[narrator] Every 90 seconds, someone is reported missing.
Many return to their families.
But for others, something has gone seriously wrong.
A 17-year-old girl has gone missing.
Well, I try and look at the last place that they were,
see if we've got any CCTV of them.
[narrator] She's pregnant. And her mum's desperate to find her.
Jayden was hopeful that a baby would cement their relationship
and actually make them a lot happier.
[narrator] What happens in the police investigation that follows…
It's not unusual for teenage girls to have that troubled background.
And, yeah, she would have disagreements with her family.
[narrator] What happens to the family at its heart…
She had made absolutely no contact whatsoever,
which was unusual.
They then do a report for a missing persons.
And that's when I started to panic.
Jayden had gone missing previously. Uh, and on each of those,
within 24 to 48 hours, she had made some form of contact.
[narrator reading]
[speaking indistinctly]
[woman] Jayden was quirky, annoying, funny, beautiful.
[laughing]
She could be your best friend,
your worst enemy.
But 99.9% of people loved her.
She was my best friend and not only my daughter.
She was the youngest of three.
Uh, she has two older siblings,
an older sister and a brother.
From the time she could talk, it was what, where, why, when.
Yeah, she was a law unto herself, to be fair,
when she was little.
I was with their dad for 18 years, on and off.
The relationship was a hard one.
He was an abuser, not just mentally, but physically, too.
I did my best with all three of them.
They went to any group that they ever wanted to join,
never went without, to be fair.
But I think they saw a lot of nasty things growing up
that, obviously, as an adult,
you try to protect your children from, but you can't 100%.
Sometimes it was hard.
But I wouldn't change having them three ever, you know.
They were my life, and, uh, even now they still are.
[piano music playing]
I left after spending 13 hours of abuse
being spat at, punched, kicked, dragged about by my hair.
Jayden was seven.
He got custody in the family courts
because I wasn't allowed to bring up the domestic violence.
We used to ring each other every other night.
And I'd arrange to meet her in her dreams
any place in the world that she'd pick.
And at eight o'clock every night,
we'd blow each other three kisses out the window
and catch 'em, no matter what.
That's how it was. I had them as often as I could.
Uh, it was hard, and it was heartbreaking taking 'em back,
I used to hate it.
[pensive music playing]
When she first started being naughty,
it was things like drinking and smoking at school or out with her friends.
[narrator] One of these friends is Jake Blakeley.
Jayden and Jake's friendship was like any others.
He'd come round my house.
They'd mess about.
On one of his birthdays,
I've got a picture of him stood in my sitting room
with her on his shoulders going like that, yeah?
They were mates.
[narrator] Jake has an older brother, Ben.
I remember her seeing him outside the local shops.
And I was with her, and he was like, "All right, Jade?"
as he walked past and, you know, pushing his bike.
And I was like, "Who's that?"
She goes, "Ah, don't worry about him. He's just a rat.
It's Jake's brother. He's just a weirdo."
Thought nothing of it.
And then he, obviously, started hanging round
with the group of younger kids,
drinking with 'em and smoking with 'em, and all that sorta stuff.
And, uh, I kinda realized that she liked him.
[narrator] In 2012,
16-year-old Jayden starts a relationship with Ben.
He was very well-mannered, um… "Yes. Please. Thank you."
Nothing outta the ordinary, to be fair, a bit strange-looking.
And I thought it was a bit odd that he liked my daughter.
Oh, it was definitely odd that she liked him.
But you can't help who ya like.
[narrator] Within just a few months, the relationship between Jayden and Ben
comes to the attention of the police.
[man] The initial relationship was very loving.
And he was very doting of her, but as time progressed,
he became very controlling.
Um, he became aggressive towards her.
Jayden's family were initially approving of Ben,
uh, but they noticed a change in Jayden's behavior.
And we were starting to realize that, actually, she had been the victim
of him taking photographs of her
while she was naked, coming out of the shower.
And that was a matter that she had reported to the police,
and that the police were investigating.
Jayden split up with him, uh, around the 21st of November.
Then, on the 25th of November, he wanted to get back together with her.
She had refused.
But then he'd threatened to put these videos…
Upload these videos of her, these intimate videos of her,
with a view that, once that had been done,
um, she would kill herself
because she would be so upset and distressed about it.
It wasn't long before his true identity come out.
But he was seeing other girls as well behind Jayden's back,
so he was flitting from one girl to another,
and he'd have one girl
that'd give him money for drugs and food,
another girl that would give him money for clothes and things.
And Jayden was the girl, the go-to girl,
that would do the naughty things with him.
So, like, jumping the trains nicking, um, luggage,
and stuff like that.
[uneasy music playing]
[Chris] Ben Blakeley, particularly in relation
to his previous relationships with females,
he had a history of coercive controlling behavior towards them.
Coercive control is done
to maintain control over somebody as much as possible,
and even to, uh, create a situation of subjugation.
[Chris] A number of the females that we spoke to
had also been assaulted by him.
When he did lose his temper, he was very violent,
and he would grab them round the throat and punch them.
A person who exerts coercive control,
that extra level of control,
is quite a distinct type of person.
It's not the kind of thing really
that just anybody is gonna end up doing.
It's somebody who for some reason
needs that amount of control
or feels entitled to that amount of control.
[Sam] She'd gone from a glitter kid,
um, loving dresses and high heels and make-up
and all that sorta thing.
It wasn't until she got with him, that all that stopped.
She stopped being a girly girl.
She wore baggy tracksuit pants,
uh, trainers, oversized jumpers, you know, all that sorta stuff.
[narrator] The change in Jayden's behavior affects every part of her life.
[Sam] She'd gone missing from school.
So school had rung police on numerous occasions to try and find her.
Basically, she was a pain in their backside,
keep going missing, me keep reporting her.
Um, and even to the point where I got sick of it.
[Nikki] She's a young girl growing up.
You know, it's not unusual
for teenage girls to have that troubled background.
Um… And, yeah, she would have disagreements with her family.
Um, but they were just sorta disagreements.
And then her and her family would always get back together,
and, you know, resolve any issues that they had.
[Chris] She became more withdrawn.
She also became quite difficult around the family.
And there were a lot of arguments about her relationship with Ben,
which culminated in her, uh, actually leaving the family home
and moving into One Foot Forward in Oxford.
[narrator] One Foot Forward is a hostel set up
to help young people who become homeless, like Jayden.
[Sam] Took 'em a couple of weeks to get her out of her shell.
And they then realized that she was a nice girl, you know,
that she'd had it a bit hard.
And I was trying to help them help her.
She didn't wanna come back
'cause she didn't wanna bring any more crap to my door with Ben.
What became clear was that he was very controlling of Jayden,
um, and he had given her instructions not to leave her room.
She wasn't allowed to speak to any men.
She wasn't allowed to have access to her phone.
In fact, he'd stolen her mobile telephone,
and he had control of her social media accounts.
The level of control was so serious that he had actually instructed her
that if she wanted to go to the toilet, she had to stay in her room.
And that resulted in her urinating into containers within the room,
so that she didn't have to leave her room.
[pensive music playing]
[narrator] Out of the blue, Jayden calls her mum, Sam.
[Sam] I'd missed the calls.
And she just kept…
"Mum, ring me now.
I've got something important to tell. You gotta ring me back,"
which I did.
And then it was like a 10-minute conversation of what's wrong.
"Is it Ben?" "Have ya run outta money?" "Are you in trouble?"
"No, I'm pregnant."
[Chris] I think Jayden was hopeful that Ben would now settle down,
that he would stop being violent towards her,
that he would be less controlling,
and that, actually, a baby would cement their relationship
and actually make them a lot happier.
And, to be fair, I was proper chuffed because
I could hear the happiness in her voice.
It wasn't an ideal situation for her to be in,
because I knew that if she stayed with him,
she'd have lost the baby.
The baby would've been put on an at-risk list straightaway.
So they would have monitored her
through social services, the police, and everything.
And I think he knew that
because he'd already lost two children beforehand.
He had two other women that had babies by him.
He wasn't allowed to see any of them.
She loved kids.
And that's… I think that's what she wanted.
She wanted to love something
and something to love her unconditionally.
And I think that's what she thought she'd have got from a baby.
[uneasy music playing]
[narrator] Jayden and her mum arrange to meet up in town.
[Sam] The last time I saw her was outside One Foot Forward.
We went to the pub in Oxford city.
I brought her a coke. I think I had a coffee.
Talked about her being pregnant.
Um, I gave her £15.
I kissed her on the steps, cuddled her.
I said, "Please come home. I'll look after ya. You're having a baby."
And she said, "No, I don't wanna come home.
I don't wanna bring any more trouble to your door, Mum."
[narrator] December, 2013,
17-year-old Jayden Parkinson is pregnant with Ben Blakeley's baby.
She's living in a hostel for young people,
despite her mum, Sam, wanting her to come home.
The Wednesday morning, I got a call from One Foot Forward
asking if Jayden was with me.
She hadn't been.
They then got off the phone, obviously, did what they had to do,
then rung me back and said,
"We've had to now phone the police and do a report for a missing persons."
And that's when I started to panic.
I put out missing posters with the Missing People charity.
I was putting out appeals on Facebook, on Twitter.
Anything I could do I was sharing.
[Chris] Jayden's family were very concerned about her.
And also, her immediate family had done a lot of work with her friends.
She had quite a large network of friends,
which, in fairness, she'd become detached from
because, of course, Ben had been controlling her.
But they were, uh, speaking to her friends about where she may have gone,
and where she'd gone in the past with Ben.
As far as I was concerned, I knew something wasn't right
because I knew she was looking forward to seeing me Friday.
[Nikki] When someone goes missing,
we'll try and look at the last place that they were,
see if we've got any CCTV of them there.
And we were aware from CCTV,
from investigations and witnesses at One Foot Forward,
that she had gone to meet Ben that day.
She met him on the Cowley Road in Oxford
where they then traveled to Oxford Station.
And there's CCTV of them walking
through the railway station at Oxford and through the barriers.
We know that they then got a train to Didcot.
And just after four o'clock
is the last known sighting of Jayden on CCTV,
where she's seen to go through the barriers
at Didcot railway station, followed by Ben.
Her mum was really distressed about Ben Blakeley.
She had her suspicions about him.
He was quite a violent, controlling, and intimidating individual
who had assaulted Jayden in the past.
[uneasy music playing]
[Chris] The Major Crime Unit became involved,
uh, after Jayden'd been missing for just over a week.
I looked back over the circumstances of her disappearance
and also the fact
that she had made absolutely no contact whatsoever with her family,
which was unusual because Jayden had gone missing previously,
uh, and on each of those,
within 24 to 48 hours,
she had made some form of contact either on social media,
or she'd actually called her mother.
It's hard because you don't know if they need you,
if they're hurt,
if they're being held by somebody.
I couldn't sleep. I was running on empty.
It was like I was in a daze.
"Where is she? Where is she? I gotta do my best to find her.
I need to find my daughter."
[Chris] When I picked up the investigation,
Ben had been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping Jayden.
He'd been interviewed about that and denied it,
and he'd then been released on bail.
I asked the police officers on the investigation
to start looking at what we would call aspects of proof of life.
So these are about 30 or 40 different things,
a checklist that we would go through.
And this checklist derives from the fact that it's virtually impossible
for an adult particularly to go missing and not leave any trace of their existence
if they are alive.
So they would be things like financial records,
things like use of social media,
use of technology, use of mobile phones.
There's lots of things that we can do
to try and show the last proof of life that we had.
And the last proof of life that, um, we had
was her at Didcot train station with, um, Ben Blakeley.
This was now gonna be a murder investigation,
you know, a week or so down the line.
The SIO, Chris Ward, then makes a decision
that we're now going to arrest him for murder.
And I remember them coming round to me and saying…
"You're gonna hear on the news and in the papers
that we've arrested him
on suspicion of murder without a body."
I was then explained to that
how it works with the police,
how that after the first 24 hours
is the most important time to find somebody,
and after that they don't hold out much hope.
[uneasy music playing]
And that I was to prepare myself for finding the body.
[sniffles]
Sam's reaction was, "I knew it. I just knew."
And I think, um…
Well, from what she was saying to me, as a mother, she knew.
[Chris] When Ben was arrested on suspicion of murdering Jayden, he was very quiet.
He said absolutely nothing. So he didn't answer any of the questions.
Just after 10 p.m.,
there's a CCTV capture of Ben leaving Didcot railway station
on the 3rd.
And what's evident on that CCTV is there's no sign of Jayden.
[narrator] As the investigation unfolds,
police receive information from a local taxi driver.
He explained to police officers
that he had collected a man from a dirt track in Didcot
at about one o'clock in the morning.
That person had a large suitcase, blue suitcase,
which was described as being covered in mud.
And it was very, very heavy.
And the taxi driver was now concerned that that suitcase
and the circumstances in which he collected that man
were very suspicious.
He couldn't lift it on his own, and got the taxi driver to help him.
And the taxi driver commented that it was really heavy.
And he said, "Yeah, my bird's kicked me out.
It's everything I own. It's all my worldly goods."
It was my Jayden.
[Chris] That taxi was booked in a false name.
Uh, but we were able to do some very quick telephone work,
and we established very quickly
that that call had been made from Ben Blakeley's mobile phone.
[eerie music playing]
[narrator] The taxi driver's statement means police concentrate their search
near a building known locally as the Spooky Barn.
The barn itself is situated, um, at the end of a track near a field.
It's, um… It's quite dilapidated.
Uh, there was evidence within the barn of people drinking alcohol,
discarded cans and, uh, various things,
which suggested that it was somewhere where teenagers congregated,
and they would meet to drink alcohol.
So we started to search that area.
And in particular, we used police search dogs…
[dog barks]
who were specifically trained to detect body scent from dead bodies.
And the first thing they detected was the scent of body on a serviette,
uh, which had been discarded in the field by the barn.
And they also indicated into the barn
that a body had been present within the barn recently.
[narrator] December, 2013, 17-year-old Jayden Parkinson is missing.
Police have arrested Ben Blakeley on suspicion of murder.
They prepare Jayden's mum, Sam, for the worst,
and are searching for a body.
Having had this indication
from the police search dogs at the Spooky Barn,
we contacted a forensic archaeologist.
[man] The first steps for me in a case like this
is to try to get as much information as possible
about the area that the police are interested in, so in this instance,
looking at the landscape around the village of Upton
to try to understand it better.
I… I would use aerial photographs.
I'd use current maps, um, and historic maps,
so trying to build up layers of information
that start with, um, the geology,
so what rock types are present there, what soil is overlying them,
um, how has the area been used in the past both historically and recently.
So we had a location of the taxi pick-up.
And from that lane, which then goes out east into the farmland,
those other areas become more apparent.
We sampled around the barn and into the woodland,
and then looped back round again on ourselves,
trying to capture as much of the parameters, that scene, as possible.
[Chris] The forensic archaeologist in this case is very important
because they can give expert opinion
on areas of land that have been disturbed,
and the most likely place
that somebody would then start to dig to… to bury somebody.
[narrator] Police want to be sure
that Ben Blakeley was the person who traveled in the taxi
with the blue suitcase.
Officers carried out house-to-house inquiries.
One of the houses they knocked on was Ben and Jake's grandmother.
Ben had come into her house a few days before.
He was very agitated.
He said he needed a suitcase.
Uh, he took a suitcase,
having emptied the contents of it onto the floor,
uh, and he had come back some hours later,
and he had dumped that suitcase in her shed.
And it was covered in mud. And that's where it currently was.
And… And that's the suitcase that I believed
Jayden's body had been concealed within the suitcase,
and that he… Ben had used that in order to move her body.
[uneasy music playing]
[narrator] Police get an unexpected call from a member of the public.
-[Chris] A lady phoned up and said… -[phone beeping]
"Ben's brother lives with me," so that's Jake Blakeley.
"He's living with me. He's lodging with me.
He has just told me that he has discarded and… and secreted clothing
for his brother."
And she thought that was very suspicious, so she contacted us.
He was arrested on suspicion of Jayden's murder as well,
and he was also interviewed, and during his interview, he said nothing.
As well as that, we now had witnesses that had seen
both Jake and Ben on mountain bikes
around about the 9th of December.
And they were described as being covered in mud,
this thick clay mud.
So I suspected now that…
That even if Jake had not been involved in Jayden's murder,
that he knew where she was or had a very good idea where she was.
The evidence we gathered at this stage, we still hadn't found Jayden's body,
there was still no sign that Jayden was alive,
the Crown Prosecution Service took the decision
to charge Ben and Jake with Jayden's murder,
even though we hadn't found her body.
[narrator] Determined to find Jayden's body,
the police stop at nothing.
[Chris] So another significant, um, line of investigation was,
um, we used the RAF resources
to fly over some of these key areas.
And what we were looking for
was any sign that there had been recent soil disturbances
because we believed that Jayden had been buried,
that was because of the mud,
we'd found some spades at the grandmother's house as well,
which had this thick clay mud.
So we commissioned the Royal Air Force to do some aerial photography,
so that we could see if there was any areas of disturbed soil.
They identified ten areas.
And the forensic archaeologists looked through each of those areas.
Significantly, one of those areas was St Mary's Church
in the cemetery where, um,
there were some foot patterns around one of the graves.
[bell tolls]
[narrator] Then there's proof that the Didcot churchyard
was their prime search location.
When Jake was charged with the murder of Jayden, he broke down.
He had a consultation with his solicitor, and he handwrote a note.
So the note said basically that, as far as Jake was aware,
the body of Jayden Parkinson was buried in his Uncle Alan's grave,
which was in the cemetery of St Mary's Church in Didcot.
[Chris] In the early afternoon,
I'd arranged for Jayden's family to be told
that we had some significant information
and that we were going to begin work within the graveyard,
um, in the hope that we may be able to find Jayden.
You'd expect a grave that had been occupied for some years
to be grassed over, but it still had clods of soil on the top,
as if it would have been recently excavated.
So the first thing we would do is erect a mobile tent around that.
That's so that police officers and the forensic archaeologist could work
without being filmed to respect the privacy of, uh, Jayden's body,
should Jayden's body be within there.
[Karl] During excavation, you find a range of different, uh, evidence types.
In this instance, we had green leaves that were mixed into the fill.
That gives you confidence to say this has been disturbed recently.
Any leaves that had been green
that would've fallen when the uncle was buried
would long since have decomposed.
We had toolmarks that were present in the side of the grave.
They were extremely crisp and fresh, extremely deep,
um, and looked like they'd been delivered
with very high energy behind a… a tool.
At a depth of something like 40 to 50 centimeters,
the fill of the soil that we were excavating became looser.
And then, uh, we can see the skin of Jayden's body visible.
[Chris] Her legs had been tied up towards her back,
and secured with her underwear.
Um, and that body, we were convinced by that stage, was Jayden.
[Nikki] We went and had to tell her, obviously,
that we believed that we'd found Jayden.
But even then, you know, we knew, she knew, but it was just…
We still have to wait for that confirmation and stuff.
The day they said, "We think we've found her,"
I remember collapsing in my house.
And that was it. My body, my head just switched off.
[pensive music playing]
The grave, to look at,
you would not have thought her body was there
because they'd taken the topsoil off separately, dug down,
and they'd distributed the extra soil that accounted for her body
around the graveyard.
I remember going to see the church and all the flowers outside.
[bell tolls]
I got to the gate of the church, and I remember going to the policemen.
And they took their hats off to me. [sniffles]
And said it was their…
It was their pride to be able to stand over her,
looking after her.
[sobbing]
And I could see in their eyes they were hurt.
They were upset. [sniffles]
And…
I'll never forget how grateful I am to them.
How they made, in her death, more respect
than he ever showed her in her life and even in her death.
[inhales deeply and exhales]
Looking at the results of the postmortem,
it was clear that Jayden had been asphyxiated.
Um, there were marks on her neck.
And those marks were, more than likely,
as a result of Ben Blakeley strangling her.
[Nikki] She was pregnant. She did decide to leave him.
And then, uh, that was the catalyst.
It's just dreadful, you know, what happens.
Someone so young and beautiful,
and, you know, just starting her life, is taken away.
She was worried that she's gonna have this baby,
um, she'll never be free of Ben Blakeley, and she wanted to be free of him.
They found her bracelet that we both have matching of.
That was found in a tree.
Ben had taken all her clothes off of her…
[gulps]
Every bit apart from a vest and a pair of knickers,
and he tucked her feet in the back of her knickers.
He didn't want her found, ever.
He wanted to hold that over the family for as long as he could, I think.
But I'm glad the police didn't give him the satisfaction.
I'm glad they found her. I can never say thank you enough.
[narrator] As Jayden's next of kin,
her mum, Sam, still has a harrowing responsibility.
I remember going to the JR Hospital, being sat in the waiting room,
the smell, the color of the room,
and I remember walking through the door with my head down,
knowing she was there, and I couldn't look at her.
I couldn't look at her.
If I did, it meant it was real.
And I looked up. And it was my Jayden.
She looked like she was asleep. [sobbing]
And I knew she wasn't.
The only things that were visible was her face and her arms. [sniffles]
And I had to look at the tattoo and say, "Yes, that's my daughter."
[eerie music playing]
[narrator] Charged with Jayden's murder, Ben and Jake Blakeley await trial.
Her mum, Sam, is grieving.
[Sam] You don't know whether you're coming or going.
Life is just whizzing past.
And you're just stuck in that one moment in time.
I was stuck on the day that I identified her body.
That's where I was stuck.
And I kept seeing it over and over and over again.
And we got Jayden's body back,
the week before my birthday, which is the 1st of February,
I was gonna have her buried then.
And everybody talked me out of it.
And she was buried on the 8th of February instead in Kent.
The reason I took her to Kent
was because I didn't want him or any of his family
being able to go to her grave
'cause I knew if it was in Kent, it's too far.
They gotta go out the way to go there.
She had a memorial in Didcot.
The church was full to bursting. You couldn't get in.
There was people stood outside and at her funeral the same.
It was that packed. She was loved and missed.
She had a purple coffin.
She had toys from my nieces and nephews in her coffin.
Her friend gave her an engagement ring.
She had the necklace that I bought her.
[voice shaking] And now she's buried with her great grandma.
[uneasy music playing]
[narrator] As preparations for the trial continue,
Ben Blakeley contacts the police.
Um, as we're approaching the trial, we get some information from the prison
that Ben has admitted killing Jayden.
We then received a letter from Ben,
uh, setting out that he was involved in Jayden's death,
it wasn't deliberate,
they had had an argument whilst they were on a bridge,
which we identified as a bridge which was near,
uh, where the taxi had picked this mysterious person up.
That mysterious person was, of course, Ben Blakeley.
He admitted that he had buried her body there,
and kept the body there for some days
until, um, he then returned and moved her body to the grave.
Um, but he was very clear that he was very remorseful,
he'd tried to resuscitate her,
but he believed she'd died because she'd fallen off the bridge.
Looking at the footbridge,
of course this bridge was inches from the ground.
You didn't need to be an expert to look at that and decipher the fact
that you could easily fall off there.
You wouldn't have caused yourself any form of injury.
And, of course, the postmortem results were consistent
with her being asphyxiated, with strangulation marks around her neck.
There was no significant head injuries.
I think he realized the game is up,
we were going to be able to prove that he had killed Jayden,
and he was now using these excuses to justify her death,
and to remove himself from any criminality.
[pensive music playing]
[narrator] Police and the Crown Prosecution Service
are determined that Ben Blakeley doesn't get away with murder.
[Sam] I was there every day, bar one day.
We had Jayden's friends there, family, my sisters, my dad.
Um, we were told not to cry,
not to look at the jury,
not to look at Ben or Jake, not to comment,
not to huff, puff, or cry.
While the whole trial was going on, we had to sit there and suck it all up.
[Nikki] Ben's demeanor during the court, he just wasn't bothered,
didn't seem to be bothered. He had no remorse.
He stood in the dock, and he had no respect.
And I think that was the thing. He had no respect for anybody or anything.
He just didn't care.
It was like a circus.
The whole time that we were sat in the courtroom,
waiting for the jury or the judge to come up,
him and his brother would be sat there laughing
and fist-pumping each other and having a good old chat.
Soon as it'd say, "Stand up for the judge," or the jury,
them two would be separate.
[Nikki] In court he'd said he'd assaulted her.
We knew by now that he'd been assaulting her and controlling her,
and being aggressive towards her.
And he'd tried to strangle her before.
He was saying, "I've had my hands round the throat of previous girlfriends.
They haven't died. Why should this be any different?"
Of course, the family were listening to this, and they were very upset.
[eerie music playing]
[Nikki] And on this occasion, he'd done exactly the same.
He'd put his hands around her neck, um,
but he said he thought she was joking when she fell to the floor.
When he was cross-examined by the prosecution barrister,
he got very defensive, he got very agitated,
he got very angry,
and he got very abusive.
Frequently, the judge had to stop the trial
so that he could compose himself.
He was swearing and shouting,
and being aggressive towards the prosecution barrister.
And, in fact, what he was actually doing was showing his true colors.
Jake was very quiet in comparison to his brother,
very meek, very mild.
I'd pretty much formed the impression from his behavior
that he was scared of Ben.
A lot of my role in giving evidence
is to paint as clear a picture as possible for a jury
on the basis that I will have spent an extended period of time
within that really important location, on that scene.
[Chris] The forensic archaeologist was able to link the mud on the spade
to mud in the field.
He was able to link the mud on the suitcase
to the thick clay in the field as well.
And, um…
And determine how long it had taken to dig the grave.
[Sam] Ben was calling all the female witnesses,
slags, crackheads, whores,
saying they were liars.
He threatened to punch our QC, Richard Latham,
because, uh, Richard Latham had asked him to look at him
while he was talking to him.
And he told him to F off, and he'd punch him in the face
if he didn't get out of his face.
The girls that he'd had babies with beforehand
had to give evidence behind a screen.
They were that terrified to be seen in court.
Yeah, he… he was a pig,
and he stood there so smug in that courtroom,
and he did the Hitler sign to me.
And the courtroom erupted, and it all went mental.
And from then on, I knew he was… He was the cause of it all.
To him, it was notoriety.
He was famous for something.
Even if it was something so heinous as what he'd done,
he thought he'd done good.
They played the CCTV of her and him at Oxford Station
going through the barriers.
She's always six paces behind him.
Then they show her and him…
in Didcot.
He walked her to her death that night, to the field,
knowing full well that, wherever he took her,
what he did would not be heard or seen.
He only covers her body that night
with brambles and a bit of a tree, I think.
He's then picked up on CCTV going back to Reading.
[pensive music playing]
[Chris] So the trial lasted nearly six weeks.
At the end of the conclusion of that,
uh, Ben Blakeley was convicted of murdering Jayden Parkinson.
Jake Blakeley had already pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice,
that is, that he had lied to the police during the murder investigation,
and he'd also disposed of some clothing,
but he was found not guilty of being involved
in the disposal of her body at the graveyard in Didcot.
Ben Blakeley received a 20-year minimum tariff for the murder.
And Jake Blakeley received three years for perverting the course of justice.
At the time, this was the first case in the country
where a murder victim had been, uh, secreted
within a pre-existing grave.
He got a minimum of 20 years in the end before he can go for parole.
He's done five.
I've got 15 years left.
My granddaughters are gonna be of an age at that point.
My grandsons are.
And I fear for them, I do, 'cause he's got all that time
to sit in there plotting, thinking.
And I know he will, because I know how twisted he is.
It was the hardest job I've ever done, definitely.
I think it's really important that
if you are going through violence like this…
It doesn't need to be violence. It can be emotional control.
But if there is that element of control there, there is help out there.
And I think it's, um… Just need looking.
You've got to start thinking of your safety.
Putting things in place.
There are people, there are organizations that will help.
I do believe, and…
I suppose as a family, we still believe,
that even if it hadn't have been then,
it would've been sooner or later.
I know there won't be a day that goes by,
from conversations that I've had with her in the past,
that she doesn't think about Jayden.
I belong to a group that no one ever wants to belong to,
that we don't get a choice in joining. [sniffles]
You don't ever think anything like this will happen to your kid.
[sniffling]
[sighs] I haven't got a life. I exist from day-to-day.
What haunts me the most is identifying her body,
and wondering what went through her mind
when he was killing her.
Was she hoping,
wanting her mum to be there to save… save her?
And I wasn't. [crying]
Did she think, "I don't wanna die. I'm having a baby. I wanna be a mum"?
[exhales] That's what haunts me.
Every day that I get up, I wake up wishing I hadn't,
and I go to bed hoping I don't.
[uneasy music playing]
[dramatic music playing]