A Five Year Fight For Justice- The Murder Of Hannah Foster
A Five Year Fight For Justice- The Murder Of Hannah Foster
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00:00 Hillary and I made a promise that we wouldn't rest until Hannah's killer was brought to
00:17 justice.
00:18 Four years later, that promise is still a long way from being honoured, but we are no
00:25 less determined.
00:30 Our lives are now totally preoccupied with achieving justice for Hannah, and this responsibility
00:36 is physically and emotionally exhausting.
00:41 [Music]
00:48 [Music]
01:16 Hannah Clare Foster was born on August 31st, 1985.
01:21 She lived in Southampton, England with her parents, Hilary and Trevor, and her younger
01:24 sister Sarah.
01:26 Hannah was a hard-working and high-achieving 17-year-old.
01:29 She was completing her A-levels and was preparing to study medicine at university.
01:33 Her ambition was always to be a doctor, and her teachers described her as a gifted and
01:38 straight-A student that could have excelled in anything she put her mind to.
01:41 Happy, smiling and sociable, Hannah was popular amongst her peers and had a bright and promising
01:46 future ahead of her.
01:48 Friday 14th March 2003, Hannah had made evening plans with her friend Helen to go out for
01:53 some drinks in Southampton.
01:55 After they finished their night at a bar called The Hobbit, they left together and were spotted
01:58 on CCTV just before quarter to eleven, walking down the high street.
02:08 Hannah walked Helen to the bus stop, waited until she got onto the bus, said her goodbyes
02:12 and carried on walking.
02:14 Hannah's house was only half a mile away, so she continued on.
02:18 At around 5am, and with Hannah still not home, her parents sent her a message.
02:23 She always let her parents know if she had planned on staying out later than expected,
02:27 or if she was staying at her friend's house, and with nothing to confirm either of these
02:30 were the case, her parents were deeply concerned.
02:34 By mid-morning, and with still no response, her father made the call to the police.
02:38 With this being so out of character, the police acted quickly, and their first point of call
02:42 was to look into Hannah's phone.
02:44 Fortunately, her phone was still on and emitting a signal.
02:47 Every time her phone got a text or call from her parents, it pinged off several different
02:51 locations, and the police began to piece together where she might be.
02:55 Panic set in when the team realised that on the evening of the 14th of March, a 999 call
03:00 was made from her phone.
03:02 When the phone call was connected to the police, it was passed onto an automated system known
03:06 as the Silent Solutions when the operator couldn't hear any sound on the end of the
03:10 phone.
03:11 The system was then disconnected, and there was still no response from Hannah.
03:15 What also alarmed the police was that her phone was evidently moving rapidly, and this
03:18 could only mean one thing - it was in a vehicle.
03:21 This was further corroborated when they played and enhanced the call that was made to 999
03:25 that had lasted less than a minute.
03:28 They could tell from the tape that she appeared to be in a vehicle a lot larger than a standard
03:31 sized car, and whoever was in the vehicle with her was an older male with a South Asian
03:35 accent.
03:38 Whoever this man was, he was ordering Hannah to keep her head down.
03:41 It was obvious they were now dealing with an abduction, and every moment was crucial.
03:47 Signal Towers put the phone between Southampton and Portsmouth in the early morning of Saturday
03:51 15th March, but the phone was now stationary and somewhere in Portsmouth.
03:57 Using cell phone towers and checking every corresponding location, just 24 hours later,
04:03 people's worst fears were realised.
04:05 Hannah's body was discovered in some bushes on Allington Lane on the outskirts of Southampton.
04:09 She had been raped and strangled.
04:11 The semen found on her clothes was put into the National DNA database, but did not come
04:16 back as a match with anyone.
04:18 Following the Signal Tower pings, only a day after this awful discovery, another finding
04:22 was made.
04:23 In a recycling plant in Portsmouth, Hannah's bag and phone were retrieved.
04:28 The hunt was now on to find the mysterious man in the vehicle.
04:32 Using CCTV, alongside the cell phone tower data, the police determined that Hannah's
04:36 abductor would be linked to one of only seven vans.
04:39 The case was moving rapidly, and thanks to a huge tip, just a few days later the police
04:43 would find the man they were looking for.
04:45 41-year-old Meninder Pal Singh Kohli was an Indian immigrant who was also living in Southampton.
04:51 He was married with two children and worked for Hazelwood Foods as a sandwich delivery
04:55 driver.
04:56 Crime Watch launched an appeal using reconstructions asking for help with any information about
05:01 the vans, times or locations in question.
05:04 A supervisor of Hazelwood Foods contacted the police with his suspicions surrounding
05:08 Kohli.
05:09 He said that his delivery route was consistent with the area in question, and when he came
05:13 back to work the following day he had a scratch on his face, and left early due to what he
05:17 said was a bad back.
05:21 The police wasted no time in following this up, and when they ran his details, they found
05:25 his name was linked to one of the vans they were looking for on the CCTV footage.
05:30 Stone tile blocks put Hannah's phone near the M27 and M275 in Hampshire, and the CCTV
05:36 footage showed Kohli's van travelling down these stretches of motorway.
05:40 It also showed him at the recycling centre around the same time Hannah's phone stopped
05:44 moving.
05:51 When they located and seized his van at his place of work and inspected it, they found
05:55 blood and semen in the back, both of which matched what was found on Hannah's clothes.
06:02 Malinda Palsing Kohli had gone from being a person of interest to the only suspect.
06:08 On March 18th the police's case took a massive blow.
06:12 They arrived at Kohli's address to arrest him, but found the house completely empty
06:16 of everyone and everything.
06:20 Kohli had left the UK and travelled from Heathrow to Delhi.
06:24 Kohli's wife told the police he had flown out to see his dying mother and did not know
06:28 when he planned on returning.
06:30 Little did the police know, this would set in motion a five year long battle to bring
06:34 Hannah's killer to justice.
06:36 For just over a year, the case stood at a standstill.
06:41 Indian police services weren't able to make Hannah's case a priority, and the coverage
06:45 in the media was sparse and short lived.
06:47 The police wondered if Kohli's immediate family might be hiding him somewhere and supporting
06:51 him financially.
06:52 That theory quickly faded when Kohli's own father told the media that if his son had
06:56 committed these crimes, he needed to face the consequences.
07:00 He assured the media he would never protect him.
07:02 In July of 2004, Hannah's parents, Hillary and Trevor, took matters into their own hands
07:29 and made the 4,000 mile trip to Chandigarh, India to put Hannah's case on the map and
07:34 locate Maninderpal Singh Kohli.
07:36 Their heartfelt appeals would reach the ears, eyes and hearts of over 1 billion people.
07:41 During the 10 days they were there, they started a telephone hotline for anyone with information
07:45 about Kohli and made an abundance of press conferences.
07:50 Hannah's case was now firmly in the public eye and a reward of 5 million rupees was offered
07:54 to anyone that could help find Kohli, and by this time, everyone was looking for him.
08:01 A taxi driver saw Kohli's face in the paper and reported to police that he had been in
08:05 his cab.
08:07 He told him that he was on holiday from the UK, that he worked as a delivery driver and
08:11 his name was Mike.
08:13 He had formed an entirely new identity and had even married another woman despite it
08:17 being bigamous.
08:18 In a televised interview on July 28th 2004, Kohli confessed.
08:26 and I want to unburden myself.
08:31 I totally want to tell the truth what happened there that night.
08:34 She was crossing the road, I was coming out of the miter pub.
08:38 My van was parked on the same road where she is working.
08:43 I just picked my van and I came on the other road and I saw her again.
08:48 Then I stopped my vehicle and I abducted her.
08:53 I was totally drunk that night.
08:55 The truth is that my mother is very ill in India.
08:58 I want to go to see her as well.
09:02 It is very very bad luck for me.
09:06 I was totally blank that night.
09:09 My head was and I done that crime.
09:12 She was not agreed and I just strangled her.
09:17 I just put my hand on her mouth and killed her.
09:27 He said he had been drinking heavily the night he abducted Hannah and when he saw her walking
09:31 down the street he grabbed her as she went past his van.
09:35 After he carried out a horrific attack on her, he said he had no choice but to kill
09:39 her as she wouldn't promise to not report him.
09:44 As quickly as he had made it, he would retract this statement and claim he was forced to
09:48 say it.
09:50 He was held in custody in New Delhi and the next three years were long and arduous.
09:55 Hannah's grieving family waited on news of Cody's extradition to the UK so that justice
09:59 could finally be served.
10:02 In New Delhi, the case underwent 100 court proceedings and was appealed 35 times.
10:09 This delay is unfair on us and if the accused is innocent, just as unfair on him.
10:18 No one is benefiting from this delay.
10:21 Nobody can get on with his or her life until a decision is reached on extradition.
10:27 It can't be allowed to drag on indefinitely.
10:32 Three years later, in June of 2007, the call was finally made to extradite him to the UK
10:38 and as soon as Cody touched down at Heathrow Airport on the 28th July, he was arrested
10:43 and charged with kidnap, false imprisonment, rape, murder and perverting the course of
10:49 justice.
10:52 But the trial would not prove simple.
10:58 Despite the evidence against him, including his own admission, Cody pled not guilty, forcing
11:03 Hannah's family to relive the horrors of the case.
11:07 The trial began in October 2008 at Winchester Crown Court.
11:10 He would later change this statement and claim he was forced to rape and kill Hannah because
11:14 a gang of criminals made him do it.
11:17 These protests of innocence would prove futile and he was found guilty on all charges.
11:22 He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 24 years.
11:26 Well, perhaps the end of the city nightmare, though of course it's too early to tell, but
11:32 also time for closure for the family of British teenager Hannah Foster, raped, murdered five
11:38 years ago.
11:39 The Indian taxi driver, Minderpal Singh Kohli, accused of raping and murdering her was today
11:44 sentenced to 24 years in jail in a UK court.
11:48 This is five years after he committed the crime.
11:50 The 17-year-old was raped and murdered after a night out in Southampton in March 2003.
11:54 Kohli will in all probability walk out of jail after serving his recommended minimum
12:00 sentence and resume his life in the outside world.
12:07 This man callously deprived Hannah of her primary human right, the right to love.
12:14 This sentence gives him the right to a second chance at love, a second chance he never gave
12:19 Hannah.
12:22 Despite Kohli's relentless attempt to cover up his crimes, creating a new identity and
12:26 life in another country, and his attempts to pervert the course of justice, the truth
12:31 eventually caught up with him.
12:33 Thanks to the tireless work of the police in both the UK and India, and the incredible
12:38 battle that the Foster family fought for Hannah, justice was finally served.
12:43 [MUSIC]