How DID bungling police get it so wrong?
When vulnerable teen Gaia went missing, police arrested THREE INNOCENT people (including a terminally ill old lady) for murder. It took ELEVEN days to find her body . . . and realise there’d been NO CRIME
Aweek ago today, the body of Gaia Pope, 19, was found by police in Swanage, Dorset. Gaia, who suffered from severe epilepsy, had been missing for 11 days. During that time, searches were conducted by land, sea and air. Six days into those searches, Dorset Police announced they had arrested two people on suspicion of murder — a woman, 71, and a man, 19. Days later, another man, 49, would be detained on the same grounds. All were members of the same family who had known Gaia for years.
Rosemary Dinch, the elderly woman, was the last to see her alive. She told police the teenager arrived at her home out of the blue in a panic. After trying to calm her, a concerned Mrs Dinch alerted Gaia’s family. All she ever tried to do, she tells the Mail today, was help.
But police had other ideas. Arrested on suspicion of the girl’s murder, the terminally ill pensioner, who breathes with the assistance of bottled oxygen, collapsed. She was then quizzed by detectives through the night.
The trio would be released without charge — and were told only 36 hours after Gaia’s body was found that they were no longer under investigation. Understandably, their treatment has left them devastated, victims of what they say was a bungled police investigation, and fearing that, by focusing on them, attention was taken away from the search for Gaia.
‘They [police] decided my family were involved when all they did was show kindness,’ said Mrs Dinch’s ex-husband Greg elsey. ‘If they had handled this properly, Gaia would have been found a lot earlier.’
Gaia’s clothes and body were eventually found in a location thought to be one of her known haunts — one said to have been repeatedly searched. while her family has since praised emergency services for their efforts, they have also raised concerns about why it took so long to find her.
Her cousin, Marienna Popeweidemann, said they are determined to make sure any lessons that ‘can be learned, are learned’, adding: ‘It should not have taken 11 days to find her so close and we need to know why.’
Here, we reconstruct the tragic chain of events in the hunt for Gaia, and ask if police were simply following procedure — or, as those arrested claim, just plain bungling . . .
REPORTED MISSING — THE SEARCHES BEGIN
On TUeSDAy, november 7, Gaia was driven from her family home in Langton Matravers to Swanage, where she had been staying with her aunt, Talia Pope.
At 2.55pm, they stopped at a garage. A troubled-looking Gaia was captured on CCTV buying an ice cream. At 3.39pm, she was filmed again, running along Morrison Road not far from Talia’s house. A final sighting would take place minutes later in nearby Manor Gardens, when she knocked on Rosemary Dinch’s door. It was to be the last sighting of Gaia alive.
The following day, local media carried the first reports of her disappearance. while police referred to concern for her welfare, there was no mention of any medical condition.
It later emerged that searches for Gaia had already taken place. The police helicopter, with heat-seeking cameras, had scoured coastal land south of Swanage. The same stretch was searched again on november 8 by the coastguard, police dogs and a helicopter.
More than a week would pass before first Gaia’s clothes, then her body, would be found here.
HER FAMILY REVEALS SHE’S SEVERELY ILL
In THe early hours of Thursday november 9, Gaia’s family launched the ‘ Find Gaia’ Facebook page, posting a recent photo and saying she was suffering from severe epilepsy and post-traumatic stress.
It later became clear just how badly Gaia was affected by these conditions.
On Saturday, november 11, Ms Pope-weidemann, told local press: ‘Her condition is very severe. She usually has seizures every day and during the night. Sometimes they are small and perfectly manageable, sometimes we have to call the paramedics and she requires emergency hospital treatment.’
It is understood Gaia did not have her epilepsy medication with her when she disappeared.
The picture was further confused by Gaia’s erratic behaviour. Two days before going missing, she posted on Instagram a screenshot of texts she had sent, which said: ‘Police are into my phone I think. I’m gonna have to put it down til wednesday . . . Or I’ll get a real shutup and be put in a cell myself.’ She captioned the post with the hashtag: ‘#sexualassault’.
More than a week would pass before the details of her posttraumatic stress emerged. This, it was claimed, related to a sexual assault when she was 17.
The alleged perpetrator had been jailed for an unrelated offence, but Gaia feared he could shortly be released, adding to her anxiety.
FRIENDS ARRESTED ON SUSPICION OF MURDER
AS SeARCHeS continued, coverage was limited to local press. That changed dramatically on Monday, november 13 with this statement from Dorset Police: ‘ A 19-year-old man and a 71-year-old woman, both from the Swanage area, were arrested on suspicion of murder and are currently assisting officers with inquiries. They are both known to Gaia.’
The police said: ‘we have looked through CCTV that covers the Swanage area, including transport hubs, and there is nothing to suggest she has left the area. Her disappearance is completely out of character and, following our extensive inquiries, we sadly now believe that she may have come to harm.’
This catapulted Gaia’s disappearance into national news. Although police did not name those arrested, within hours relatives confirmed their identities to the media — Mrs Dinch and her grandson nathan elsey, seen being taken from their homes to police cars — frail Mrs Dinch aided by her walking frame, nathan in handcuffs.
Just an hour-and-a-half earlier, Mrs Dinch had told her local BBC TV station about Gaia’s visit, saying: ‘She looked upset. Very upset . . . Of course I want to find her and I have no idea where she is.’
Her ex-husband Greg elsey, 69, was dumbfounded on learning of her arrest — and made his feelings about police abundantly clear.
‘[Rosemary is] terminally ill and she is 71 years old,’ he said. ‘The police took her away on suspected murder. She couldn’t murder a chicken. They’re all bumbling, like something out of Hot Fuzz’ — a reference to the British comedy film that parodies policing.
THE GRANDMOTHER
MRS DInCH had known Gaia for more than a decade through her grandson nathan, who had been friends with Gaia and her twin sister Maya since the age of six.
They had fallen out after nathan split with a girlfriend who was a mutual friend. when Gaia pounded on Mrs Dinch’s door, it was the first time anyone from the family had seen her for more than a year.
‘She was clearly very distressed and anxious,’ said Mrs Dinch. ‘She was very hot. She took off her
jacket, her blouse, her T-shirt . . . she wanted to leave, but i told her to put her clothes back on. she only had a little vest and bra on. i gave her a cuddle. it was clear to me she was poorly.’
While she convinced Gaia to put back on some of her clothes, Gaia refused to wear her jacket and left saying she was going to see an old friend. Concerned, Mrs Dinch spoke to her daughter, Deborah Elsey, who rang Gaia’s mother natasha, an actress who’s appeared in The Bill and inspector Morse.
‘We were all concerned,’ said Deborah, 50, who runs a nail salon. ‘i told her i would leave all the lights on and left a note on the back door saying: “Gaia, if you come here, come in and stay here”, and i left the back door open.’
Police then took statements from Mrs Dinch and her relatives, searching her car and house three times. she agreed to this, saying she would do anything to help.
On november 13, a police officer visited her and said she was under arrest on suspicion of murder.
‘My legs went,’ said Mrs Dinch. ‘A few of the officers were stood around me and held me up to stop me falling.’ Terminally ill with a lung disease, Mrs Dinch insisted on taking two oxygen bottles with her.
Having already given a full statement to police, she said she had nothing to add. Only on her release did she realise her grandson had also been arrested.
When she was finally allowed home, she discovered police had searched the house again, disconnecting the plumbing beneath her sinks and unwrapping a Christmas pudding she’d recently made.
THE GRANDSON
As Mrs DinCH was arrested, so, too, was nathan, a dyslexic performing arts student who played a soldier in hit film Dunkirk.
‘i answered the door. There were officers there who just barged in and arrested me,’ he said. ‘They were all wearing stab vests and said: “We don’t want you to run.” They handcuffed me.’
Police took nathan’s clothes, a sample of his hair and swabs from beneath his fingernails. He said he was repeatedly denied a call to his mum, but he was given a solicitor. ‘i was there for about 28 hours, overnight in the cell . . . You can’t describe how horrible it is to be accused of something like that.’
nathan said detectives asked him why neighbours had reported that Gaia was staying with him just before she went missing.
‘They must have mistaken [my girlfriend] for Gaia,’ he said. ‘But she’s a brunette, Gaia is blonde, and she’s much shorter than Gaia.’
CCTV footage supplied by nathan’s mother to police from a camera on her house caused more confusion.
On the day Gaia disappeared, nathan visited his grandmother to give her £10 to pay for a Wimpy meal. But the time he told police he had gone there did not match the time on the camera.
However, there was a simple explanation. ‘ The clocks had recently gone back but it doesn’t change automatically on the cameras, so it looked like he had lied about where he was,’ said nathan’s mother Deborah. ‘it’s something they could have easily checked and dismissed if they’d looked into it.’
When released, both nathan and his granny were told they were still ‘under investigation’.
THE SON
AT 10.28am on Thursday, november 16, a member of the public found clothing matching Gaia’s in a field near swanage.
The area had been scoured by police, the coastguard and volunteers a number of times.
Within hours, police announced another arrest, a man, 49, also on suspicion of murder.
While police did not name him, he was quickly identified as Paul Elsey, uncle to nathan and son of Mrs Dinch, with whom he lived. Like his relatives, Paul, a carpenter, told the Mail he had co-operated with police from the start.
On the day Gaia vanished, he was working in Weymouth. He allowed officers to search his car, and offered them his phone and bank cards, which he says they declined to check. When it became apparent they wanted to speak to him formally, he travelled to a solicitor’s in southampton.
‘ Out of nowhere the police appeared and grabbed me,’ he said. ‘We had arranged to meet in good faith and have the solicitor drive me to the station, but they handcuffed me as if i was going to run.
‘i was held overnight for 24 hours. it’s not nice. speaking to them was like speaking to a brick wall.’
The following day, he, too, was released under investigation.
His father, Greg, was vociferous: ‘My family has been the victim of a witch hunt . . . Think of the public money which has been wasted, which could have been spent searching for Gaia and finding those clothes a long time ago.’
FAMILY’S WORST FEARS CONFIRMED
STILL no sign of Gaia — and by saturday, november 18, strains were showing. The Times reported that her family felt they had been kept in the dark by police.
‘We don’t understand what the police are doing,’ a family friend was quoted as saying. ‘They say someone has been arrested on suspicion of murder, then in the next sentence that they are hopeful Gaia will be found alive and well.’
But that afternoon, they received the news they’d always refused to countenance — Gaia’s body had been found, half a mile away from her clothes.
The next day, police revealed a post-mortem examination ‘has not identified any injuries to suggest any other person was involved in her death’. Toxicology tests to help establish cause of death were ordered and are ongoing.
On november 20, police issued a statement announcing that all three people who had been arrested had been released from investigation without further action.
‘i appreciate our inquiries would have caused these individuals stress and anxiety, however, we have an obligation in any missing person investigation to explore every possible line of inquiry,’ said Dorset Police. ‘The public would expect Dorset Police to fully investigate the sudden disappearance of a teenage girl. Our aim was not only to find Gaia, but to find out what happened to her.’
This week, the force added: ‘We have a duty to investigate all potential lines of inquiry and must arrest people for any suspected offences to ensure a fair legal process that protects those people.
‘There is also a legal requirement to inform when arrests have been made in an investigation, as this changes its legal status and creates different expectations in how the media should report a case.
‘Police will have had multiple grounds for arrest, however, we will not be commenting on these publicly as this would set an unhelpful precedent and could prejudice Gaia’s upcoming coroner’s inquest and any other subsequent legal action.’
it defended its searches, saying it had deployed ‘ significant resources’ which were ‘ intelligence-led and directed by specially trained police search advisers.
‘The area where Gaia was found was deep within very thick gorse and undergrowth, close to the cliff edge. This would have made it incredibly difficult for even [the] helicopter to see her using hightech thermal imaging. it also required the expertise of specialist recovery officers to reach her.’
Meanwhile, the arrested three are considering suing Dorset Police, hoping to save others from being similarly accused.
Deborah Elsey said her family had been invited to attend a vigil for Gaia, due to be held today.
‘All we want to do now is support her family as best we can,’ she said. ‘We just want things to return to as normal as possible. But things will never go back to normal for any of us. There is no happy ending.’