Original subtitles

(cars driving)

I racked my brains to try and think the last time I saw....

Nic alive.

Erm, I’d just nipped up to the local shop, up the road

(camera shutter clicks) and Nic walked round the corner

and the next thing is she’s gone missing.

(dramatic music)

I think you could pretty much go up to anybody in Coventry and say,

“Nicola Payne” and they’ll tell you what happened that day.

MAN: It’s one of the greatest unsolved crimes in this country.

REPORTER: Nicola Payne had left her boyfriend and baby son

to go to her parents.

She simply vanished into the mist.

GARRY PAYNE: It’s just hitting home that summut serious

has happened to my sister.

REPORTER: A team of police officers today began a yard by yard search

of the waste ground where Nicola was last seen.

MALCOLM ROSS: It was the biggest search

that West Midlands Police had ever encountered.

Every effort it seems is being made to find Nicola Payne.

If anybody is holding Nicola just take her somewhere,

or to just phone anybody.

I kept thinking, where’s my Nicola gone?

Like, where’s me Nicola?

MAN: What happened to Nicola could happen to any woman.

How can an 18 year old disappear and just never be seen again?

It’s just a never ending real life horror story.

NIGEL PAYNE: The truth. That’s all we want is the truth.

If it was your sister, when would you give up?

(theme music)

PHOTOGRAPHER: Let’s do one just by the sign, there.

This sign? Oh, that sign.

INTERVIEWER: It’s, er, Detective Superintendent Malcolm Ross.

-R O double S? -Double S, yes.

INTERVIEWER: I’m just gonna ask you a couple of questions,

obviously about the reconstruction here.

What’s happened - over the last six days,

erm, and the most important thing is

what chance of finding Nicola Payne?

We hope that this reconstruction will jog somebody’s memory.

That they will come forward and tell us

if they’ve seen anything of Nicola

either last Saturday or in the time in between.

We want these people to come forward and help us with our enquiry.

I’m ever hopeful of finding her, obviously,

and I’m ever hopeful of finding her alive.

But as time goes on, of course, the concern grows.

(clock ticking)

Nicky had been missing nearly a week

and the search, of course, was still going on.

Yesterday there were over a hundred officers

searching waste ground and river and doing house to house enquiries.

Today, the search has moved to other locations

and I’m extending the search in a constructive way

to make sure that Nicola is not lying somewhere.

I just can’t even imagine how the Payne family

were trying to cope with that situation.

Everybody was just, what’s happening, what’s happened?

Like, you know.

I just couldn’t believe it.

I thought, no, gotta be gotta be somewhere.

Something’s gotta happen.

Every time there’s a search and nothing, a search and nothing,

you just get less and less hopeful.

They say there’s another search and you just say to yourself,

yeah, just another search.

And they didn’t seem to be getting any...

far forward very quickly with anything.

It was still very early days and you’re just thinking,

no, this can’t be happening or if she’s been abducted.

You’re sort of like expecting her to turn up the next day,

and have this miraculous excuse

as for why she had to go somewhere or do something.

It’s dawning on you that summut serious has happened,

and then, when you hear about evidence

like the car and Barwell and O’Reilly,

the dread comes in going, oh no, no, this can’t be.

We had the situation where

Barwell and O’Reilly had been arrested, they’d been released, bailed,

and enquiries into their movements were still continuing

as best as we could with the little information

that we knew of, about them.

And the arrangement was that they would return to the police station

the following week and stand on an identification parade.

So, we had to get the witnesses together.

We knew Mr Carter’s information then, who had heard a scream,

saw a Ford Capri, gone to the police station

and identified the Ford Capri that was Barwell’s.

But during the rest of the investigation more witnesses had come forward.

Barwell lived the other side of the estate from Nicky Payne,

near to the River Sowe.

(dramatic music)

There was a witness that came forward.

Her house overlooks like a parking space.

It’s not far from Barwell’s house.

On the Saturday afternoon, she saw Barwell and O’Reilly

at Barwell’s car overlooking the path

that led down to the river.

And the boot of the car was open,

and she saw Barwell and O’Reilly

taking out of the boot what she described as some sort of bin bag.

(car boot shuts)

She knew both Barwell and O’Reilly,

‘cause they’d been to her house on the Friday night.

And on the Saturday, when she saw them here,

it appears that they saw her looking at them from her window.

She ducked down,

and when she looked again they’d gone and so had the car.

Well, the officers came back to take another statement

and she said she’d got the story wrong.

That it was the Tuesday that she saw them, not the Saturday.

But she also said that Barwell

had been round to see her in the meantime.

I think quite possibly she could have been scared of Barwell.

And it made her change her story.

(high tempo music)

There was another witness that said that on the Sunday afternoon,

Barwell was outside his house, cleaning the Ford Capri in the rain,

which of course raised suspicions.

Where his car was parked, there’s a fence

and then there was the river.

That’s what caused the search of the river bank.

REPORTER: Officers were brought in today to search the River Stowe

and nearby scrubland.

A thermal imaging camera mounted on the police helicopter

was also used to try to find Nicola.

And mounted police and dog handlers were involved in the search.

MALCOLM ROSS: When the police helicopter was used to search,

the crew reported

that they could see something on the banks of the river,

not far from the back of Barwell’s house.

Well, we’re on a bridge over the River Sowe,

which runs very close to where Nigel Barwell lived.

That’s where he was seen washing his car that Sunday afternoon,

in the rain.

And the helicopter crew reported that they could see something

on the riverbank.

And I sent a search team down and that’s where we found the tent.

It was an outer tent of one make, and an inner tent of another make.

It was wet, so it was parcelled up

and taken back to Little Park Police Station

where it was dried out.

And it was wrapped up and sent off as an exhibit

to the Forensic Science Service

to see what they could find in the tent or on the tent.

(clock ticking)

We asked Barwell and O’Reilly to go on an ID parade.

We’d made the arrangements for all the other witnesses

that assist on the identification parade to be at the police station,

and they didn’t turn up.

(dramatic music)

Nigel Barwell and Thomas O’Reilly just disappeared.

So, you know, nobody knew where they were or where they’d gone.

We spoke to their solicitors and they’d got no idea where they were.

If you’ve got nothing to hide,

you’ve got no issues, you’ve got nothing to do with it,

and surely you’d wanna help try and find somebody.

It was hard. We wanted answers.

We couldn’t take it any further at that stage,

but there were other lines of enquiry that we were getting on with.

My name’s Hazel Johnson,

and I was formerly employed as a forensic scientist.

The Forensic Science Service was a section of the Home Office.

It had a number of laboratories throughout the UK

and the police would submit any item that they wanted

examined for forensic examination

to their local forensic science laboratory.

It was quite early days in Nicola’s investigation

when a request came into the laboratory

to have a car examined.

Investigations involving missing people

are the most difficult investigation that you can get involved with,

because you’re not dealing with standard evidence

that you would get from knowing what happened to the victim,

knowing what happened at the scene.

You’re dealing very much with circumstantial evidence.

So it’s like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle

when there’s no picture on the box.

We started the examination of the car

as soon as it was submitted to the laboratory.

It was in quite an untidy condition.

There were a number of items in the footwells.

We recovered soil and debris from the footwells

and hairs and fibres using tapings from the seats.

And we searched the vehicle for the presence of blood,

but didn’t find any.

We knew that it had been cleaned out on that Sunday, in the rain,

which was not gonna do my investigation much good.

But there was an instruction leaflet found in the glovebox of the Capri.

And that related to the inner tent found on the banks of the River Sowe.

As far as I was concerned, that linked the inner tent

to the instruction leaflet in Barwell’s car, therefore to Barwell.

The tent was brought to the submissions desk.

It was in a large brown paper sack.

I do remember that it wasn’t properly packaged,

so there was some discussion at the submissions desk

about whether we should actually accept it or not.

Any item submitted for forensic examination

has to be sealed, because if it’s not sealed,

there’s potential for forensic evidence to be lost,

and equally potential for evidence to actually be introduced to that item.

After discussion with the senior investigating officer,

we agreed to accept the tent,

but only to examine it for the presence of blood.

We felt that the evidence could be compromised

in relation to hairs and fibres.

But again, we didn’t find any.

That was a great disappointment,

because I knew if you haven’t found any blood,

you’re really no further forward.

(high tempo music)

(phone rings)

MALCOLM ROSS: Calls started week two or three of the investigation.

They were made to the Payne family,

they were made to Coventry and Warwick Radio

and also to the police.

Numerous of these calls came in from the same man.

Whenever they came in, of course officers were deployed.

The phone calls were coming directly to the home phone number.

MARILYN PAYNE: He didn’t even say hello.

It was a man’s voice

and all I heard him say was, ‘Dead or alive.'

And straight away I panicked

and just gave the phone quickly to my husband,

who took over from there, because I couldn’t handle it, you know.

And you’re prepared to talk to this man again?

I’m prepared to talk to anybody if it’d give us some light on where Nicola is.

(phone rings)

The police at the time took this very seriously.

They thought that the information was credible.

As a result of what he has told both us and Mr and Mrs Payne,

I’m convinced that he knows something of Nicola’s disappearance.

Is this the best clue so far in the hunt for Nicola Payne?

Well, it’s certainly one of the positive leads that we’ve got to follow up,

and we need to follow this up urgently.

Well, it was important that I traced the caller

to see, A, if he was genuine, or B, if it was a hoax.

My suspicion was it was a hoax,

but I went on the basis of we need to know.

(dramatic music)

There’s two radio stations in Coventry.

I went and knocked on the door of both of these radio stations in the evening,

and to be fair they were really helpful,

and they gave me airtime there and then.

It was a plea to the caller to say, if what you’re saying is right,

you must tell us because we can find Nicky.

And the hope, of course, that he would ring again.

And it worked.

Me mum and dad stopped answering the phone,

and it came down to one of us lads would answer it,

and the police had informed us,

“If you think it’s him, just keep talking and talking.

Try and keep him on the phone as long as you can.

And we were just trying to ask him questions and everything.

MALCOLM ROSS: With the help of the telephone exchange,

we were able to trace the call to a hotel in Stratford.

A member of the staff at the hotel has been using the phone.

It was Christopher Parker.

PETER WILSON: That this man should stop playing games with your feelings.

-If he knows nothing... -Oh yeah. Yeah.

...just stop it, please. Just stop it.

MALCOLM ROSS: Parker was traced and arrested.

He was interviewed and he admitted 18 false calls.

He was charged and he eventually was imprisoned.

There was no substance at all to any of his calls.

Christopher Parker had pleaded guilty to wasting police time

and to making nuisance calls.

After studying medical reports, the magistrates decided to commit him

to a psychiatric hospital near Warwick.

They wasted a lot of police time, man hours, investigating these claims

But he caused untold damage to that police investigation

and to the family themselves.

He was saying, yeah, he’d got my sister

and he was gonna do this, he was gonna do that.

And you know, it’s things I put out my mind

and my one was just watching your mum having to listen to that.

Had enough now, my mum’s going through so much,

and you’re just making it double worse.

So that to me was as bad as taking my sister away.

(dramatic music)

PETER WILSON: Nicola Payne had everything to live for.

A loving family, a boyfriend whom she was setting up home with,

and a baby son.

A full incident room was now being set up.

The same staff had been involved in the search for Barbara Finn,

who went missing nearly two months ago.

Barbara Finn was also the devoted mother

of a six year old daughter.

PAULINE FINN: I’d just like to say, Barbara, please come home.

Roxanne’s missing you so much.

She just wants you home.

We love you and we want you to come back.

But if anybody knows something, please phone the police.

MALCOLM ROSS: Barbara Finn went missing in October 1991.

She was last seen in the early hours of the morning,

banging on the out door of a public house.

And when the licensee opened the out door,

he knew Barbara Finn, and she’d asked for some cigarettes.

When he brought the cigarettes to her, he noticed a man standing next to her.

He couldn’t describe the man.

And that was the last time she was seen.

And that investigation was ongoing, of course, when Nicky went missing.

It’s the not knowing that’s the worst.

We don’t know whether she’s dead or alive.

We just don’t know.

Naturally, I considered the two together to see if there was a link at all.

Barbara Finn, she was older than Nicola, she was 32.

But there were also some strange coincidences to the Nicola Payne case.

Like Nicola, she had shoulder length brown hair,

she also disappeared on a Saturday.

She too had a child, who she was devoted to,

that she wouldn’t have abandoned.

Even down to a weird detail

that Barbara Finn was wearing a bomber jacket,

very similar to the jacket that Nicola Payne was wearing

on the day that she’d disappeared.

But there appeared to be no direct link between the two young women.

At the same time, of course, we had the Stephanie Slater

enquiry in Birmingham, which was linked.

(people chattering)

MAN: Now calm it down!

Calm it down!

Now be gentle, all of you.

REPORTER: Stephanie and her parents appeared at a news conference,

one of the biggest ever seen in Birmingham.

Following her kidnap,

police described Stephanie Slater as calm and collected.

Her abductor possessed the same qualities.

He planned the kidnap with cool precision.

MALCOLM ROSS: Stephanie Slater was an estate agent in Birmingham,

and she made arrangements to see a client at a house.

She was kidnapped in the house and held.

That was a huge story.

And that drew on almost all of the resources

of West Midlands Police.

MALCOLM ROSS: We had Stephanie Slater in Birmingham,

which was linked to the Julie Dart in West Yorkshire.

Similar case.

REPORTER: Julie Dart was last seen alive on the 9th of July last year,

leaving her boyfriend’s home in Leeds.

Ten days later, a farmer discovered her body

in a field near Grantham in Lincolnshire.

She’d suffered blows to the head and had been strangled.

A ransom note to do with the Julie Dart case came up from here in Coventry.

Another link to the city.

REPORTER: There’s the Moseley Avenue link, with Julie Dart.

Barbara Finn was last seen in Yardley Street,

and 19 year old Nicola Payne disappeared near Winston Avenue.

MALCOLM ROSS: Throughout Nicky Payne’s enquiry,

I had Barbara Finn’s consideration all the time.

And I was in touch with the incident room in Birmingham

for Stephanie Slater,

and also West Yorkshire for Julie Dart.

All the time seeing if there was any comparable facts.

But there was no evidence to suggest a link at all.

I must stress that there is no connection whatsoever

at this time between Nicola Payne’s disappearance,

Barbara Finn’s disappearance

and Julie Dart’s disappearance.

It was one of the biggest investigations that I’ve seen,

certainly in the West Midlands.

The resources that it was given, you couldn’t doubt

the commitment to the investigation.

They were also working closely with the BBC Crimewatch programme.

(clock ticking)

JACQUI HAMES: Just before Christmas Nicola Payne vanished into thick fog

as she walked home.

Nicola lived with her parents and baby son in Woodend, Coventry.

Just after midday on Saturday the 14th of December,

Nicola left her boyfriend’s house and hasn’t been seen since.

So I went to Crimewatch to appeal for information for Nicky.

At the time of her disappearance,

Nicola was wearing this tan leather jacket,

T-shirt, bottle green trousers, and pixie boots.

They were really good.

Everybody in Coventry knew about Nicola.

It was massive in Coventry.

But now the whole country knew.

JACQUI HAMES: If you can help solve the mystery of Nicola’s disappearance,

please call now.

MALCOLM ROSS: We got not many calls.

One or two of them were for people who’d got a theory about it,

but nothing significant. Nothing of note.

There are very vague sightings and we’re really not very optimistic.

But if you think you know where Nicola is,

or can add anything to that, then please do still call us,

or call the incident room.

The Crimewatch appeal, yeah, I remember that pretty well.

It becomes like public knowledge.

Up until then people hadn’t really related me to Nicola.

Only people that really, really knew us.

But then all of a sudden, people are walking down the street saying,

“Oh, you’re Nicola’s brother.

All the best interest in the world.

You know, they really, really wanna help.

But it does get to you after a while.

(gentle music)

(clock ticking)

We had a call from Barwell and O’Reilly’s solicitor

to say they’re willing to stand in an ID parade immediately.

So, we had to get the witnesses straight away, and form the ID parade.

We got told they’d gone to France.

No explanation why they’re in France.

And they’d disappeared for, I think it was three months.

MALCOLM ROSS: When they eventually come back, they turned up to the police station

and they stood on an ID parade.

Barwell in particular had changed his appearance.

Grown his hair, and grown a moustache.

His hair was a slightly different colour.

They looked very different and so they wasn’t identified.

But why wasn’t they asked to change back?

You know, would they be prepared to look more like they did,

and then see if they would go, but they didn’t have to.

In 1991, the rules were different.

We couldn’t then make him shave.

The rules are different now.

So again, we were obliged to release them.

When these things happen the more despondent you get.

You can’t cater for

what something like this has an effect on the families concerned.

Aggression or frustration.

It’s a natural emotion.

The last people that Nicky was with were the Cooke family,

so it’s understandable that the Paynes, they’d all be upset.

NIGEL PAYNE: My dad saw Nicola on Friday evening.

17 hours later she’s gone missing.

She was supposed to be with Jason and his family

having a meal in on that night.

So, I would love to know what happened within them 17 hours.

We just kept on asking ourselves questions.

What about this and what about that, and why this and why that?

We just wanted answers, and the police weren’t getting them.

I had discussions with the Cooke family.

They got heated to a degree and, yeah, they called the police.

I was locked up for 24 hours and told under no circumstances

was I to go near the Cooke family.

The police were called in just to calm things down.

It's not unusual in those circumstances

for emotions to run high, you know.

Every time the police were trying a different avenue or someone else,

they just kept saying to us, “Believe in us, trust in us.

We’ll find it. We will sort it.”

So you did, you just gave every faith

that the police will find out what’s gone on.

But your trust slowly dwindles away.

At the time, the Cookes, they had an uncle in the police force.

He would know what the process the police would go through

and the questions that were probably gonna be coming towards them.

MALCOLM ROSS: I remember speaking to PC Neill about it.

And, to be fair, he was a good avenue into the Cooke family.

I asked him to use his skills to try and keep a lid on the tension

between the two families,

because people are gonna be upset.

But he had nothing to do with the investigation as such.

There was a lot of distrust of police

in the Coventry and the West Midlands and...

They had quite a bad reputation, and you can call up no end of cases.

PETER WILSON: West Midlands Serious Crime Squad was disbanded in August 1989.

Reputation at the time was very poor.

REPORTER: There have been nine cases in the past two years

in which officers are alleged to have tampered...

REPORTER: The day of the Birmingham Six appeal,

and attention turned to the much criticised police evidence

that helped convict the men.

There had been substantial alterations to other documents

by West Midlands officers.

REPORTER: Thousands of police officers and the public

would be shocked and saddened by what had happened.

A number of officers were reprimanded, fined or reduced in rank.

PETER WILSON: There was lots of cases

where West Midlands Police had been involved,

and their conduct or pressure that they’d put on witnesses had come out.

And just speaking to ordinary police officers at the time,

they felt that the force was besieged,

and at times seen almost as a laughing stock.

The reassurance that you should have from the police,

you lose that, you lose the trust.

But when anything like this happens, they’re the first people,

they’re the only people you can turn to.

(dramatic music) (clock ticking)

REPORTER: The home video shows a first birthday party

much the same as countless thousand others.

The only difference that one important guest is missing.

Owen Payne’s mother, Nicola.

The incident room, which buzzed with activity

when Miss Payne first disappeared is now quiet.

Detectives have followed two thousand lines of enquiry,

taken six hundred statements and made 700 house calls.

We’d spent many months on this investigation,

but I was required elsewhere.

Before I moved, it was reviewed by a senior officer from Birmingham,

and was quite content that everything that could have been done had been done.

When I left it was still an active enquiry.

NIGEL PAYNE: Malcolm, you know, I think he was honest to us.

I had faith in him.

There are other murders, there are other disappearances.

We haven’t got millions of policemen,

millions of detectives to have individual cases.

Yeah, you’ve gotta be realistic and think, yeah okay,

they’re gonna move on to something else.

But you would hope somebody else would be stepping into his shoes

and push it on again, keep it going.

(clock ticking)

REPORTER: 10 months after their teenage daughter disappeared,

Nicola Payne’s parents and friends

organised a poster campaign at the weekend,

after a clairvoyant told them that Nicola was alive and well

in Stoke on Trent.

She actually feels that Nicola is somewhere in this area,

but that she’s suffering with amnesia, and has lost her mind,

and is trying to find herself and desperately needs help.

It’s the first person in 10 months who’s saying they’ve seen Nicky.

So we’ve got to follow it through for our own peace of mind.

I’ve known Nicky for a long time and to support the family

and give them help, you know, to look for her.

RACHEL MOFFITT: We had all pictures on posters put out

and we all went up in like a convoy.

We were sort of like chasing around trying to look, but nothing.

AMANDA EALES: All they ever wanted was to just find out where she is.

My auntie especially has a coping mechanism, I guess,

that she has to keep going.

Because if you stop,

that’s when you start to think about things.

(dramatic music)

(clock ticking)

We’ve always tried our best to keep the story alive,

get things moving,

and we did have a good relationship with the press,

like, you know, a lot of the media.

REPORTER: Nicola vanished one year ago.

Family had organised a news conference today,

believing that this was their last chance to appeal for help.

It’s the anniversary now of her going.

I feel it’s the final thing and it will fade a lot in the media.

So, I feel today’s really important and I really am banking a lot on it.

REPORTER: Her family believe that someone in Coventry

must know the answer to this mystery.

I have a conscience, but perhaps there are people that don’t.

I find it hard to believe that somebody can live with this or cover for somebody

and not have a conscience at all, and sleep easy.

I really liked John and Marilyn Payne.

They were just lovely people.

They were going through absolute hell,

but they had a quiet dignity about them.

They were the types of people that you just felt

this shouldn’t be happening to them.

Yet, they were facing what every parent dreads,

the disappearance of a child.

On the face of it, on the surface,

the Payne family seemed to be coping,

but as I found out over the years,

really they were suffering from post-traumatic stress.

Marilyn would talk about her feelings.

She would share things, even with somebody like myself.

REPORTER: The portrait over the fireplace is a constant reminder of a mystery

that dominates their lives, and they fear the worst.

I still firmly believe that she was murdered. I really do.

REPORTER: Why are you so convinced?

It’s so out of character for Nicky.

Nicky wouldn’t just go off like that.

It just not her.

Marilyn thought it straight away.

She said, “That’s it, something’s happened to her,”

and she just had that feeling.

Oh, I couldn’t accept it at first.

And it took me a long time to really come to...

realise that I’m not gonna see her again.

John was a traditional working class guy.

Nicola was his only daughter.

I think he always felt a sense of guilt

that she was walking to take some keys to him.

I think he felt that perhaps he could have driven round.

Year after year he ran those things through his mind,

and I think for John particularly,

it was something that he never really managed to cope with.

(clock ticking)

REPORTER: Detectives have never found any trace of Nicola or her belongings.

A month after she disappeared, Michael Sams kidnapped

Birmingham estate agent Stephanie Slater.

He was convicted of this crime

and the kidnap and murder of Julie Dart last week.

Now, Nicola’s mother plans to write to Sams in prison

in the hope that he can unravel the mystery of Nicola’s disappearance.

She has no idea whether Sams is linked to her daughter’s case,

but feels she has to follow any lead, however small.

I think it doesn’t matter how bad anybody is,

I will just sit and find the right words and just write a letter,

hoping that he would just give me an answer,

an honest answer.

Yes or no.

(dramatic music)

This was a letter my mum sent to Michael Sams.

He’d been found guilty of abduction of a young girl.

About the time she wrote the letter,

it was getting near to like desperation stakes.

There was no leads, there was nothing.

Could he help us?

What me mum said in the letter,

“It’s been several weeks now since your trial.

Your nightmare began a few weeks ago, mine started 19 months ago.

We’re still struggling,

clutching at straws at the moment about what do we do next.

I feel it is someone local.

But your knowledge may help us find out

what sort of person would take Nicky,

and why would they take her.

And most importantly, where could she be?”

Trying to appeal to any sort of good inside him.

(dramatic music)

This is Michael Sams' reply.

It was sent from his prison cell.

“Many thanks for the letter.”

He was unsure, really, of what me mum was asking him.

He’d never been involved with anyone else in the Coventry area.

“If I could help you,

I would only be too pleased to help you in any way I can.”

But no, he’s not been involved with anybody else in any criminal activities.

It was just a dead end.

It’s horrible to watch your mum and dad get hope and then be dashed.

They were lost.

They didn’t know what else to do.

(clock ticking)

Obviously we fear the worst, given that it’s two years now

and nobody’s heard not a thing from Nicola.

REPORTER: Hence her parents’ increased reward, £10,000.

Well, we’re hoping that somebody out there knows something,

or somebody’s shielding somebody who knows what’s happened to Nicola.

And we’re hoping the money will loosen somebody’s tongue.

REPORTER: His grandparents enjoy sharing in the upbringing

of Nicola’s son, Owen.

But now relations with his father’s family have soured.

GARRY PAYNE: The Cookes didn’t get involved at all.

They was asked for interviews every year.

Just give their versions, their stories.

Never spoke to anybody.

Very strange behaviour.

REPORTER: Owen’s now two and a half.

They took him on holiday this summer, but access is limited by a court order.

GARRY PAYNE: My mum and dad

still had a bit of a relationship with Jason,

because they had Owen to sort out.

They were sharing the custody of Owen.

I didn’t have a relationship with the Cookes.

Never have, never will.

When my sister went missing,

I put myself in Jason’s shoes.

If that happened to my girlfriend, the mother of my child,

how would I act?

It would bring me closer to her mum and dad and her family.

It would bring me closer.

But he wouldn’t even come in the house.

He wouldn’t come near.

His brothers certainly wouldn’t come near.

(high tempo music)

REPORTER: Last year,

more than four thousand women went missing in the West Midlands alone.

But the majority do get in touch with their relatives.

Barbara Finn and Nicola Payne are the rare cases.

Their families admit that they’ve been left with no alternative

but to clutch at any straw offering hope.

REPORTER: Nella Jones, the twelfth medium to offer her services

in the hunt for Coventry teenage mother, Nicola Payne.

-Hello, Mrs Payne. -Hello.

As the years went on, to try and keep it going,

me mum and dad,

they would just speak to anybody and everybody.

This is more the main road, okay?

Mm-hmm.

And I’ve got the feeling that Nicky would have walked up here,

and that’s as far as I can trace her.

Marilyn was almost a spiritual person,

so psychics, clairvoyants were getting in touch with her,

giving her information about where Nicola might be.

A very serious question.

MARILYN PAYNE: Yeah.

Where do you think Nicola is?

I believe she’s been murdered,

but I just can’t get her to come back to me from the other side.

She wasn’t a fervent believer in clairvoyants or psychics,

but she was prepared to listen to somebody who believed in

some non-logical explanation for things.

If somebody said, this is the year that you’re gonna find Nicola,

she would have faith.

She had real belief that she would find the answers,

but with age and time, that belief seemed to naturally crumble.

DALE PAYNE: Over the next few years,

there wasn’t really anything major that stood out.

We would try and give as much publicity as we can

to keep the case going.

REPORTER: They searched acres of wasteland in Coventry.

Volunteers looking for anything that might help them solve a two year old mystery:

the whereabouts of Nicola...

REPORTER 2: The search for Nicola Payne

began just before Christmas four years ago.

At 18 she had everything to live for.

REPORTER 3: Police and forensic experts moved in at dawn yesterday

acting on a tip off.

They found nothing.

REPORTER 4: 10 years on,

and Nicola’s parents have all but given up hope.

MARILYN PAYNE: The last 10 years have not been easy at all.

People say time heals, but I’m sorry, I feel that...

in fact, I feel worse now

than what I did on the first Christmas that she went.

REPORTER: What’s happened to their daughter, Nicola,

has haunted John and Marilyn Payne for the last 12 years.

REPORTER: The case on Nicola Payne

would remain open until the mystery over her disappearance was solved.

They said that they would always investigate new lines of enquiry.

REPORTER: An image of the teenager will feature on the side of lorries

travelling across the UK.

MARILYN PAYNE: I wonder what Nicola’s last hours of life was like.

At least thinking that she’s dead,

I know nobody else can hurt her anymore.

(clock ticking)

-CAMERAMAN: Stand by. -REPORTER: Okay.

CAMERAMAN: Recording...

In the 22 years that Nicola has been missing,

clearly any biological or forensic evidence will have degraded significantly.

Although the officers in charge of this investigation

are confident that the improvements over that time,

in search techniques and technology

mean that they will still be able to find a body,

if, of course, they’re looking in the right place.

REPORTER: Okay, camera’s rolling now. So just introduce yourself for us, Sir.

Yeah, I’m Detective Inspector Martin Slevin

of West Midlands Police.

REPORTER: So just talk us through initially what’s happening here,

behind us at the moment.

Yeah, we’re here today in relation to the Nicola Payne investigation.

Once Martin Slevin took over,

it was a completely fresh set of eyes.

I can’t comment on the source of the information,

but it’s significant enough for us to have mounted the search

and the level of search that we’re doing today.

There was nobody from the police actively on that case

until Martin Slevin come along.

And Martin Slevin and his team,

you felt as if they really, really wanted to solve it.

MARTIN SLEVIN: He had told the police

that Nicola was buried in an area called Purcell Fields.

REPORTER: After years of seeming inertia,

momentum in the search for Nicola Payne.

REPORTER: Police activity switched to this address.

The intelligence began to grow and grow.

MAN: And I think they nailed the whole case on that DNA.

That was the make or break.

There was no plan B. This was everything.