Brian Slade
Appearances
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
was sent up to Chelmsford, not to assist with the arrest, but to assist with the searching of Little London Farmhouse post his arrest.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
She got a young baby with her and a toddler. About three, I think the little one was. And she was much more, oh gosh, what am I going to do with the babies?
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
And Noel packed a bag for the children, nappies, etc. When she was arrested, a neighbor said that they'd look after the children.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
And the police officer searched that bag before it was handed over to the neighbor and found cash and a number of gold bars in that bag.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
She clearly knew that this new statement provided some kind of evidence against her father. And she was reluctant to put her signature to that piece of paper. He tried to get an assurance from me that Sheena would come back and give that evidence. And I wasn't able to give him that assurance because I didn't know myself.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
I just remember it being really hot. We were in the house and in order to make sure the video came out, we had lights on me so that I had the heat from the lights.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
And there I was in my shirt and tie counting thousands of pounds and then Swiss francs and then gold bars started arriving and it was like, what's going on here?
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
I joined the police in 1987, and in 1996, I was an aide on a CID office at Tall Bay.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
The first time I met Sheena, she was extremely cold to me. I'm the enemy, I'm the police.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
She certainly was not a meek and mild lady, and she didn't mind being cutting, certainly. Actually, I wouldn't call her shy at all, but she's an intelligent lady who knew her own mind.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
She didn't want to engage with me at all. Not even one word answers. But she was extremely distrustful of the police and she didn't know what was going to happen with her. But he persisted. So I just tried to keep contact in her.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
I think it was something like a monthly basis, just to touch base with her, which may have gone into weeks, but mainly just try to keep that contact and to see whether or not she would or would not return to the UK.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
We would discuss different things. Her children were quite similar age to my children, so that was quite a good subject to have. Is that two-year-old talking yet? Mine won't stop. You have many conversations with someone you do build up a level of trust. And I didn't want Sheena to do anything that she didn't want to do. Obviously, all I wanted from her was the truth.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
Definitely did take a while, and it certainly wasn't immediate.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
I think that she'd been clearly groomed by her father to believe that it's the right thing to do, to run away and live a life of bribery as such with someone else's money, to live a second life, really, to live a life of a lie.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
She maintained that she was the wife of David Davis.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
She was very pro her father and very anti her mother. Her father had indoctrinated her mind in order to push her further away from her mother, which clearly worked. Groomed, I think, is a term that we use now, really. It's a term where someone can manipulate someone to think that they are who they're not and to do things that maybe aren't in their best interest.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
Routine phone calls carried on, and during one of these, I remember she told me that her father had contacted her from prison, phoned her, and asked her to change her testimony.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
And one of the things in the statement was that she didn't know that Ronald Platt was in Devon at the time that he was.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
And now Walker is phoning her from prison and asking her to change that part of her statement and asking her to lie, to say actually she did know that Ronald Platt was in the area. I think it's quite a damning thing, really. Why would he lie about Ronald Platt to his own daughter? Not an accomplice to murder, but the accomplice to the double life they're leading.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
Why would he not share that fact with her? Because he was going to murder her, him. And I realized it was very significant straight away.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
And his first words were, we need a statement from her, don't we? It would have been unheard of for an aide to travel, international travel, to take statements as such, but Bill Sincop put his trust in me, and I arranged to travel to Canada.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
She clearly knew that this new statement provided some kind of evidence against her father. Again, I'm not persuading her in any way, but just talking around the issues, really. And she was reluctant to put her signature to that piece of paper.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
Yeah, it took a while of discussion, but eventually she did sign it. She signed her name. I took a statement which took a number of hours. The statement was quite lengthy. And yeah, it was okay.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
And he said he wanted Sheena and tried to get an assurance from me that Sheena would come back and give that evidence. And I wasn't able to give him that assurance because I didn't know myself. her demeanor had definitely changed towards her father. The way she thought about her father had definitely changed.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
Being taken from her home environment, not against her will, but she'd been groomed in order to believe that was the right thing to do. It's a very terrible thing. So yes, I think at that point she felt she was a victim. And it was clear that the power that he did have over her had gone.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
But it did put a bit of pressure on me in order to actually get a yes or no answer from her as to whether or not she would. I didn't want to put her under any pressure because I knew I was asking such a big thing for her to come across and give evidence.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
She was asking for certain reassurances. Certainly one of the reassurances was that she didn't want any photographs taken of her by the press.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
So we gave her assurance that we would do our utmost to try to make sure that didn't happen. Sheena, are you going to do this? She agreed. And then we went through the process of how we're going to make that happen. Bill McDonald put a plan in place.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
I went across to collect her, flew into Toronto,
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
And then we flew four hours to Edmonton, to the other side of Canada.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
And we had a couple of days in Edmonton. Sheena at this stage was, I've got to say, quite stressed. And I had to try to keep her stress levels down. I had to keep her entertained for a couple of days and trying to think about what to do in Edmonton. So I'm in Canada.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
And the only place that's not interesting, well, I shouldn't say this, probably for Edmonton people listening, but I asked, what is there to do there?
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
So we had a bit of fun there. And I thought we were getting on quite well.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
And I remember driving out to the airport and Sheena being in the back of the car in tears because she was so stressed about what was happening.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
You know, it's a massive thing for her to go through. So I kind of understood that. And I must admit, I was relieved when she got on the plane itself.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
Bill instructed me to go to Heathrow Airport and collect Barbara, and we went through the process of bringing Barbara and Sheena together. She was a nice lady. She's really pleased to meet us. Clearly, Barbara was really keen on meeting Sheena. Sheena obviously didn't know the game was up at that time, and we didn't know what reaction we would get. Hence, we used social services to
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
because obviously the children have got to be a big priority, and we need to make sure that we dealt with that situation as delicately as possible.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
Once she returned to Canada, we've got no hold over her. We can't force her to give evidence. She's a Canadian citizen in Canada. We can't compel her to come back to the UK to give evidence in a murder trial and evidence against her father.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
My impression was that she still looked up to her father and still loved him.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E6: Sheena | Sea of Lies
Do you remember the TV program was on? What happened? Did you watch Coronation Street? What happened in that episode? To try to get an accurate timeline of what they're saying.