Helen Bailey: jurors shown image of sewage pit she was found in
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Version 0 of 1. Images of the pit of human sewage in which the body of the children’s author Helen Bailey was found have been shown to a jury. Encased in a hard crust of filth, the elbow of the Electra Brown writer, still in a white, stripy top, was just visible in the pictures displayed at the trial of her fiance. Ian Stewart is accused of drugging his partner with sedatives and probably smothering her, in a financially driven plot last year. In July 2016, three months after she vanished, the body of the 51-year-old was found in a cesspit deep below the couple’s £1.5m mansion along with the remains of her dog, Boris. The painstaking, two-day excavation process to recover her remains was outlined to jurors at St Albans crown court. DCI Jerome Kent said: “I’m embarrassed to say it took me some convincing to work out what I was looking at. What I was faced with was a dry, hard crust of what I now know was more than mud. “There was a small, very pale white object in that, which I now know was part of Helen’s elbow. It was dark, it wasn’t easy to see, it was almost like somebody being held underneath by ice and there was a dry layer that, whatever it was, was in.” The court was not shown more graphic images of the body being removed. Stewart, of Royston, Hertfordshire, denies murder, preventing a lawful burial, fraud and three counts of perverting the course of justice. The court heard that Stewart paid for flyers and attended a dog walk as part of the search effort for Bailey. In the wake of his fiancee’s disappearance, the defendant was said to have gone on holiday to Spain and renewed football season tickets. Jay Nolan-Latchford, a friend of the writer, said in a statement: “When Helen was missing I set up the Where Is Helen Bailey? Facebook page. As part of our campaign we organised an awareness walk in Royston. It was during this walk I met Ian Stewart for the first time.” She added: “Ian insisted on paying for the leaflets we were going to distribute during the walk. I was surprised when Ian said he would come across to wave the group off – throughout the whole day I found Ian to be unemotional and very contained in his manner.” Following the walk on 22 May last year, Stewart messaged Nolan-Latchford to tell her he was going on holiday. Her statement said: “Out of the blue, on Friday 10 June, the phone rang and he announced that he was going on holiday to Spain. He stated he was going on holiday because he had booked it with Helen and couldn’t get his money back. “He had decided to go on his own; he also said his mental health adviser had said he needed the break.” But on Wednesday, psychiatric nurse Sarah Tooley told the court she had not given the defendant any views on the holiday, but simply “went through the plans” with him. Jurors heard that Nolan-Latchford then received a text from Stewart on 20 Junethat read: “Not sure this trip is a good idea, going to stick with it a bit longer, though.” On 16 May, Stewart had renewed the couple’s season tickets to Arsenal football club over the phone, the jury was told. The recovery of Bailey’s body from the cesspit began on 15 July, inside the privacy of two white marquees erected at the entrance to the garage. Jurors were shown a series of images of police digging down to the side of the well, which the previous owner said was built in 1899. Kent said: “We dug down sideways to expose the side of the well; it would have been impossible to remove Helen from the top. “Helen was wearing a striped blue or black and white top when she went into that well. The white material has rotted away but the blue material has remained.” He added: “Boris was the first item out of the well, we weren’t 100% sure Boris was in there until we got down and had a look. “Helen then came out and then we excavated a couple of items from the well – a pillowcase which contained a dog’s toy and two black bin bags. “We were trying to clear some of that dry material away to see what it is we were looking at and it became obvious Boris was in that well.” Jurors were told that a forensic dentist came to the house on 16 July to confirm Bailey’s identity through dental records. |