Sara Payne

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Sara Jane Payne (born 1969) is a British media campaigner who works in conjunction with the News of the World for their Sarah's Law, a law similar to the American "Megan's Law". She has been campaigning since July 2000 after the murder of her daughter, Sarah, in the hope of allowing parents to have the right of knowing whether a convicted paedophile is living in their area.

She was certain that Sarah had been murdered by a paedophile, and this belief was proved correct 16 months later when Roy Whiting was found guilty of Sarah's murder. Whiting, who lived just a mile away from Sarah's grandparents in Littlehampton, West Sussex, had been found guilty of abducting and molesting an eight-year-old girl in 1995.

Mrs Payne was born Sara Jane Williams in Walton-on-Thames. She is one of six children born to Brian and Elizabeth Williams. She met her life partner Michael Payne in 1985, shortly after leaving school, and has four surviving children. Her youngest child, Ellie, was born three years after Sarah's death, and is 16 years younger than Sara's oldest child Lee - who presented her with her first grandchild in May 2005. She also has a son called Luke (born 1988) and a daughter called Charlotte who was born in 1994.

She has since become a media figure, cashing in on her daughter's death by penning a best-selling book based on her daughter and then in 2007 when she appeared on the BBC reality TV/drama programme The Verdict, which highlighted the issues and difficulties surrounding the jury system in the UK.