Cop who discovered Helen Bailey’s body tells of chilling moment children’s author came floating to surface of cesspit after he prodded it with garden hoe
A POLICE sergeant has described the sickening moment the body of murdered children's author Helen Bailey came to the surface of cesspit - after prodding it with a garden hoe.
The 51-year-old had been reported missing three months earlier by her fiancé Ian Stewart who is currently on trial for her murder, fraud, preventing a lawful burial and three counts of perverting the course of justice.
Giving evidence at St Albans crown court today, Sergeant Stephen Oliphant told how he watched a contractor struggle to suck out the cesspit contents before the grim discovery.
He said: "He went away and came back with a garden hoe to help break the crust. I prodded and poked the crust.
"Cracks formed and realised I was hitting a different object that felt, slightly softer.
"I pushed the object into the water and realised it was an arm of a body.
"The body was beneath the crust initially. Solid matter was moved away and the body came to the surface."
Ms Bailey's body was found dumped alongside her beloved dog Boris at her £1.5million home in Royston in July.
But the prosecution alleges Stewart murdered her on April 11 by first plying her with a sleeping sedative and then suffocating her in order to gain financially.
In the witness box Sergeant Oliphant said that at the start of an earlier search, a week after the author had been reported missing, Mr Stewart asked if it was necessary because police had been there the previous week.
He said the defendant had showed them the gardens, outbuildings, a swimming pool and had opened the side door to the garage where cars were parked.
"To begin with he was very accommodating, but sometimes he was dismissive and threw his hands in the air, saying he had enough of us and he would walk away.
"He told us he had major surgery and on a couple of occasions he said he was in pain."
To begin with he was very accommodating, but sometimes he was dismissive and threw his hands in the air, saying he had enough of us and he would walk away.
Sergeant Stephen Oliphant
The Sergeant said the defendant showed officers maps of the Royston area where he said Helen Bailey would take her dog for a walk. "I presumed it was to tell us where she would go walking and to assist us in looking for her."
Earlier Sergeant Nicole Goodyear told the jury that Mr Stewart questioned everything the police did during a search after Helen Bailey had first been reported missing in April last year.
She said: "Everything we did was questioned. He was there watching every single move. He was at shoulder length. He was very interested in what we were doing and followed us everywhere."
In Helen's study she said Ian Stewart appeared shocked when her passport was found. "He said 'Where did you find that?' As if he had looked for it and couldn't find it."
Sergeant Goodyear said Ian Stewart told her Helen was stressed because a number of wedding venues had fallen through or had been cancelled." He said she had been upset and stressed about how the wedding was falling through.
"We asked if she was on medication and he said no. He said she would avoid having medication."
The jury was played a 999 call of Stewart reporting his fiance missing, telling cops he had "literally checked everywhere" in their large Hertfordshire home.
He adds: "My partner has been missing since Monday and hasn't contacted anyone. I decided I should report it.
"She's self-employed but she works from home.
"She left a note saying she needed space and time alone, and that she was going to Broadstairs. She said please don't contact her in any way.
"It's a little cottage we've got down there. Neighbours and I have been down there and she's not there.
"Her phone is dead, it just doesn't ring. It goes straight to answer machine. Someone's been to the house yeah, her brother went.
"It didn't look like anyone's been in there. She's left her car here. She did take her dog with her, a dachshund."
During the call, Stewart could be heard putting the operator on hold as he checked Helen's date of birth, before giving over his own details.
She has been very anxious and very worried about lots of things, she is a worrier.
Ian Stewart
He goes on to tell the operator: "The last time I saw Helen was on Monday afternoon (April 11) at 2.45pm.
"She said nothing unusual before I went out.
"I got home just before 5pm and that's when I saw the note on her desk.
"It was a shock, she has talked about it but it is still a shock. She's never done anything like this before.
"She has been very anxious and very worried about lots of things, she is a worrier."
Stewart is asked if Helen would be thinking about committing suicide, to which he replies 'no'.
He added: "We were planning to get married but everything went wrong, I've been ill, her dad's been ill, my mum's been ill."
The call operator says it may be silly, but asked if Helen could be at home.
"We have got quite a large house but I have literally checked everywhere", Stewart replied.
Giving a description of Helen to the call operator, the father-of-two says: "She's a children's author and she writes books, she's very good.
"She lost her husband just over five years ago, that's how I met her because I lost my partner. We met in a bereavement group."
Stewart said Helen is not involved in or has been subjected to crime.
Describing her to the handler, Stewart says she is: "slim, with long off the shoulder 'black, going grey hair" and "5ft 10 but that is probably a guess".
When asked Helen's eye colour, Stewart said: "Oh my god how do you forget these things? It's terrible. I don't know."
He said Helen would typically wear jeans and a shirt before giving the call operator Helen's phone number.
The jury also heard Stewart described as "such a lovely man" by his son Oliver's girlfriend, Alexandra McGarry.
Giving evidence on Tuesday, Miss McGarry told the court: "Stewart is a very nice man, kind and patient.
"It seemed he would do anything for anyone.
"I got the impression he loved Helen very much and they seemed very happy with each other.
"Helen and Ian weren't touchy feely, but everything seemed fine and they would do things together. Ian is such a lovely man."
After Mrs Bailey's disappearance was reported on April 15 last year, Miss McGarry described Stewart as seeming "sad" that Helen was missing.
She told the jury: "I thought deep down Helen had gone away to get some space, or had gone away completely and was hidden away from everyone so that no-one could find her.
"Or potentially I thought she may have committed suicide.
"When I saw Stewart he looked sad, quite stressed, very tired, but he was still very friendly and came and said hi to me.
"Oliver told me that his dad was even struggling to reach up into the cupboards and get food out after his operation.
"When I saw him, he wasn't doing a lot of physical activity due to his health problems."
However, Miss McGarry said they found it 'weird' that neither Stewart or Helen had told them they were engaged.
She said: "Ian would often come and talk to me, ask me how I was and what I'd been up to that day.
"At some point Oliver had seen one of Helen's blog posts and she had mentioned something along the lines that they were engaged.
"Oliver found it quite weird that he hadn't been told this."
On Monday, St Albans Crown Court heard that Stewart played bowls and ordered a Chinese takeway on the day he is accused of drugging and killing the author.
Stewart's son Jamie Stewart, told the court that, on the day his father is alleged to have killed Ms Bailey, he had gone to watch him play bowls in Cambridge.
He added that, although it was the final of a competition, his father had been unwell so he did not know if he would turn up.
He said: "When I went into the bowls club he happened to be just there in front of me - I was a bit surprised to see him there, but I was happy."
After his father lost, the pair had a Chinese takeaway together.
Asked if Ms Bailey's whereabouts were mentioned at any stage, he replied: "No, nothing.
"I assumed she was home as both her cars were there."
His father has also been accused of repeatedly pushing for a sale of her property to go ahead after allegedly killing her.
Stewart told his son that Ms Bailey had left a note saying she had gone to her home in Broadstairs, Kent, and wanted to be left alone.
He told the court he never saw the note and was informed by his father that it had been "thrown out with the rubbish".
"Throughout that week, he began to get visibly more stressed out.
"He was spending a lot more time with myself and my brother and wanting to be around us."
Several days later he told Jamie he had reported Ms Bailey missing.
"I hadn't been aware that there Helen hadn't been in contact with anyone," he told jurors at St Albans Crown Court.
He added: "Throughout the week he became more and more stressed and over the weekend he was quite frantic and wanted to help the police find her."
He added that all that appeared to be missing was a raincoat, a pair of Wellington boots and a collar for her dog.
Earlier in the day Stewart is accused of murdering his wife, a nurse he had seen, Lynn Hull, said Stewart appeared "distant" and "spaced out" during an appointment, jurors heard.
He had delayed his appointment from the morning until the afternoon, citing car trouble, jurors were told.
Stewart was said to have had to frequently visit the doctor to have his dressing changed following surgery on his intestines, which had made him "lethargic and tired", according to his son.
It was the following day that Jamie noticed Ms Bailey was not at home.
He said: "Normally when you walk through the front door Boris the dog comes bounding up to meet you - I remember that not happening, which was a bit unusual."
Helen Bailey's grieving brother, John Bailey, has since revealed that Bailey had laughingly told him the cesspit while showing him around her home in 2013.
On April 11 2016, when the murder was said to have taken place, the defendant had visited a solicitor with paperwork regarding the sale of the £185,000 property in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear.
He claimed he was attending in place of Ms Bailey because she was was "unwell", solicitor Timothy Penn told the court.
In the weeks after her disappearance, Stewart was in contact with Mr Penn on several occasions and was "not at all pleased" by the lack of progress, the court heard.
Mr Penn told the court of one phone call: "He said 'You probably know that Helen is missing and I'm wondering if you can carry on with this transaction in the meantime'.
"I said effectively no. He talked about a power of attorney and I said in these circumstances we would want to hear from Helen."
The court previously heard that in 2015 Stewart was given power of attorney alongside Ms Bailey's brother John, allowing him to control her affairs should she become unfit to administer them.
Mr Penn said of one later meeting: "I do remember on this occasion that he was very anxious and he was not at all pleased to hear the news that we were not able to proceed with the transaction; it didn't go down well.
"He was shrugging his shoulders, he was looking anxious, he was not pleased to hear that information, put it that way.
"I explained to him obviously, with the question mark over where Helen was, there was a question mark over the power of attorney."
Stewart allegedly told the solicitor he was looking into getting his powers of attorney properly registered.
The court heard that this was required for his powers over Ms Bailey's affairs to become active - and only stood if she was alive.
It is alleged that the killing had "money as its driving motive", with Stewart in line to be a "substantial" benefactor of the author's £4 million fortune in the event of her death.
Mr Bailey recounted visiting his sister in August 2013, saying: "Helen mentioned there was an old well in the garage.
"I asked had they looked in it and I was told no, it wasn't that kind of a well - I thought it was a wishing well sort of a well.
"I didn't know what its function was... but they said it wasn't that kind of a well and then there was some banter, almost certainly instigated by Helen, that it was a good place to hide a body."
There was some banter, almost certainly instigated by Helen, that it was a good place to hide a body
John Bailey
He said that Stewart had been in full earshot of the conversation.
The murder trial at St Albans Crown Court earlier heard that Stewart used his car to cover the entrance to the cesspit, with the jury hearing that Stewart had "sat back and watched" as police and her friends launched a national hunt for Bailey.
Stewart is on trial accused of murder, fraud, preventing a lawful burial and three counts of perverting the course of justice after he told police Ms Bailey had gone missing.
He has denied all charges.
Mr Bailey said that he immediately remembered his sister's joke after being told police that they had found a body in the pit.
He said: "The well never ever featured in my consciousness at any time during her disappearance. I have no recollection of it at all.
"It didn't come to mind but when police constable Neil Sutton visited, I think on the 15th of July, it was a Friday, to tell me, it was believed that they discovered a body and he told me it was in an old well in the garage - it was that when my recollection of my discussion in 2013 that came back in, I think that was when I told him about that."
He said that his sister was a "highly intelligent" woman who was also an "extremely funny, very very witty person".
He said: "She was very much somebody who would come to someone's aid as a friend of somebody she would always put herself out there."
The court previously heard how Ms Bailey and her future husband had made financial arrangements that would mean he would get the house and "a very substantial financial advantage".
Aside from the Royston property, Ms Bailey also owned a property in Broadstairs, Kent, and was in the process of selling a property in Newcastle.
The court heard that Ms Bailey was increasingly concerned that she was feeling unnaturally sleepy before her death, even searching online "can’t stop falling asleep".
She also told her family she was feeling forgetful before her death.
Opening the case earlier this week, Mr Trimmer said: "The Crown case is that this defendant secretly administered to her a sleeping drug in increasing amounts.
"All the typical activity that Helen Bailey engaged in ceased at about 11am Monday, April 11 2016 ... the Crown case is that, by early afternoon, the only other person in that house, Ian Stewart, killed her, probably by suffocation whilst she was sedated by the drugs he had administered for some time."
Mr Trimmer added: "He moved her body to the garage where her body was dumped in the cesspit in the garage.
"Not only was her body dumped in the garage, but the dog's body was there. A dog's toy, a couple of bags and a pillow slip."
Mr Stewart, who had pledged to support the campaign to help Ms Bailey, has been accused of visiting Royston Recycling Centre to dispose of a large white item, believed to be a duvet - used in the "dragging or carrying" of Helen's body.
The court heard that Helen's last proven activity was an email she sent at 10.51am on Monday April 11, and the Crown say by that afternoon she was dead.
The Crown say this was simply a long-planned, deliberate killing, a cynically executed murder that had money as its driving motive
Stuart Trimmer QC
Her bank account was accessed on the day she died from Stewart's computer and a standing order from her account to their joint one was altered from £600 to £4,000.
Police have also alleged that Stewart used Ms Bailey's phone and later disposed of it - with investigators unable to find the device.
The prosecution said that the death of Ms Bailey's dog Boris was part of the plan as the author never went anywhere without her beloved pet.
Mr Trimmer said: "If the world were to think that Helen Bailey was missing, the dog had to be missing. It was necessary to reinforce the first line of deception."
The court heard on Tuesday that Helen's body contained traces of Zopiclone, the same sleeping drug prescribed to Stewart, and analysis of hair samples showed it had been administered to her since Stewart had been obtaining the drug.
The couple had been in a relationship for four years, having lived together for the last three.
They had been planning for an "imminent" wedding in the months before Ms Bailey's death.
The court heard the couple also lived with Stewart's two sons, Jamie Stewart, 24, and 21-year-old Oliver Stewart, who were not home on the day she died.
The court heard the "very successful author" had published her first book in October 2015, titled "Bad Things Happen in Good Bikinis" which was about the death of her husband, John Sinfield in 2013.
She also referred to meeting Ian Stewart, who she nicknamed "GGHW - Gorgeous Grey Haired Widower".
Stewart denies the murder of Helen, one count of fraud, preventing lawful burial, and three counts of perverting the course of justice.
The trial is expected to last up to seven weeks and is being overseen by Judge Andrew Bright.