Bungling Coast Guard officers failed to record call made by Sarm Heslop’s American boyfriend to report her missing from his yacht in the US Virgin Islands – as her family slams probe two years after 42-year-old vanished
- Hislop, 42, was last seen on March 8, 2021 in the US Virgin Islands with boyfriend
- Ryan Bane, 44, reported his girlfriend missing but coastguard did not tape call
- He waited several hours before placing call to coastguard reporting her missing
Bungling Coast Guard officers did not record Sarm Heslop’s boyfriend’s phone call reporting her missing in a ‘troubling’ error in the investigation, MailOnline can reveal ahead of the second anniversary of her disappearance tomorrow.
It has emerged that the US Coast Guard didn’t tape Ryan Bane calling 911 when she vanished as they should have done.
The agency blamed a ‘fault in the system’ which deprived Ms Heslop’s family of a vital piece of evidence.
Ms Hislop, 42, was last seen with Bane on March 8th 2021 in the US Virgin Islands.
Her mother Brenda Street said in a statement that the ‘inconsistencies in this investigation have troubled me from the start. Something doesn’t add up’.
Southampton-born Ms Heslop, a former flight attendant, vanished without trace on the island of St John.
She was last seen with Bane, 44, at a restaurant near to where his catamaran, the Siren Song, was docked.
Sarm Heslop, from Southampton, who went missing from the Siren Song, a catamaran owned and operated by her American boyfriend, Ryan Bane
Ryan Bane’s luxury 47-foot catamaran, named Siren Song, sits in Frank Bay on St. John in the US Virgin Islands. Bane, 44, is boyfriend of missing British woman Sarm Heslop
Ryan Bane, the US boat captain boyfriend of missing British woman Sarm Heslop, is seen here in a police mugshot in 2011 after attacking his ex-wife
Heslop (right) is pictured with her friend Kate Owen. The pair moved to the Caribbean together. Kate has now called for British detectives to investigate the disappearance of her friend
Bane has said he was asleep on the boat when Sarm disappeared and was woken at 2am by the boat’s anchor alarm, which sounds when the vessel has drifted too far.
But he waited nine hours before calling the US Coast Guard, despite being told by police to do so.
MailOnline requested the 911 recording by Bane made at 11.46am on March 8th last year under the US Freedom of Information law.
The Coast Guard initially said that the recording had accidentally been deleted.
But in a letter J.L. Suarez, a lawyer with the agency said: ‘Said telephone call was never recorded due to a fault in the system.
‘Therefore, the information pertaining to the erasure of the audio recording contained in my (previous) letter was incorrect’.
Police in the US Virgin Islands have failed to respond to requests from MailOnline for more information about the case, including public records requests under which they are legally obliged to respond.
That includes the phone call that Bane made to police on the islands in the early hours of March 8th – a critical piece of evidence Ms Heslop’s family desperately want to be public.
After promising an interview with one of the detectives, their media relations officer stopped responding to emails and phone calls.
Ms Heslop’s parents have said they are ‘absolutely gutted’ at the lack of progress in the investigation.
In a statement to MailOnline Ms Street said: ‘We have been told that the CCTV wasn’t working in the local area due to a power outage on the island.
‘We were shown some CCTV footage allegedly showing Sarm and Ryan walking back to their dinghy but it was turned off before I could see them step onto the boat and this footage has never been publicly released. And now we discover that the 911 call Ryan made to the coast guard was never recorded! Something doesn’t add up’.
Ryan Bane had been dating Ms Heslop for eight months — sitting aboard Siren Song, his yacht – and was on holiday with her when she went missing in March 2021
Bane (above) is the only person of interest in the case but has not surfaced since detectives admitted losing track of him in early July 2021. Pictured: Bane on his boat in March 2021
The text message sent to Brenda Street arrived one morning around 11am was succinct and stripped of emotion. ‘This is Ryan Bane, Sarm’s boyfriend,’ it read. ‘Please ring me’
She added: ‘It’s becoming increasingly frustrating and more upsetting to find that the VIPD ‘ongoing investigation’ isn’t going anywhere. The lack of updates and correspondence from the VIPD leads me to believe they are not caring Police Officers or indeed human’.
Bane – who is not a suspect – was allowed to sail away from St Thomas and has now reportedly renamed the Siren Song and is trying to sell the vessel for £170,000.
In March last year Ms Heslop’s desperate parents travelled to the US Virgin Islands to demand answers to why Bane was never even interviewed by police.
They have called on British police to investigate and forensically examine her belongings.
Ms Heslop’s best friend Kate Owen has said that the family wanted ‘more than anything else in the world’ for the UK police to get involved.
She has said: ‘There’s been no investigation this side, and the one over there hasn’t given us any answers.
‘We’re no clearer as to what happened that night than at the start. We need them to get involved.’
Adding to the family’s alarm has been that Bane’s ex-wife Cori Stevenson, alleged he had a history of violence and controlling behaviour.
Bane’s whereabouts are currently unknown and a lawyer representing him did not return a request for comment.
He had hired celebrity lawyer David Cattie – who represented Ghislaine Maxwell – within days of Ms Heslop’s disappearance.
Cattie said previously that coastguards had conducted an ‘on-site inspection of the vessel’ and an ‘interview without limitation’, and that Bane, ‘devastated’ and ‘heartbroken’ at Sarm’s disappearance, had handed over her personal belongings including her phone, iPad and passport to the police.
He has denied that Bane had a hand in any wrongdoing and said he was ‘heartbroken’ over Ms Heslop’s disappearance.
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