Sara and Michael Payne address the press outside the Home Office after meeting with Britain's Home Secretary David Blunkett in central London, December 18, 2001.
Sara and Michael Payne address the press outside the Home Office after meeting with Britain's Home Secretary David Blunkett in central London, December 18, 2001. The Paynes are calling for public access to a register of named sex offenders after their eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered by convicted paedophile Roy Whiting in July 2000. REUTERS/Russell Boyce

For 14 years, Michael Payne could not get over the murder of his eight-year-old daughter, Sarah. At the age of 45, he died. A Kent police spokesman confirmed that the death was not considered "suspicious" and a report was being drawn up, according to ITV.

Sarah was killed by paedophile Roy Whiting in 2000. Initially not knowing the complete facts, her mother, Sara, worked steadily with the media in order to appeal for her daughter's return. After the murder was revealed and Whiting was jailed in 2001, she campaigned strongly for child protection. Though she had her husband's support throughout, he deteriorated in the years that followed the death, according to The Guardian.

Michael moved out of the family home in Surrey after separating from Sara in 2003, from Brishing Lane, Park Wood, in Maidstone. "It is desperately sad," said his defence counsel. Michael never requested nor received "bereavement counseling," and lived through every parent's "enduring nightmare."

Filled with "anger and bitterness," Michael had to joust with alcohol-related problems and depression.He even got into a brawl with his brother after a drinking bout, and served a jail sentence for attacking him, even though his brother tried to retract his statement in the court after the judge sentenced Michael, according to Mirror UK.

Michael finally died in Maidstone, Kent, where he has stayed since he left his Sara. Although they had been married and lived with each other for 18 years, they separated in 2003 as they found it too tough to cope with the death of the child.

In 2001, Whiting, who was a convicted sex offender when he killed Sarah in West Sussex near her grandparents' home, was given a life sentence. The child's death had led to the evolution of Sarah's Law, which permits parents, carers and guardians to have the right to look into any man's record of sex abuse if he has contact with their children. After the law, over 700 records of paedophiles have been revealed in England, Wales and Scotland.

Michael Payne's children, grief-stricken after their father's death at Kent on Monday, describe their feelings. His daughter Charlotte wrote on her Facebook page that in spite of what had happened and the mistakes he had made, he would always remain her daddy. She also rued that she was sorry she could not save her father. "I hope you have finally found your peace and happiness," she wrote.

Her brother Lee recalled: "Dad, you had your demons and troubles but you had a good heart and was a decent man!" He hoped his father had found peace at last, and the he would be missed by the heartbroken family.

Sara Payne, today a child protection campaigner, said to itv that both of them had stopped being the same people they had once been, and everyone knew the "awful reason why."