WARNING: This report includes disturbing details of the nature of a crime which were discovered during the police investigation and later recounted in open court during sentencing at the Old Bailey
Allowed to murder again: Steve Sansom pleaded guilty to the murder of Sarah Mayhew
Murderer Steven Sansom, who was released from prison on licence and then killed again, was today sent back to jail with the Old Bailey judge ordering that he should never be allowed out again.
Sansom, 45, of Burnell Road, Sutton, had admitted killing 38-year-old Sarah Mayhew and disposing of her severed body parts in different places around south London last year. The trial’s prosecution lawyers described the murder as “sadistic”.
On Christmas Eve 1998, when he was a teenager, Sansom murdered a taxi driver Terence Boyle in New Addington, for which he served 20 years of a life sentence.
Sansom’s partner, Gemma Watts, 49, of Holmbury Grove, Forestdale, had also entered a guilty plea to the murder of Sarah Mayhew.
Mrs Justice Cutts sentenced Sansom to a whole-life order. Watts is to serve a minimum of 30 years. In her sentencing, the judge said that it was Mayhew’s “greatest misfortune was to know the two of you”.
The pair were also sentenced to five years each for perverting the course of public justice, the sentences to run concurrently.
At an earlier hearing they both pleaded guilty to preventing a lawful burial. The police said that Sansom “dumped [Mayhew’s] body over several trips, in plain sight of the public”.
The court had heard that Sansom and Watts had exchanged “depraved” messages detailing a desire to kill people with a knife or knives while engaged in sexual activity.
Mother of two: murder victim Sarah Mayhew
At around 11pm on March 8 last year, Sarah Mayhew had accompanied Sansom to his flat in Burnell Road, Sutton. “From that point in time she was never seen again and she never left that property alive,” said the prosecuting barrister, Tom Little KC.
“How long she lived for only the defendants know and they have never said.
“What precisely happened to her body after she had been murdered by them in the property only the defendants know.”
The police investigation revealed messages on Sansom’s phone which showed a conversation that suggested the he and Watts wanted to murder Mayhew. The conversation revealed that Sansom was going to invite Mayhew to his home, to which Watts replied, “Only if it’s a deal she ain’t leaving in one piece.”
Sansom responded: “Okay.”
On March 10, Samson was captured on CCTV in a shop where he bought a hacksaw, blades and a bucket. CCTV footage also showed Watts in a shop, “buying multiple cleaning products such as bleach and scourers,” the Met Police said.
“A receipt was later recovered for these following a search of her property. Further intelligence found that as well as the cleaning products, a silver incinerator bin was purchased to burn Sarah’s personal belongings, which were never recovered.”
According to the police, Sansom and Watts travelled to and from Rowdown Fields on March 11 using public transport and “carrying oversized shopping bags, which they appeared to have struggled to carry”.
Gruesome scene: the Metropolitan Police say Sansom and Watts had transported their victim’s body parts to Rowdown Fields in New Addington using public transport
Mayhew’s head and limbs were found in Rowdown Fields, New Addington, on April 2. The following month, her torso was discovered in the River Wandle, at Ravensbury Park in Mitcham.
Mayhew was the mother of two, who at the time of her death were aged 12 and 15.
She had met Sansom on a dating website a few years before. Mayhew was living at Friars Wood, also in Forestdale, and knew Watts, the court was told. Phone messages showed that Mayhew had introduced Sansom and Watts in the summer of 2023.
In a statement read to the court, David Mayhew, Sarah Mayhew’s father, said: “I ask myself the same question all the time: ‘Why did you have to kill her?’
“Maybe I will never know.”
Sadistic killer: Gemma Watts
He thanked the killers for pleading guilty to murder and sparing him and the family the ordeal of having to go through a trial. “That said, whatever sentence you receive will never compare to the pain you have caused us.”
The judge said she was “quite certain” that graphic messages of sexual violence between Sansom and Watts moved from fantasy to a plan to involve a third party, whom they planned to murder.
When Sansom contacted Mayhew “he had murder in mind”, and she had been taken to his flat for “depraved and violent sexual activity”.
Mrs Justice Cutts said: “Her fear and suffering must have been acute as she realised why she was there and what was happening.
“She was an innocent woman lured to that flat to die…” so that the pair could act out their “bloodthirsty and wicked fantasy”.
The court heard Sansom had never shown remorse for what he had done.
The judge said she was in no doubt his offending was exceptionally high and that it required a whole-life order.
Watts was “obsessed” with Sansom, but it was not a case of “one person’s will being overborne by another”, the judge said.
Prosecuting lawyer Little described the relationship between Watts and Sansom saying: “Messages indicate that from the early stages their relationship was characterised by sado-masochistic violence.
“Such was the intensity of the defendant’s relationship at this early stage that they referred to dying together if they were ever caught.
“Given the messages sent between the defendants”, Little said, it was not possible to conclude Mayhew was killed immediately.
‘Bloodthirsty and wicked fantasy’: sentencing judge Mrs Justice Cutts
After the murder, Sansom sent a message to Watts which said: “We’re not evil, we’re not evil. We done the world a service.”
Detective Chief Inspector Martin Thorpe, from the Specialist Crime Command, who led the investigation, said: “I would like to send my deepest condolences to Sarah’s family and friends. A loss is always hard, but to hear about the way Sarah spent her last moments must be heart-breaking.
“Secondly, I would like to commend my colleagues from across the Met. The dedication shown to this investigation, which has been complex and challenging, has been extraordinary, they worked around the clock to pull together the evidence needed to bring this case to court.
“The investigation included viewing hundreds of hours of CCTV, extensive forensic examinations within the defendants’ houses, the searching of fields and rivers, witness accounts, and reviewing the defendants’ phones. These revealed messages detailing what the defendants planned to do to Sarah, with texts and voice notes recorded by the defendants themselves, also revealing their intention to carry out violent attacks on others.
“Sarah was a young woman who had the rest of her life ahead of her, before it was selfishly taken by Samson and Watts for their own sadistic motive.
“Their sick and twisted desires were heard in court by her family. They listened to traumatising evidence which revealed that the two enjoyed the pain and torment that they put Sarah through. No sentence can ever bring Sarah back or compensate for her loss, we ask for you to please respect their privacy during this tough time.”
Read more: Parole review ordered into release of murderer Steve Sansom
Read more: Killer of Sarah Mayhew has previous conviction for murder
Read more: Murder victim’s body parts discovered in River Wandle
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Killer Sansom was released from prison by the Conservatives.
Tory cuts to the prison service has meant that there is only incarceration, not rehabilitation.
Tory cuts to the Parole Board resulted in a huge backlog which therefore led to a rushed, ill-considered early release process.
Whenever the Tories in Opposition crow about crime and punishment, remember what they actually did in Government (including breaking their own laws and getting away with it)