Mystery of British woman who disappeared from a luxury Caribbean yacht

The couple, holding hands, walk down a wooden dock by the water's edge, after spending an evening in a bar on the island of St John in the US Virgin Islands.

They are seen boarding a dinghy and motoring away into the darkness of the Caribbean Sea, headed for their luxury yacht, anchored in the next bay.

This CCTV footage - never made public before and released exclusively now to the BBC - contains the last-recorded sighting of British woman Sarm Heslop.

Some six hours later, she would be reported missing, feared lost at sea.

Ryan Bane, her boyfriend at the time, maintains she most likely fell overboard, or drowned while swimming, while he was sleeping. He has never been formally questioned by the police.

Despite a massive search operation, Sarm's body has never been found and her disappearance remains a mystery.

To try to establish the truth, I spent a month in the US Virgin Islands investigating the case for a BBC Three documentary - speaking to the police who led the investigation, the coastguard and possible witnesses.

Sarm's friends say she was "always up for a new challenge"

Described by her friends as a "free spirit", former flight attendant Sarm left the UK in 2019 to sail across the Atlantic with friends on a small boat.

"She was always up for a new challenge. Totally run-of-the-mill for Sarm to just be doing something bonkers," one of her friends Zan tells me.

Accompanied by friend Kate and Kate's boyfriend, Sarm headed for the Caribbean - visiting St Lucia, Guadeloupe, Dominica and Martinique.

Seven months into the trip, Sarm met Ryan Bane, 49, an American boat captain who chartered his £500,000 catamaran - Siren Song - to wealthy tourists.

They dated, Sarm stayed on Mr Bane's yacht, and - after three months - the relationship turned serious. Sarm then decided to work as a chef on the yacht and, on 7 March, 2021, completed her first charter.

That night, she disappeared, leaving behind her passport, phone and money. She was 41.

Mr Bane has never spoken publicly about the case

While Sarm's friends and family have tried to keep her story in the media spotlight, and enlisted an investigator to help, her mum Brenda says she accepts her daughter is dead.

But the hope they will establish what happened, she says, is what keeps them going.

"We still haven't been able to grieve properly. We all deserve to know what happened to her and to bring her home. It's just so, so unfair," says Brenda.

One key piece of evidence I wanted to see was CCTV showing the last recorded sighting of Sarm, which had never been made public by police.

So, when the islands' chief of police, Steven Phillip, handed it to me, I was surprised.

"We're at a dead end," he admitted. "If anybody could look at this video and see something and say something it can help. That's why now."

Sarm's mum had previously watched a small section of the footage, but Sarm's friends had not seen any of it. They hoped they might spot something in the way the couple interacted with each other that night, which would provide answers.

But when I showed the footage to them - crowded round a kitchen table - they admitted that beyond confirming that she did get on board the dinghy, the CCTV didn't tell them much - and it could be interpreted in a variety of ways.

• Missing in Paradise: Searching for Sarm will be on iPlayer from 0600 on Wednesday 17 September, and on BBC Two that evening at 22:00

But I did notice an inconsistency with the timestamp on the CCTV.

In reports released by the US Coast Guard, Mr Bane stated the couple had returned to the yacht at 22:00 local time.

But the timestamp - which police say they have confirmed is correct - shows them motoring away from the Cruz Bay dinghy dock at 20:45 local time.

Having also travelled this route, I know it should take five to 10 minutes in a dinghy to get to the next bay, so they would have got back by 21:00.

This means there is a missing hour that Mr Bane has never accounted for.

"The timeline is suspicious, and that's one of the reasons why we need to talk to Ryan," says US Virgin Islands' police commissioner, Mario Brooks.

But Mr Bane's lawyer, David Cattie, told us this characterisation of the timeline was "irresponsible".

Commissioner Brooks told us Mr Bane remained the only person of interest in the case.

"There was… nothing of evidentiary value that points to Sarm having contact with anyone that night, outside of Ryan," he said.

Lawyer David Cattie says there is no evidence Mr Bane "had a hand" in Sarm's disappearance

While Mr Bane has never spoken publicly about the case, his lawyer agreed to be interviewed on his client's behalf, for the first time.

Asked what happened when Sarm disappeared, David Cattie said Mr Bane believed Sarm perhaps hit her head and fell overboard, or had become disorientated while swimming, lost her way and drowned.

The timeline inconsistency that evening reflected nothing other than a possible error in estimating the time while under the stress of trying to locate Mr Bane's missing girlfriend, he added.

Mr Bane said he discovered Sarm was missing at 02:00 local time. His subsequent actions have been questioned by all the boat captains and experts I have spoken to.

There were two other boats anchored in Frank's Bay at the time. I contacted the captains from both, who confirmed Mr Bane did not alert them to a problem either that night, or the following morning.

They also told me that captains are trained to shout a missing person's name, call a mayday, immediately call the coastguard and alert neighbouring boats.

Mr Cattie acknowledges Mr Bane didn't do everything "you would say a boat captain is absolutely supposed to do".

"But we're not here because you're saying, 'well, Ryan didn't follow all the boat protocol'. You're here because people are suggesting he had a hand in her disappearance. There's no evidence of that, at all."

'Minutes count'

I obtained a police timeline and US Coast Guard reports that cover the hours after Sarm was reported missing.

Mr Bane said he had woken up when he heard the anchor alarm - which rings if the boat is straying from its mooring - and realised that Sarm was no longer on the yacht.

At 02:44 local time - having called them 10 minutes before - Mr Bane gave a brief statement to police when he arrived ashore on his dinghy.

From this point onwards though, Mr Bane's account differs from that of the police.

His lawyer tells me police had left Mr Bane with the impression that they would contact the coastguard. However, police statements describe how officers had, instead, told Mr Bane to call the coastguard.

It was nine hours after having initially reported Sarm missing to police when Mr Bane did eventually call the coastguard - at 11:46 local time.

"Ultimately it's always the captain's responsibility [when a person is missing]," says Cdr Jan League from the US Coast Guard. "Minutes count at that point. So waiting nine hours is decreasing the possibility of finding a person in the water."

Sarm's disappearance is still classified as a missing person's case

The US Coast Guard search began 11 hours after Sarm was reported missing to police. Boats and a helicopter combed the water and coastline around where Siren Song was anchored.

It is very rare for somebody to fall overboard and for their body to never be found, Cdr League tells me.

"In the three years I have been here, we've had people go overboard, but we've never had the body go missing," he says.

Mr Bane has used his rights under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution - which prohibits unreasonable government searches and seizures - to block a forensics team from searching his yacht.

The only search that did take place was an initial safety sweep by the coastguard.

Mr Bane has also used the Fifth Amendment - the right to not give evidence that may self-incriminate - to decline questioning by police.

Mr Cattie said he had advised Mr Bane to invoke his rights.

"One thing you learn with being a lawyer is that there are tonnes of people who had nothing to hide, who had done nothing wrong," he said. "That… just want to do all this cooperation, that wind up in jail for something they didn't do."

Five weeks later after reporting Sarm missing, Mr Bane left the US Virgin Islands. He has never returned. He later tried to sell the yacht.

'Scariest thing'

To find out more about what Ryan Bane was like, I tracked down his ex-wife, Cori Stevenson.

They married in 2008, then in 2011 he attacked her after they attended a wedding. He knocked her to the ground, she says, "grabbed my hair and he smashed it [my head] in the floor", breaking her front teeth. "He choked me and I passed out," she adds.

"When he was in that weird rage… his eyes would go completely black," she says. "That was probably the scariest thing. So I was like, 'I'm going to die today'."

Ryan Bane was given a 60-day sentence for domestic violence simple assault. The couple divorced in 2014.

Mr Cattie acknowledges Mr Bane was convicted in that single case - but he adds: "There's absolutely no indication that he ever had a violent altercation with Sarm."

Sarm's mum says she was "the love of my life"

Sarm's case is still classified as a missing person, but her friends and family want it reclassified as a no-body murder investigation. They tell me this would mean the police could go further with the investigation.

The former Metropolitan Police officer the family enlisted to help, David Johnston, says if Sarm had gone missing in the UK, the case would have been treated at the outset as "likely to be a missing person where there is crime involved".

Elements of the evidence, he says, "would have been sufficient to move this to a position where Mr Bane would have been arrested very quickly" so he could be questioned.

The US Virgin Islands Police told us it remained committed to bringing closure to the case and would pursue all leads.

Meanwhile, Mr Bane's lawyer said his client had never been charged with any crime, and no court has issued a warrant for him. Mr Cattie said he had advised the police and the US Office of the Attorney General that if Mr Bane was required in the US Virgin Islands, he would return voluntarily.

But despite police saying the case is at a dead end, Sarm's friends and family say they will keep trying to find out what happened.

"She was the love of my life, my baby girl. I think knowing that I'm never going to see her again - I'm really heartbroken," her mum, Brenda, tells me.

"But I am stronger now and I'm going to do everything I can and I'll never give up."