Panorama.S2014E41.The.Girl.Who.Vanished
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00:00Missing for 11 years, presumed murdered, yet still no justice for the family of Blackpool's
00:08schoolgirl, Charlene Downs.
00:10So many questions that need answered, and we just want to know.
00:17Two men were wrongly prosecuted. They claim police corruption.
00:22Mistake is different. You do it unknowingly, but this was quite deliberate from day one.
00:28We reveal key evidence the police withheld.
00:32It really effectively drove a coach and horses through the prosecution case.
00:38Was it a deliberate act or incompetence?
00:42I would describe the investigation as something that we're not proud of.
00:46We speak to the detective who claims she was made to carry the can for police failure.
00:53My name was all over the papers.
00:56Detective forced to quit because of the Charlene Downs trial.
01:00And asked if more should be done to protect young girls in Blackpool from abuse.
01:05I said to one of the girls, I said, you know that was grooming. I said it's illegal for
01:10him to do that.
01:11Tonight on Panorama, what went wrong in the hunt for the killer of a missing schoolgirl?
01:23Charlene Downs was just 14 when she left the family home on November the 1st.
01:33She was going out with a girlfriend and had seemed happy days before she disappeared.
01:38This is the story of a lost girl, a police investigation gone wrong, and dark secrets
01:44behind the bright lights of this holiday town.
01:47Despite an extensive police investigation by more than 40 officers, the teenager has
01:52not been seen since.
01:55It's a strange and complex story. 14-year-old Charlene Downs had a troubled home life.
02:01She was last seen 11 years ago by her sister and mother.
02:05Charlene's family has never given up hope of her return.
02:07But there hasn't been a single confirmed sighting of Charlene.
02:11It was roughly about quarter to seven at night. I saw my daughter Rebecca and Charlene walking
02:17up this street.
02:18And they both said, hello, mum. And I said, hello. And they both came over to me.
02:21I said to her, come on, we've got to go. And she was, no, I'm not. I'm going. I'm going
02:26out.
02:27I thought, fair enough. And that was the last time I'd seen her or heard of my sister.
02:32She gave me a kiss on the cheek. She waved me goodbye and went in the direction of the
02:36winter gardens down there. And I've never seen her since.
02:40Lancashire police launched a missing persons inquiry. It was 2003. And Blackpool, like
02:47other towns and cities, was waking up to a crime that back then was little understood.
02:52The grooming and sexual exploitation of young girls by older men.
02:58What did you find out was actually happening here?
03:01We very quickly discovered that not only Charlene, but quite a number of other girls of her age,
03:06all under 16, with one exception, were regularly visiting here.
03:11This back alley became a focus of the Charlene Downs investigation.
03:16Some of the girls said they saw a sex act being performed. Some of the girls said they
03:20saw girls going into the buildings. And they would come out with £2, £5 cigarettes, a
03:27drink, a bag of chips.
03:30The inquiry slowly started to reveal the scale of Blackpool's grooming problem.
03:35So what did you think, uncovering all of this in the course of the investigation?
03:39I think the police were absolutely horrified. I certainly was, because I never realised
03:43that this sort of activity was as prolific and as long-lived as it had been.
03:50It became clear Charlene had had contact with a wide range of older men who targeted underage
03:56girls for sex.
03:59Charlene's disappearance was soon upgraded to a murder inquiry. But with no body and
04:04no crime scene, it was a difficult investigation, and Lancashire police were under pressure.
04:11Thousands of men were questioned, but there were no firm leads.
04:15Then, in 2006, an apparent breakthrough.
04:21Takeaway owner Ayad Al Batiki, known locally as Eddie, was arrested and charged with Charlene's
04:27murder, a charge he's always denied.
04:33His business partner, Mohamed Raveshi, was charged with helping dispose of her body.
04:38For the first time, he's agreed to be questioned on camera about the allegations.
04:44Did you have anything to do with the disappearance of Charlene Downs?
04:48No. I made it very clear in court that I do not know her, I've never seen her, and even
04:55if I saw her on the street, I wouldn't recognise her, because it had nothing to do with her
05:00at all.
05:02Did Ayad Al Batiki have anything to do with her disappearance?
05:05As far as I know, he never ever said anything to me that he knows it.
05:09Why do you think he ended up charged with her murder, and you were charged with helping
05:14to dispose of her body?
05:16So this is something that I'd love to know myself, the real reason for that.
05:25Eddie Al Batiki and Mohamed Raveshi own this takeaway. Back in 2003, it was called Funny
05:31Boys, and it had a dubious reputation. According to people we've spoken to, young girls used
05:37to hang around here late at night.
05:43One woman who worked for Eddie Al Batiki when she was 15 says he took a keen interest in
05:48underage girls. Her words are spoken by an actor as she doesn't want to be identified.
05:55I'd say Eddie liked girls no older than 18 years old, and very early teens. He'd be like,
06:02look what I've got, look what I can offer. He'd ask girls to go in the back with him
06:07and come and have a party with him. Eddie would try it on with me. He'd think it'd be
06:12all right to grab you and slap your bottom.
06:17Another woman, who was also 15 at the time, describes how young girls would drink and
06:21take drugs with Eddie Al Batiki. Her words are also spoken by an actor.
06:28Drinking, drugs, ecstasy. I've seen people taking the ketamine, smoking weed, but it
06:35was mainly ecstasy. That's the only one I'd dare take. Everyone was taking it. It was
06:41offered to you.
06:43How, though, did Eddie Al Batiki end up accused of murdering Charlene Downs and his business
06:51partner of helping to dispose of her body? To understand that, you have to turn the clock
06:56back to November 2004.
07:01A local businessman called David Cassidy told the police that he had it on good authority
07:06that Eddie Al Batiki and Mohammad Raveshi were involved in Charlene's disappearance.
07:11He knew both men through work.
07:13I never ever at any point got on with Raveshi. Me and him just didn't get on. But Eddie and
07:19me gradually became friends, became good friends, always helping each other out as
07:23business goes.
07:26David Cassidy says one night in the summer of 2004, Eddie's brother, Tarek, unexpectedly
07:32told him something shocking.
07:34Tarek started saying to me, oh, that girl that went missing, I know what happened to
07:39her. Eddie knows what happened to her.
07:42It was a bolt out of the blue. We looked at what we knew about Eddie Al Batiki, and he'd
07:48made a statement in the summer of 2004. I don't know Charlene Downs. I've never heard
07:53of her. I don't know what's happened to her. That's all we knew about him.
07:58Based on what David Cassidy had told them, police were given permission to install bugging
08:03devices in Mr Raveshi's car and the house where both men lived.
08:08Once Mr Cassidy had made his statement, the chief constable gave authority for the police
08:12to insert culvert microphones to see what was being said, if anything, by either him
08:18or Mr Al Batiki.
08:21For the next month, conversations between the men were monitored day and night, but
08:26nothing incriminating was heard. It looked like the end of the line.
08:32Then a detective on the case took on the task of listening to them again. Jan Besant transcribed
08:38large sections of 52 digital audio tapes. Almost two and a half thousand hours of work.
08:46I'm not going to say it was very easy extracting the content from them. It wasn't. It was a
08:53very laborious process, and it was very difficult and frustrating. There was a lot of repetition
08:58of going back and playing the same section of sentence over and over again, until I became
09:04accustomed with the dialect, with the tones, with the way that they talked.
09:10Panorama has obtained some of the undercover tapes. We played them back to Jan Besant.
09:16She explains how she started to hear what she believed were conversations relating to
09:21a murder.
09:35OK, so what I believe them to have been saying on that particular occasion, or Revesi to
09:41have been saying, is, we buried Charlene and there is nothing left of her. She was here,
09:46she died, there is nothing really.
09:48I must admit, it was quite hard to hear, but let me have another listen, yeah?
09:56From four weeks of recordings, Jan Besant found around 30 sections where she thought
10:08she could hear incriminating phrases. But she also found excerpts where the men denied
10:14ever knowing Charlene. The sound quality was poor, but the police and Crown Prosecution
10:20Service felt that the tapes, together with David Cassidy's testimony, were enough to
10:25bring the case to trial.
10:27In court, both defendants strongly denied the charges. Sound experts, brought in by
10:33both sides to analyse the recordings, rarely agreed on precisely what was being said. And
10:39even when they did agree, the defendants said the snatches of potentially incriminating
10:44conversation had been taken out of context.
10:49You reject that there is anything incriminating in the tapes at all?
10:53If there is something sound to be incriminating, it is all conveyed to us. We're just repeating
10:59what police are saying to other people about us. That's all there is to it.
11:06After two weeks of deliberation, the jury was unable to reach a decision.
11:11The jury, hearing the trial of a takeaway boss accused of killing a schoolgirl, has
11:15been discharged after it failed to reach a verdict.
11:21When it came back, I think almost two weeks later, that it was a hung jury, yeah, the
11:27air was thick with despondency.
11:30The judge ordered a retrial. It was planned for April 2008. But just days before it was
11:36due to begin, the case suddenly collapsed.
11:41We went for a trial once, and I made it very clear, this whole thing has been just like
11:46an imaginary case in the head. It had no basis. It has been proved today.
11:52Mohamed Raveshi and Eddie Albateki, held on remand for more than two years, were acquitted
11:58and released from jail.
12:01It was a dramatic turn of events, and devastating for Charlene's family.
12:06They delivered us the news. I just couldn't believe it. I just collapsed. I went, no,
12:09no, no, no, no, please don't tell me this. We've got to have another trial, but we can't.
12:12I said, please God, don't do this to me. I said, I just burst into tears, broke down
12:17in tears. Oh, it was horrible.
12:22More than four years after Charlene Downs first went missing, the biggest murder inquiry
12:28in Lancashire Police history had fallen apart.
12:33I would describe the investigation as something that we're not proud of. We regret some of
12:39the failings in that investigation that led to the trial collapsing. We have apologised
12:44to the Downs family, and we have taken action since to correct some of the failings that
12:49were highlighted.
12:52One of those failings centred on the covert recordings. Before the retrial, it emerged
12:57that the police had some that were slightly better quality. Jan Besant was asked to listen
13:02to them. In some cases, she found key phrases she had previously thought were incriminating
13:09but no longer were. There was an inquiry and seven officers were disciplined. The harshest
13:15punishment was handed down to Jan Besant.
13:19I think out of an inquiry team of maybe 30 officers, I was the only one that they moved.
13:25The bosses stayed put, the staff stayed put, nobody moved. It was just me, and it was terrible.
13:35She was accused of acting without integrity and honesty in the way she transcribed the
13:40covert recordings. She was found guilty of gross misconduct in 2011 and forced to resign.
13:50My mum and dad came to stay with me, and my name was all over the papers, all over the
13:59papers. Detective forced to quit because of the Charlene Downs trial. The kiddies had
14:06a hard time with it at school. My parents had a terrible time of it, and it was very
14:15sad, you know.
14:16Was it fair? She seems to have been effectively scapegoated.
14:21Police officers know, whatever rank, whatever role they're in, that they have an individual
14:26responsibility in terms of the tasks that they're given. When you look at what actually
14:31went wrong, it all centred around the presentation of that particular piece of evidence in court
14:38which she was responsible for.
14:42Jan Besant became the very public face of the failed case. But Panorama can reveal that
14:48the actual reason the case collapsed had nothing to do with her integrity.
14:54Remember the police informant, David Cassidy, the man who pointed the finger at Eddie Albertiki
14:59and Mohamed Raveshi? We can reveal serious police failings in the way his evidence was
15:04handled and disclosed.
15:07How central was the evidence of David Cassidy?
15:11It was absolutely crucial, in my opinion.
15:16David Steer QC was brought in by the Crown Prosecution Service at the end of 2007 to
15:22build the case for retrial.
15:25He was allowed to tell the jury of a conversation he'd had with Tariq Albertiki and it was then
15:32a matter for the jury to decide whether they accepted the truth of what he said Tariq Albertiki
15:39had said or not.
15:41Both lapels had a microphone either side.
15:44In fact, David Cassidy, acting on police instructions, had covertly recorded conversations with Tariq.
15:51David Cassidy had told police that Tariq had said his brother knew what had happened
15:56to Charlene. Detectives hoped Tariq would repeat this on tape.
16:02The Prosecuting Council and Defence Council were unaware that those recordings, the actual
16:10tape recordings, still existed. Why they hadn't told them remains something of a mystery.
16:18As Disclosure Officer, it should have been Don Fraser's job to give the tapes to the
16:23Defence, but even he didn't know they existed.
16:27I had always been excluded by the officer leading the investigation from knowing anything
16:32about the detail of the covert investigation he had undertaken to have that disclosed himself.
16:39Was that unusual?
16:41It was unique in my experience and I've prepared many, many investigations of murder. I'd never
16:47been in that situation before and I tried to take issue with it at the time, but I was
16:51slapped down.
16:53We can't ask Don Fraser's former boss about this because he's no longer alive.
17:00It was only just before the retrial was due to start that Lancashire Police suddenly revealed
17:06the tapes existed. They've never been heard in public until now.
17:12Tariq, it's me.
17:14It's you, I know it's you, just I never f***ing say it, no, no.
17:17Well, what were you saying?
17:18I swear to God, hand up the hat, if you start back again to open something, I'll never say it.
17:23And I know myself, I swear to God, David, I'll never ever speak to you all my life.
17:29Don Fraser was there when a Defence lawyer came to listen to the tapes for the first time.
17:35Cassidy is pressing Tariq Albertiki to repeat what he said he'd said in the summer of 2004
17:41and Tariq Albertiki says, what are you talking about? I never said any such thing.
17:46The Defence lawyer punched the air in my presence, he was sat in front of me, punched the air,
17:51said, your case is finished.
17:52I never said it, my friend.
17:54You only said something very similar to that, honestly.
17:57How fatally then did this undermine the star witness?
18:01This absolutely shocked the prosecution.
18:06It really effectively drove a coach and horses through the prosecution case.
18:13Tariq Albertiki told Panorama he knows nothing about Charlene's disappearance
18:18and never told David Cassidy anything about it.
18:21He says he wasn't in the country when she went missing.
18:25So had the police deliberately withheld evidence
18:28because it undermined their key witness and their case?
18:33To put it at its best, it was a breakdown in communication.
18:38And worst? And it is worst, I'd rather not say.
18:44Eddie Albertiki and Mohammad Raveshi accused Lancashire Police of malicious prosecution.
18:50The men were paid half a million pounds between them in compensation.
18:55Why do you think it took so long for those tapes to emerge?
18:58Because, how do you not know? Because police wanted to hide it, obviously.
19:01Because they spent a lot of public money and they put their reputation on the line
19:06and to obviously, they wanted to get away. That is what they did.
19:09So you don't think it was a simple police mistake?
19:12No, mistake? Mistake is different, you do it unknowingly.
19:18But this was quite deliberate from day one.
19:21The police now admit that had the recordings been disclosed as they should have been,
19:26it's unlikely permission would have been granted to secretly record the two men.
19:31But they deny the Cassidy tapes were deliberately withheld.
19:35The Cassidy recordings were never disclosed to the prosecution or the defence during the murder trial
19:41and yet they're loud and clear on the recordings.
19:44So how could it be that they did not emerge until the 11th hour?
19:49The decision was made, and it was a flawed decision,
19:53that there was no evidence and audio on those tapes from Cassidy
19:59that was available to present as evidence.
20:02That's why he gave verbal evidence. It later transpired there was.
20:05That's a mistake.
20:06But the reason those weren't submitted as evidence was because they totally undermined the star witness.
20:14Well, I couldn't comment on that. That's a supposition that you might have.
20:19What I would say is...
20:20It looks as though it was deliberately withheld by the police.
20:23Nobody has said anywhere in any of the independent investigations
20:27that there is a suggestion that we deliberately withheld that.
20:30It was incompetence.
20:35The Cassidy revelation completely undermined the credibility of the murder case
20:40against Eddie Albertiki and Mohamed Raveshi,
20:43so much so that the murder trial should probably never have taken place.
20:49However, during the trial, there had been accusations of sexual exploitation.
20:56A number of girls gave evidence about the two men's behaviour.
21:00Mr Albertiki denies their allegations, as does Mr Raveshi.
21:06So each of these girls individually has lied under oath?
21:09Of course they have. I am saying quite clearly it is untrue. It is untrue.
21:16When Eddie Albertiki was charged with Charlene Downs' murder,
21:20he was already on remand, accused of raping a 23-year-old teacher.
21:25Her words are spoken by an actor to protect her identity.
21:30I went out with a lot of other girls on a hindu.
21:34I didn't get into the nightclub with the others as I was in an inebriated state.
21:40She went across the road to Funny Boy's Takeaway.
21:44I can remember sitting down for a coffee and I can remember nothing else after that.
21:51What happened next was caught on Eddie Albertiki's own CCTV cameras
21:56in rooms above the Takeaway, which is now called Mario's.
22:00Don Fraser has seen the footage.
22:04She's in his office lounge.
22:06She sort of slumps all but unconsciously onto her side on his settee
22:12and he then sits next to her and is stroking her hip.
22:18He's then seen taking her up to the bedroom.
22:22You see her under a duvet. You see him taking his clothes off.
22:27Not all of them, but down to his underwear. He gets under the duvet as well.
22:31The woman says she came to when her phone rang.
22:35There was someone in the bed on top of me.
22:39I ran out of the building with my phone. I shot across the road.
22:44I could have been anywhere.
22:48From your viewing of the footage, did it look like she had been a willing participant?
22:53She was all but unconscious. She couldn't have given consent, as far as I was concerned.
22:59Following the collapse of the murder trial, the rape charge was also dropped.
23:04The Crown Prosecution Service told Panorama that evidence had emerged
23:08which led it to conclude there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.
23:16I still have panic attacks and I still don't like going out on my own.
23:21I'm still affected by it. I am a totally different person and I'm still scared by it.
23:28Eddie Albertiki declined to be interviewed for this programme.
23:32He denies the rape allegation.
23:36We've obtained court documents that reveal Mr Albertiki has been arrested
23:40over allegations of rape five times since the collapse of the retrial.
23:46A remarkable and troubling statistic.
23:49According to the Blackpool Magistrate, who upheld the decision,
23:54on the grounds that his business partner, Eddie Albertiki, posed a risk to vulnerable people.
24:02There wasn't enough evidence to prosecute Mr Albertiki.
24:05His business partner says the police won't leave him alone.
24:10If you're running a business with a man like that, and these sorts of allegations come up,
24:15you're going to have to do something about it.
24:18If you're running a business with a man like that, and these sorts of allegations come up,
24:23you might be concerned.
24:25Of course I am concerned, but the thing is, it's coming from police,
24:29very police that we experience a lot of problems and they just put us through hell for no reason.
24:34That's why I don't believe them.
24:37But concerns about Eddie Albertiki's behaviour towards young girls persist.
24:42In 2011, he was jailed for headbutting a 17-year-old girl.
24:49Another 17-year-old was employed by Mr Albertiki at The Takeaway in 2009.
24:55She says he regularly plied underage girls with drink and drugs.
25:01They'd come down from being upstairs.
25:04They'd just say that they've had sex with him,
25:08they've had some drugs, they've had some alcohol.
25:12Like he's given them money or a present or something.
25:18I said to one of the girls, I said, you know, that was grooming.
25:21I said, it's illegal for him to do that.
25:23And she's like, no, he loves me.
25:26We're together and all this, that.
25:28And I was like, you're 14.
25:33Mr Albertiki says he's never been questioned, arrested or charged over any such allegations.
25:40Lancashire police say they're aware of continuing concerns about Mr Albertiki.
25:47It's my view that he presents a level of risk to young women
25:52around that area that requires management.
25:56So why hasn't anything been done?
25:58Every complaint that's been made about that individual
26:01has been recorded, investigated and we've looked for the evidence
26:07in order to take a prosecution forward.
26:09Unfortunately, that has not been possible.
26:12The police say the collapse of the murder trial
26:15hasn't stopped them investigating allegations of grooming and sexual exploitation.
26:20That has not hindered in any way our resolve to properly investigate
26:26any of those crimes that are alleged against any individuals.
26:30What I would say is that when, obviously,
26:34you have charged two people, they've been on remand for 18 months,
26:38you've had a trial collapse because of your failings,
26:42if you're going to look at prosecuting those people,
26:45you'd better get your act together.
26:49Trust in the force has been badly shaken.
26:52Jan Besant was finally cleared of dishonesty,
26:55but it took a year to have the finding of gross misconduct against her overturned.
27:01After two days of hearing, I was fully exonerated of any wrongdoing.
27:07Do you think you were just a scapegoat?
27:09Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt.
27:14And her former colleague, Dawn Fraser,
27:16is still fighting Lancashire Constabulary.
27:19He faced disciplinary action for giving Jan Besant information
27:23to help her case from the police computer.
27:26Information the force denied having.
27:29In simple terms, I think the Lancashire Constabulary
27:33put their reputation above the truth.
27:38The Charlene Downs investigation
27:40has cost Lancashire Police several million pounds,
27:44yet still her family are no closer to knowing what happened to her.
27:50We've still got to try and find normality of life somehow, some way,
27:57and it's really, really difficult.
28:00There's no justice for her.
28:02There's so many questions that need answering.
28:08And we just want to know, like, where she is
28:11so we can finally, like...
28:15..give her a proper send-off that she deserves.
28:21Lancashire Police say the case won't be closed
28:24until whoever is responsible for the murder of Charlene Downs
28:28is finally found and brought to justice.
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