Sara Payne: A Mother's Story

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Sara Payne: A Mother's Story
Image:Sara Payne Book Cover.jpg‎
Cover of the British hardcover edition
Author Sara Payne
Country UK
Language English
Genre(s) Autobiography, true crime
Publisher Hodder and Stoughton
Publication date 2004
Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
ISBN ISBN 978-0340862759

Sara Payne: A Mother's Story is a book by Sara Payne. It was published by Hodder and Stoughton in May 2004 and gives her account of the July 2000 abduction and murder of her daughter Sarah Payne in Kingston Gorse, West Sussex, England. The book is autobiographical in nature.

[edit] Synopsis

Sara Payne: A Mother's Story is Sara Payne's autobiography, covering the abduction and murder of her daughter Sarah on July 1, 2000, as well as effects that it had on herself, her family and the community.

The first chapter of the book tells the story of Sara's life from the age of 16, when she met her future husband Mike, and up to the stage when she had given birth to her four children.

The following two chapters tell of Sarah's disappearance and then of the news that her body had been found.

Further into the story, Sara tells of her campaigning for the introduction of Sarah's Law - and of how Mike confessed to her that he had paid for a gun and was preparing to shoot suspect Roy Whiting if he managed to avoid conviction for Sarah's murder. Whiting was eventually brought to trial, found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Later on, just over a year after Whiting's trial, Sara discovered that she was pregnant. At first she was apprehensive about having another baby, but eventually decided to go ahead with her pregnancy. But this happy news did little to relieve the dark clouds that had been hanging over the Payne family since Sarah's death, and she and Mike agreed to separate just four months before their baby's birth, although they remained good friends and were hoping that they might one day be able to live together again.

The final chapter of the book tells of Sara giving birth to her fifth child, Ellie. She tells the reader that Ellie's birth gave the family new hope and some much-awaited happiness after more than three years of misery.