was quite lengthy obviously there was so much evidence to hear
00:50:18key piece of evidence was Ben Lacombe's own CCTV system on his house
00:50:24I'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
00:50:34but we discovered when we looked at night through the neighbours CCTV that you could see the infrared light from Ben Lacombe's cameras going on and off at certain times
00:50:46at certain times on the night that Sarah went missing we could see those cameras were turned off just after midnight
00:50:57the log showed us that the system was powered down at the same time that we've seen the lights go off
00:51:05that'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
00:51:13without anyone or anything seeing him do that
00:51:17we then needed to find some other evidence to support that timeline
00:51:24it was a difficult decision to make but the decision was made that we needed to speak to the children
00:51:31they played a video of one of my siblings doing their interview
00:51:42um which it kind of broke me
00:51:46I pulled my eyes out while Ben just looked like he sat there expressionless
00:51:51they 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 neighbours camera
00:52:12you can just about see the conservatory light come on in the middle of the night
00:52:17later we find that conservatory light he switched off at their home
00:52:26now that's been putting the children back to bed
00:52:29heartbreaking honestly that was awful
00:52:33one of the people that have gone out on the search came back and said
00:52:42we've searched over in the Baisley Shore area
00:52:45did you know how many cameras were up?
00:52:48and it was mind blowing
00:52:50we're not a high crime risk area
00:52:53yet his whole house was surrounded by cameras
00:52:57is he either paranoid, is he very controlling
00:53:03we couldn't make our mind up what the need for all these cameras are
00:53:09we had quite a few conversations about Ben and the way he is
00:53:16it was very controlling, he needed to know where she was and what she was doing
00:53:23he had screens in his room so he could watch the footage and he knew the coverage of the cameras
00:53:31she would try not to talk to him
00:53:35she said she would just go upstairs in her room
00:53:38it was really sad because that living situation was horrendous for her
00:53:44she hated it
00:53:45a moment that stood out to me in the case was when the prosecution brought out this six foot shovel
00:53:56when we went back to research Baisley Shore
00:53:59we 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
00:54:07but there was one thing that did jump out
00:54:10and that was a shovel that we found in the shed
00:54:13Ben claimed he had got for his mum as a Christmas present
00:54:17because she wanted to dig a border around his front garden
00:54:21we all just looked at each other and I thought
00:54:24there is no way that lady could even lift it
00:54:27let alone shovel with it
00:54:29this was not a shovel that you would tend the front of a garden flower bed
00:54:34this was a shovel that looked like something a grave digger would use
00:54:38it felt like this was a huge moment where this lie had been exposed
00:54:43and the prosecutor described it as complete nonsense
00:54:46Ben took the stand to give evidence which all of us as press were very surprised by
00:54:53considering 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
00:55:01answers to some of those questions
00:55:03the first thing he was asked by the prosecutor was
00:55:07where is she?
00:55:08you know, where's Sarah?
00:55:09where's the body?
00:55:10did you kill her?
00:55:11it was a really intense grilling
00:55:14and he was a rabbit in the headlights
00:55:16one of the most interesting pieces of Ben's evidence
00:55:21was when the prosecutor questioned him about this phone
00:55:25at the point of arrest Ben Lacombe's phone is downloaded
00:55:29and we can identify a unique number
00:55:32that tells us it's a completely different device
00:55:36we had the information from Ben's mother
00:55:40that on the Sunday evening
00:55:42he left the home
00:55:43we saw that on CCTV
00:55:45we then had to look wider outside of New Ash Green
00:55:49to see where he'd gone
00:55:51saw his car on a number of cameras
00:55:54and travelling out to the Green Hole area
00:55:57we see him get out of the car
00:55:59and walk towards the river
00:56:01and a few minutes come back
00:56:03and drive off
00:56:06to me, that's the actions of somebody
00:56:09who's trying to hide evidence
00:56:12he claims that he had written nasty messages to Sarah
00:56:16and he believed that was going to
00:56:18make him look like he was a suspect
00:56:21that was something I did not believe at all
00:56:26the next day
00:56:33we captured him on CCTV
00:56:35on the Monday afternoon
00:56:37buying this new handset
00:56:39when he realized
00:56:41he was an innocent man
00:56:42he was a dead man
00:56:45he was killed
00:56:46and she walked away
00:56:48she didn't get the sane
00:57:04she was a dead man
00:57:05it's just a bit messy really like even just his voice would just like annoy me it's just infuriating
00:57:14it just makes you really really angry knowing what he'd done and for him to just sit there
00:57:19trying like lie his way out of it ben lakamba was pointing us in all different directions away from
00:57:26him it paints a picture that we now know was very uh untrue it was certainly not what we know
00:57:35sarah's life to have been
00:57:40sarah's life is very much on the up she had a new job offer she was going to start she had
00:57:46custody of her children she was going to be financially stable and she was going to be
00:57:50able to have a home with her and her children ben macomba was the contrary he was about to lose a
00:57:57lot this was not a domestic incident that went wrong this was a premeditated murder
00:58:05you all definitely knew that he was guilty but there's always one side of you that thinks
00:58:13or what if part of the jury doesn't believe it
00:58:27i'm a senior investigating officer running this case but i'm human and you do feel pressure and you
00:58:41do feel you really need to get this right result home not just for justice but for the family because
00:58:51i will walk away and go on to my next case and my next job this family have got this for the rest of
00:58:57their life they found ben lacomba guilty of the murder of sarah wellgreen
00:59:09i broke down like i was
00:59:19crying my absolute eyes out but i was
00:59:21i was happy then found him guilty and that he'd actually go down for it
00:59:30the relief the the joy the pride feeling that we'd achieved at least something for sarah's family
00:59:41you can't help but feel some of their pain and their distress
00:59:46we 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 lacomba has been convicted we continued to search over 1400 search areas physically
01:00:15the search was a such a vast area this was such a rural area ben lacomba had been out in his car
01:00:22for over two hours you can get a long way and back in two hours had he prepared a deposition site prior
01:00:30we knew the family by this stage and we knew how desperately they need closure
01:00:41and that's driven us all the way really that's just been the the driving force
01:00:49you've gone this far you cannot now back out you don't just wake up one day and say do you know what
01:00:54i can't do this anymore your day you know whatever you're doing you're getting on with your work day
01:00:58your family life and in the back of your mind is sarah and you can be carrying on and then you get a
01:01:07message come through and you will mobilize again
01:01:15psychics did get in touch quite a few a lady contacted us from ireland and she pinpointed the
01:01:21location and said to us you to go there and as mad as it seems you are frightened not to follow up on
01:01:29those things we were in a field speaking to a psychic there was like a woodshed and we saw his freezer
01:01:42and 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 and
01:01:59it was the most frightening thing i think i've ever done
01:02:13but he opened it it was clear
01:02:20we all sighed with relief but then the disappointment set in
01:02:24because we still hadn't found her she wasn't there
01:02:30we 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
01:02:41and unfortunately the focus of the search then had to stop there was nowhere left to search where our
01:02:49information 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 and i know
01:03:13the people with me at the time were feeling the same
01:03:21finally we would like to say a massive thank you to the founding members of the search for sarah
01:03:25welgrim facebook team and all the volunteers who have continued to search for sarah in all weather
01:03:30conditions we are internally grateful to you all thank you
01:03:43my mother still hasn't been found today
01:03:47it's it's difficult because she can't finish mourning until she's been laid to rest
01:03:53after ben lacomber was convicted helen's law was enacted which is a piece of legislation which means
01:04:07that the parole board will have to take into account the fact that ben lacomber hasn't disclosed
01:04:15where sarah's remains are before considering parole
01:04:18i've tried to contact ben a few times to um see if i'll be able to get put on like the visitations list
01:04:27he said no initially that he doesn't want any contacts at this time so at least once a year
01:04:34i'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
01:04:50when fresh information comes alight to try and find sarah it's something that still saddens me now
01:04:56because it's something that i was never able to achieve for the family to find their daughter their sister their mum
01:05:10it has been seven years now you never forget about it because it will always be with you
01:05:15but you have to move past it and you got to carry on with your life
01:05:26i hope that she is found for family for the children's sake they're coming along great you know
01:05:37and she'd be proud she'd be very proud
01:05:46i think she'd be happy with our we've all turned up
01:05:54what i've lost in sarah is
01:05:57a companion i thought i'd have for life after seven years
01:06:06then when you're so close to somebody there's nothing that really goes away
01:06:14my mum was a loving caring person she was a really really good mum always there for anything you needed
01:06:21it's just kind of keeping the memory of her alive so that she can be remembered for the person she was
01:06:29it's just not for what happened to her
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