The family of a British woman who has been missing for three years in the US Virgin Islands are pleading for help from President Biden to find her.
Sarm Heslop, a former air hostess from Southampton, was living what seemed to be her dream life in the US Virgin Islands, a group of Caribbean islands known for their white sand and turquoise waters.
She had moved to be with her new boyfriend, Ryan Bane, and the pair were living and working together on Mr Bane’s boat, named Siren Song.
But in March 2021, in the dead of night, the 41-year-old disappeared from the catamaran. Three years on she’s still officially missing, but her mother Brenda Street now believes she was killed.
Image: Sarm Heslop was last seen aboard her boyfriend’s catamaran
“I do believe she was murdered,” Ms Street told Sky News. “There are places where people can be put in the ocean and never found. I believe that’s what happened. I’d like to just bring her home, I can grieve then. I haven’t grieved because I don’t have her, and I don’t know how to.”
Ms Heslop and Mr Bane had been out at a sports bar in Frank Bay, St John, the night before she went missing. Mr Bane reported Ms Heslop missing to the Virgin Islands Police Department at 2.30am the following morning, saying he woke up to find her gone.
He was advised to tell the coastguard but didn’t do so, reportedly, until nine hours later. When they eventually boarded the boat, a coastguard report alleges he was “highly intoxicated” and prevented a search of the cabin.
Island police have never interviewed Mr Bane, never forensically searched the boat and refused assistance from the FBI.
“They’ve not done their jobs as police officers, not done their job as human beings,” Ms Street said.
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Speaking from Essex, where she now lives, Ms Street called for the US authorities to remove the case from the Virgin Islands police.
“I emailed President Biden,” she said. “But he didn’t reply. I’m asking for his assistance, for some department of his to help us.”
Family recruit former Met Police homicide commander
The family have recruited a former Metropolitan Police homicide commander, David Johnston, to assist in the search for Ms Heslop. He has written to Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron to urge him to push the US authorities to oversee the Virgin Islands Police Department investigation.
Mr Johnston said: “What I think we really need now is for David Cameron as the foreign secretary to hold his counterpart in the US, who’s the secretary of state for the interior, to account, to demand the governor on the island, please give clear and unambiguous answers to the family regarding what they’ve done or what else could be done. And to consider the formal interview of the boyfriend to ask him what happened that night.”
Image: Ryan Bane
Boyfriend has domestic violence conviction
Mr Bane has a domestic violence conviction. In 2011 he was jailed for assaulting his ex-wife, Cori Stephenson.
In a statement, a lawyer for Mr Bane said: “While we empathise with Sarm’s family’s frustration, Ryan Bane had nothing to do with Sarm’s disappearance. Ryan is heartbroken that Sarm went missing… The coastguard was twice on the vessel conducting a search and questioning Ryan. They had unfettered access to the vessel and Ryan answered all questions posed to him.”
A UK Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are assisting the family of a British woman who has been reported missing in the US Virgin Islands and are in contact with the US Virgin Islands Police and the US coastguard.”
The Virgin Islands Police Department didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.
American Senator Ted Cruz has broken ranks with fellow US conservatives and
hit out at talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, saying it was “mafioso” behaviour.
Kimmel implied the suspect was a Maga Republican, despite the man’s mother telling police he had “started to lean more to the left”.
As a result, Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr threatened Disney and local broadcasters with investigations and regulatory action if they aired Kimmel’s show – which led to dozens of local TV stations affiliated with ABC pulling it.
US President Donald Trump, who appointed Carr, lauded the decision.
But Mr Cruz criticised the threats as “dangerous as hell”.
“I got to say that’s right out of ‘Goodfellas’,” he said, evoking the Martin Scorsese gangster movie. “That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here.
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“It would be a shame if something happened to it’.”
The senator, a former constitutional lawyer, then adopted a broad mafioso accent to quote Mr Carr’s comments about broadcasters this week: “We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.”
Mr Trump fired back, telling reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that he disagreed with Mr Cruz – one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress – and calling Mr Carr “an incredible American patriot with courage.”
Image: Demonstrations against his suspension have sprung up. Pic: AP
The Texas senator’s remarks are a rare example of a prominent member of the president’s own party publicly criticising the actions of the administration, highlighting deepening concerns over free-speech rights and Mr Trump’s threatened crackdowns.
Prominent Democrats and civil rights groups condemned the Trump administration’s pressure to punish Kimmel and others who speak negatively of the president.
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US talk show titans speak out
Kimmel’s fellow late-night hosts have rallied around him, as did former US president Barack Obama, who wrote on X: “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.
Image: Barack Obama on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2016. Pic: Susan Walsh/AP
“This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent, and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating it.”
Conservative activists had been angered by Kimmel’s comments on his show that they were using the assassination to score “political points”.
Right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk was shot dead on 10 September as he took part in a public debate at a college campus in Utah .
Tyler Robinson, 22, was charged with aggravated murder, weapon, and obstruction of justice offences.
US talk show host Stephen Colbert has condemned the cancellation of fellow late-night star Jimmy Kimmel as a “blatant assault on freedom of speech”, as America’s top late night presenters came out fighting.
The move by Disney-owned ABC has been widely criticised, with the network accused of kowtowing to President Donald Trump, who celebrated the decision.
Also airing on Thursday night, Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s Daily Show, appeared in a garish gold set, in parody of Mr Trump’s redesign of the White House, to tell viewers the episode would be “another fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show”.
Stewart, playing the role of an over-the-top, politically obsequious TV host under authoritarian rule, lavished praise on the president and satirised his criticism of US cities and his deployment of the National Guard to fight crime.
“Coming to you tonight from the real […] crime-ridden cesspool that is New York City. It is a tremendous disaster like no-one’s ever seen before. Someone’s National Guard should invade this place, am I right?” he said.
He then introduced his guest – Maria Ressa, a journalist and author of the book How To Stand Up To A Dictator.
Image: Jon Stewart. Pic: Associated Press
Over at The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon told his audience he was “not sure what was going on” but that Kimmel is “a decent funny and loving guy and I hope he comes back”.
Fallon then promised viewers that in spite of people being “worried that we won’t keep saying what we want to say or that we will be censored”, he was going to cover the president’s recent trip to the UK “just like I normally would”.
He was then replaced by a voiceover describing Mr Trump as “incredibly handsome” and “making America great again”.
Image: Jimmy Fallon on Thursday’s Tonight Show. Pic: The Tonight Show X
Seth Meyers also joined the fray.
“Donald Trump is on his way back from a trip to the UK,” he said at the top of his show Late Night, “while back here at home, his administration is pursuing a crackdown on free speech… and completely unrelated, I just wanted to say that I have always admired and respected Mr Trump.
“I have always believed he was a visionary, an innovator, a great president, and an even better golfer.”
Kimmel’s removal from the show he has hosted for two decades led to criticism that free speech was under attack.
But speaking on his visit to Britain, Donald Trump claimed he was suspended “because he had bad ratings”.
It came after fellow late-night host Colbert saw his programme cancelled earlier this year, which fans claimed was also down to his criticism of Mr Trump, who has since railed against Kimmel, Meyers, and Fallon.
He has posted on Truth Social that they should all be cancelled.
Image: Jimmy Kimmel hosting last year’s Oscars. Pic: AP
Figures from both the worlds of entertainment and politics lined up to lament ABC’s removal of Kimmel.
Chat show doyenne David Letterman said people should not be fired just because they don’t “suck up” to what he called “an authoritarian” president.
During an appearance at The Atlantic Festival 2025 in New York on Thursday night, he added: “It’s no good. It’s silly. It’s ridiculous.
“I feel bad about this, because we all see where see this is going, correct? It’s managed media.”
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Image: Barack Obama on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2016. Pic: Susan Walsh/AP
Former US president Barack Obama wrote on X: “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.
“This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent, and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating it.”
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