THE LITTLE GIRL WHO HAS SAVED SO MANY

Her murder horrified the nation, but after 25 years, her memory lives on

- DAWN NEESOM

It is, perhaps, one of the most notorious murders of our times. A crime so chilling that it literally changed the course of British justice. A heartbreaking snuffing out of a little girl's life that has potentially saved so many other women and girls.

Incredibly it is 25 years on 1 July that Sarah Payne was abducted and killed by the monster in human form that is Roy Whiting. In a vision straight out of every parent's nightmare, eight-year-old Sarah, who lived in Hersham, Surrey, had been playing with her two older brothers, 13 and 11, and little sister, five, in a cornfield near her grandparents' home when she disappeared.

It was a balmy summer evening and one minute the schoolgirl with the huge brown eyes was there, the next she'd vanished into thin air.

A police search of the local area quickly transformed into a nationwide hunt and national news story. Sarah's distraught mum and dad - Michael and Sara - made television appeals for their daughter's safe return. To no avail. The country looked on in horror trying to understand what it must be like to simply have a child disappear. The gut-wrenching agony of not knowing what had happened.

On 17 July a child's body was found near Pulborough in West Sussex, less than 12 miles from where Sarah had been last seen. The next day it was confirmed as Sarah.

ON YER BIKE!

Next time you're told to get on your bike, make sure you do! Because incredibly, as well as being good for toning your legs, experts have found that those who use cycling as a regular form of transport are almost a fifth less likely to develop any form of dementia than those using cars, buses and trains.