Sarah Wellgreen investigation to feature on documentary My Lover My Killer on TV channel 5 Star
Published: 06:00, 25 May 2021
Updated: 08:19, 25 May 2021
Search team leaders hope a new documentary can shine new light on the murder of Sarah Wellgreen and help draw more people into the hunt to find her body.
My Lover My Killer will air tonight (May 25) at 10pm on 5 Star channel, and will focus on the murder of the 46-year-old New Ash Green mum at the hands of former partner Ben Lacomba.
Among those interviewed as part of the documentary are members of the Search For Sarah Wellgreen group, which was established in the wake of Sarah's disappearance from the home she shared with Lacomba in October 2018.
Team leader Sharon Brine has been dedicated to the search since the initial weeks after her disappearance, when it was still hoped Sarah might be found alive.
And while those hopes have long since been dashed she remains committed to finding the mum of five, to help bring some sense of closure to Sarah's family.
The latest documentary follows a similar one on Sky Crime last year, Killer in My Village, made by Avalon Television, and Sharon hopes both will refocus minds on the case.
And she said the team had also been approached about a new documentary, focussing purely on the search effort.
"We've said yes if it will help raise the profile of the case," she said. "I think it's a lot to do with all the professional services we've pulled in - solicitors an accountants, abseilers and divers. The fact that we've used everything we can.
"We've managed to secure free services from Martin Tolhurst solicitors and an accountancy company. We've got a drainage expert because there's a large body of water that we want to look at."
The scale of the effort means that Sarah's family can retain hope of her being found, even after police announced they had called off their active search efforts last year.
And Sharon explained the team were prepared to continuously comb possible locations.
"We've been looking at other areas that we've searched that we feel need searching again," she added. "We've been back to Jack's field - Jack's the name of the farmer who owns it."
"The problem we are getting at the moment is because the whole profile of the case has dropped we're getting issues with landowners. They don't remember, and they're saying 'Wasn't he guilty? Why are you searching? You've got the end result; why are you bothering?'
"Well we're obviously bothering to help bring the family closure, or at least to let them know somebody is still doing something."
"We need to get awareness for landowners to cooperate and we need people to keep looking when they're out walking. Off Exedown Road there's some problems with trees that need felling, and we want the people doing the work to have one eye open.
"With things like that we will make a point of contacting people involved. We don't just want diggers driving down roads and felling trees - they can be in a position that they can access places more than we can. If anyone's building in the area, just remember. You almost want to put a poster on everybody's digger."
Watch: Killer in My Village was made by Avalon Television for Sky Crime.
Sharon says those behind the potential new documentary are keen on following a specific search effort focussing on a particular area.
"There's one search we would like to do which requires coordination and I think they would like to film that," she said. "Obviously they're interested because it would make good TV but it's also heart-wrenching and there would be a lot of emotion and hope riding on it.
"Other than that it's a case of keeping it n the public mind. And we need to keep searching areas, even places we've looked at before.
"We just want to find Sarah to get some closure, and it will make the other things we're doing with the family much easier."
Further efforts involve a new fundraising site for Sarah's family, which the team plan to announce this month.
Read more: all the latest news from Gravesend.
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Chris Hunter