New CCTV of Sarm Heslop's last movements released as police admit 'we need help'

Police in the US Virgin Islands have released CCTV footage of missing British woman Sarm Heslop and admitted their four-and-a-half year probe into her disappearance has stalled.

The former Flybe air hostess, 41, was last seen with her wealthy American boyfriend Ryan Bane at a restaurant close to where his yacht was docked on the paradise isle of St John in March 2021. This is the first time police there have released footage of her on the night she disappeared. It shows her last recorded movements on land.

Asked why he is making the footage public now, USVI chief of police Steven Philip said: "We're at a dead end. If anyone could look at this video and see something and say something, it can help. That's why now. We're at a dead end road and we need help."

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The footage, which was recorded by cameras in Cruz Bay, shows Sarm walking alongside Bane, 49, shortly after leaving a bar where they had both been drinking for about 90 minutes. Sarm can be seen appearing to steady herself as the pair walked side-by-side, before she was seen sitting down on the dock. At one point before getting in the dinghy she seemed to roll over.

Police handed the never seen before tape to the BBC for their new documentary Missing in Paradise: Searching for Sarm. The three-part series, which is due to be shown on three consecutive nights from next Wednesday, sees journalist Tir Dhondy spend a month in the US Virgin Islands investigating the circumstances of Sarm's disappearance while retracing her last known steps.

Ms Dhondy says she has found an inconsistency with the timestamp on the CCTV. In reports released by the US Coast Guard, Bane stated he and Sarm had returned to the yacht at 10pm. But the timestamp, which police say they have confirmed is correct, shows them motoring away from the dock at 8.45pm.

Tir tests this timeline and travels the route which should take five to ten minutes in a dinghy to get to the next bay, so they should have got back by 9pm. This means there is a missing hour that Bane has never accounted for.

US Virgin Islands’ Police Commissioner, Mario Brooks, tells her: "The timeline is suspicious, and that's one of the reasons why we need to talk to Ryan." He says Bane remains the only person of interest in the case, adding: "There was… nothing of evidentiary value that points to Sarm having contact with anyone that night, outside of Ryan".

Sarm, from Essex, was living with Ryan Bane on his £500,000 yacht Siren Song after matching on dating app Tinder eight months earlier. Bane, who has a conviction for assaulting his ex-wife, called 911 at 2.30am on the night of Sarm's disappearance and reported he had been woken by the boat's anchor alarm and found her missing.

Bane was advised to contact the US Coast Guard, but did not do so until nine hours had passed. And he was later accused of obstructing Coast Guard agents who tried to board his boat by blocking a door. He has since refused requests to co-operate with the authorities.

Under US law, Bane, the last person known to have seen Sarm, can stay silent and officers must show "probable cause" to get a search warrant. Her mum Brenda was initially in contact with him before she says he blocked her phone. Bane did not speak to the BBC programme, but told his lawyer David Cattie how he thinks Sarm may have ended up in the water the night she vanished.

Speaking in the documentary, Mr Cattie said: "Ryan assumed Sarm perhaps hit her head and fell overboard, or had gone swimming, gotten up and gone swimming, became disorientated, lost her way at sea and she likely passed by drowning that evening."

He described the new claims about the timeline as "irresponsible" and added it reflected nothing other than a possible error in estimating the time while under the stress of trying to locate his missing girlfriend.

Defending his client's decision not to co-operate with the authorities on his advice, Mr Cattie said: "One thing you learn with being a lawyer is that there's tonnes of people who had nothing to hide, who had done nothing wrong, that you would say just want to do all this co-operation, that wind up in jail for something they didn't do.

"Ryan calls me and says 'the coastguard's coming out here and they've got a bunch of police officers on the boat. At this point my radar's going off because the coastguard's started bringing out the police without permission, without a warrant, I don't think that they're looking for Sarm anymore, I think they're looking for someone to blame. So I did what was necessary to protect Ryan, which is tell him to exercise his fourth and fifth amendment rights at that time."

Explaining his client's account of events after he found Sarm missing, Mr Cattie claimed: "Ryan said St John police department kind of indicated 'well, we can't really do much for 48 hours. We'll reach out to the coastguard, go back to your boat, she's probably out partying with some friends.

"His impression when he left was that law enforcement was going to call the coastguard. He's out at the boat waiting for the coastguard to come. Ryan's not out at his boat twiddling his thumbs. He is in a panic, calling her friends, driving the boat around."

Mr Cattie claimed the Coast Guards had to travel from Puerto Rico, hours away, but Commander Jan League, who helped oversee the US coastguard search for Sarm, disputes that in the documentary and says they came from a station on nearby St Thomas.

Sarm's case is still classified as a missing person, but her friends and family want it reclassified as a no-body murder investigation. They say this would mean the police could go further with the investigation.

Speaking in the documentary, Sarm's mum Brenda said: "I think what keeps us going is hope. Hope that we will come to a conclusion as to what happened to her. We still haven't been able to grieve properly because she's not here. It's just the injustice of it, its not just ruined her life, its ruined her family's life, her friends life.

She added: "We all deserve to know what happened to her and to bring her home. It's just so unfair. She was the love of my life, my baby girl. I think knowing that I'm never going to see her again - I'm really heartbroken. But I am stronger now and I'm going to do everything I can and I'll never give up."

*Missing in Paradise: Searching for Sarm will air across three nights on BBC Two at 10pm on Wednesday 17th September, Thursday 18th September and Friday 19th September. All three episodes will be available on BBC iPlayer from 6am on Wednesday 17th September.