The family of missing Brit Sarm Heslop have spoken of their anger after the police chief overseeing the investigation into her disappearance quit amid allegations of corruption.
Relatives of the Southampton-born flight attendant said they were ‘shocked but not surprised’ to learn that US Virgin Islands police commissioner Ray Martinez had quit.
Martinez resigned after being told he was the target of an investigation by US prosecutors which reportedly relates to a cyber-security contract awarded to his force.
Sarm’s family said that Martinez has ‘routinely ignored our pleas’ for a meeting about the disappearance of Sarm, who was last seen in 2021 in the USVI.
They demanded that the territory’s governor Albert Bryan show his commitment to finding Sarm by agreeing to meet with them.
Heslop, 41, was last seen alive three years ago after her and her boyfriend Ryan Bane were spotted leaving a restaurant in the US Virgin Islands
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
Sarm was 41 when she vanished without a trace on the USVI island of St John on March 8th 2021.
She was last seen with her boyfriend Ryan Bane, who was arrested and convicted for domestic violence in 2011 after he attacked his ex-wife Corie Stevenson, at a restaurant near to where his yacht was docked.
Police in the US territory did not prosecute Bane, 45, who hired one of Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers to represent him and is now apparently back on the American mainland.
According to a report in the Virgin Islands Daily News, Martinez’s resignation was confirmed by Richard Motta Jr, the communications director of Government House, the government of the island nation.
He said: ‘The administration has been informed that Ray Martinez, the Commissioner of the Virgin Islands Police Department, is implicated in an ongoing federal investigation.
Bane had been dating Heslop for eight months — seen here sitting aboard Siren Song, his yacht - and was on holiday with her when she went missing in March 2021
Ryan Bane's luxury 47-foot catamaran, named Siren Song, sits in Frank Bay on St. John in the US Virgin Islands
‘Adhering to our zero-tolerance policy against corruption, the Governor has accepted Mr Martinez’s resignation to ensure the integrity of our law enforcement efforts’.
The Virgin Islands Consortium reported that a company which was awarded a contract with the USVI police department later gave Martinez some money to finish a restaurant project he was working on.
In a statement, Sarm’s family and friends said: ‘We are shocked but not surprised to learn that VIPD Police Commissioner Ray Martinez, who has routinely ignored our pleas for contact in relation to Sarm's case, has resigned amid accusations of corruption’.
The statement said that Sarm’s family ‘now have an understanding as to why their correspondence with Ray Martinez may have gone unanswered’.
They said: ‘Since 2022 all involved #JusticeForSarm have been requesting the release of the CCTV footage showing Sarm and her boyfriend Ryan Bane walking back to their dinghy hours before her disappearance but requests go ignored leading all to think that the footage has been destroyed.
Bane (above) is the only person of interest in the case. He is pictured here on his boat in March 2021
A missing poster is seen here after Heslop went missing on March 8 2021 on the Virgin Islands
‘It has been evident that the USVIPD have no interest in addressing the crime on the island, they don’t want any outside agencies reviewing their investigations, they don’t want to release CCTV footage and are clearly not being held accountable for their actions, until now. We hope’.
Sarm’s family and friends said they want USVI governor Albert Bryan to meet with David Johnston QPM, a former Commander of Homicide and Serious Crime at Metropolitan Police, who is working with them.
Martinez refused to meet with Johnston for the last 18 months and a meeting with the governor would ‘demonstrate his zero-tolerance stance’ towards crime.
The investigation into Sarm’s disappearance stalled after Bane refused to let the US Coast guard board his yacht, the Siren Song.
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.
Three years on from Heslop's disappearance, her mother still looking for answers from the police
But he waited nine hours before calling the US Coast Guard, despite being told by police to do so.
Sarm’s family has repeatedly demanded that the investigation be changed from missing person to murder.
Of particular concern to Sarm’s family is Bane’s violent past. He served 21 days in jail in 2011 after breaking one of his ex-wife’s teeth when he assaulted her. She has said that he ‘flipped like a switch’ and became a monster after their 2008 wedding.
In March Bane was seen working out at a gym in a Michigan town near where his parents live.
He was chased out after being recognised.
MailOnline has contacted the USVI police department for comment.
A lawyer for Bane has previously denied he did anything wrong.
