SARM COPS IN FRESH BID TO SEARCH BOAT
Police may seek warrant as family grow more desperate
SARM Heslop’s parents yesterday said they “dream” of hugging their missing “darling daughter” again as police stepped up their bid to search her boyfriend’s yacht.
Former air hostess, Sarm 41, vanished from Ryan Bane’s luxury catamaran last month while it was moored 50ft off St John in the US Virgin Islands.
Local detectives said they may ask a judge to issue a search warrant for the vessel as “Mr Bane hasn’t co-operated yet.”
Police spokesman Toby
Derima told the Sunday
People: “He’s still refusing us boarding the boat and we are still working to see what angles we can use.”
Sarm’s heartbroken mum and dad, Peter and Brenda, from Hertfordshire, are desperate to fly out to help search but can’t due to Covid restrictions
They said: “If we could travel we would. We want to be helping with the search and we dream of being able to wrap our arms round our darling daughter.
“It is now over three weeks since Sarm went missing. We know that the Virgin Islands Police Department is doing as much as possible.” Detectives have interviewed
Sarm’s family and friends in the UK, as well as pals in the US Virgin Islands.
But wealthy American Mr Bane, 44, has since refused to let them access to his 47ft vessel, Siren Song, and is refusing to talk.
Mr Derima added: “We could get a search warrant so he won’t be able to say no, but would need to have probable cause.”
Asked what police need to show probable cause, he added: “That I won’t get into... if we give that out people could take steps to make sure we don’t get it.”
Sarm worked for the now defunct airline Flybe while living in Southampton for eight years until 2016.
She quit Britain 15 months ago to start a new life, before meeting Mr Bane on dating app Tinder last July.
Mr Bane says he raised the alarm after finding she was gone at 2am on March 8. Police say he called at 2.30am and they told him to call the coast guard, which he did nine hours later. Officers say he is not a suspect, but they and the FBI want to talk to him.
Asked if they are in touch with him, Mr Derima said: “Law enforcement knows where he is – still in the US Virgin Islands.”
It was last week revealed Mr Bane had been charged with obstructing law enforcement agents who boarded his boat hours after Sarm’s disappearance.