AddThis

Share |

Monday 14 March 2011

Blackpool EDL Demo: Justice for Charlene Downes

On Saturday 26 March the EDL will hold a third demo in Blackpool to demand justice for Charlene Downes. On 1 November 2003 the fourteen-year-old girl kissed her mother goodbye and was never seen again. In 2007 Blackpool kebab shop owner Lyad Albattikhi appeared in Preston Crown Court charged with Charlene’s murder, after extensive police surveillance captured him on tape bragging of first having sex with and then killing Charlene. In conversation with his business partner - Mohammed Reveshi – Albattikhi admitted feeding her into a meat grinder and then serving up her body to customers in his kebabs. 

The Times reported:
More than 52 tape recordings were captured by covert surveillance of Mr Reveshi’s home and car between February and March 2004 by the police inquiry team set up after Charlene disappeared in November 2003.

The jury was told that in one conversation Mr Reveshi had said to his partner: “Well, hopefully I [done] it properly you know . . . he thought he saw me cutting her body up.

“Do you remember she was bleeding to death?” “Yes,” replied Mr Albattikhi. “So that she made a mess,” Mr Reveshi allegedly added. Later in the transcript Mr Reveshi allegedly says: “The last one then, it was the last deep one and then it was the [heart] . . . that finally killed her.”

At one point Mr Reveshi said: “I’m so worried and you was the one who killed her.”

In his opening address to the jury last month, Tim Holroyde, for the prosecution, claimed that a witness had heard Jordanian-born Mr Albattikhi joke with fellow takeaway employees about how the teenager had been chopped up, and how her body “had gone into the kebabs”. Mr Albattikhi, of Blackpool, denies murdering Charlene while Mr Reveshi, also of Blackpool, denies disposing of her body.
Unfortunately, despite this damning evidence, the trial collapsed in October 2009 due to bodged handling of the evidence and the failure of the jury to reach a verdict. Both Albattikhi and Reveshi were subsequently discharged. Christine’s parents have thus undergone the horrific ordeal of losing their daughter and having to sit through this gruesome trial only to see it come to nothing.

At the time of the trial’s collapse, the Daily Mail reported Karen Downes, Charlene’s mother, as saying:
'We feel badly let down by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service,' she said.
'We're no further on, we're back to square one. There is no closure.
'I was devastated when I saw the report. It's very upsetting.'
Lancashire Police apologised to the Downes family but said it remained a live investigation and its officers were still committed to solving the case.
The investigating team were guilty of a strategic and tactical failure in the management of the audio and video material they obtained, the IPCC concluded.
Proper records were not kept, material was not fully transcribed and the overall integrity of the material was not ensured.
The EDL demand justice for Charlene and her family and therefore will be gathering to protest in Blackpool at 1pm on Saturday 26 March. For further details, watch for updates on the Casuals United blog. Hats off to the EDL for seeking justice for the family of Charlene Downes when all others appear to have abandoned them. Let’s get the case reoppened and the culprits brought to justice!

The first of the EDL videos below is the official promo for the demo. The second features some additional information about what the kebab shop owners are alleged to have done since their acquittal.





15 comments:

  1. Interesting. You know Durotrigan, I have often remarked that such a crime would be a tabloid journalist's wet dream. What could sell more papers than a headline reporting a girl may have been eaten by her local community, yet the tabloids ignored it. I think that speaks for itself.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is very important. If EDL want to prove themselves, this will be an excellent way to do it. If they can get all their facebook followers to write, not email because emails can get ignored, if they can get them to write to the CPS, local MPs, local councillors, local mozlem community asking them to stand up for truth, and spread the news internationally, I am sure the case can be opened with a new jury. Otherwise mass demos.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well UBN, this crime is simply horrifying. I recall reading about it a few years ago, and was shocked when the trial seemed to fall apart because of a technicality. Granted, as you can see from the references, there were a handful of stories run by the Times, the Daily Mail and a very short piece in Metro (even one in the Guardian, but not worth quoting as it prattled on about 'socio-economic' factors as you'd expect), but as you point out, the fact that this has not led to a concerted press campaign by at least one of the tabloids does appear to speak volumes.

    Can you imagine what would have happened if the victim had been a Muslim or black? This would have ended up in parliament and there’d probably be a whole slew of pro-minority legislation being forced through on the back of it. Instead, here we are in a situation where the case has been allowed to quietly slip back into obscurity, presumably because the Downes family are English and working class. It stinks to high heaven, so it’s very much to the credit of the EDL that they are helping the Downes family to keep their quest for justice on the agenda.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I absolutely agree Juniper. They are doing something very focused and worthwhile here, and I’m sure that the Downes family must feel relieved that they have their support. The ordeal that they have undergone is heartbreaking. Your suggestion re pressuring MPs and councillors through letters is a good one. Anyone who doesn’t back the call to have the case reopened could then be exposed as not backing the campaign. Hopefully this fear of losing local votes should make them act, as so far as I’m aware (unless it’s changed drastically since I last visited) Blackpool must have a negligible Muslim population.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Feeding her to infidels 'humiliated the kuffars'. http://crombouke.blogspot.com/2010/01/charlene-downes-pimped-raped-murdered.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. What does Moh have to say about cannibalism?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Good question Shirl. It seems to be one of the few sadistic crimes that Moh didn't engage in or advocate (so far as I'm aware).

    ReplyDelete
  8. In the US, when someone rapes & kills a kid, if they go to jail, they are killed in prison by the other inmates, if they get off on a technicality the community takes care of them.... I guess you would handle this Muslim beast yourself; oh I forgot, your government took away all your guns so you can't. Poor Brits :-(

    ReplyDelete
  9. Unfortunately, if the individuals in question were sent to prison here, they'd soon fall under the protection of our powerful prison ummah. If another crim took them out, there'd probably be a Muslim uprising in the prison concerned.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yeah, except the tape the 'transcript' was taken from said nothing of the sort - ask anyone who was in court the day it was played. The prosecution of Albattikhi and Reveshi was beyond a joke, as acknowledged by the judge and eventually, grudgingly, by Lancashire Police. If you want to find the person truly responsible for Charlene's plight - even if she didn't die at his hand - I believe you are already in touch with him.

    As an aside, why is Casuals United not taking up the cause of Paige Chivers, the other Blackpool girl who vanished off the face of the earth in strikingly similar circumstances a couple of years (inconveniently, while Albattikhi and Reveshi were in prison)? Perhaps because there isn't a Muslim to demonise?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous, I find your following statement bizarre: "If you want to find the person truly responsible for Charlene's plight - even if she didn't die at his hand - I believe you are already in touch with him." Are you claiming to be Charlene's killer? Are you some kind of sick 'Wearside Jack' fruitcake?

    As for demonising Muslims, Islam does a perfectly good job of perverting human beings and turning them into intolerant agents of hate. If you don't understand, or pretend not to understand, that self-evident fact, you are either a Muslim yourself, wilfully ignorant or an anti-rationalist. You could of course be all three. There's no demonising of Muslims going on here, but you will find an unstinting objection to the practise of the doctrine of Islam.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'm neither a Muslim nor ignorant and, indeed, many Muslims are their own worst enemies.

    What I'm saying is that Charlene Downes' life started on a downward spiral long before she disappeared, and without the 'help' of any Muslims. Everyone in Blackpool knows this.

    No answer on why 'Casuals United' isn't protesting to help Paige Chivers and her family or asking Lancashire Police to link the two, obviously very similar, cases? Have to conclude that it's the obvious reason ...

    ReplyDelete
  13. "...Charlene Downes' life started on a downward spiral long before she disappeared..."

    Is Anonymous insinuating that because the young girl might not have been perfect before she associated with muhammedans she deserved to be used sexually then cruelly slaughtered, dismembered, put through a meat grinder, cooked and served-up on kebabs?

    Were the kebabs sold only to infidels? If I still lived in England, I would boycott every muhammedan shop in the country. Maybe the EDL and BNP could look at organizing a boycott of all muhammedan owned businesses.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What is a "muhammedan". Since you don't live in England I assume you are an immigrant. Do I take it that you support immigration since you practise it?

      Delete
  14. Just check out Sky news folks - Anna Botting comments. This case is back on the agenda. It's all over Facebook too. Someone gonna get sacked.

    ReplyDelete

Comments that call for or threaten violence will not be published. Anyone is entitled to criticise the arguments presented here, or to highlight what they believe to be factual error(s); ad hominem attacks do not constitute comment or debate. Although at times others' points of view may be exasperating, please attempt to be civil in your responses. If you wish to communicate with me confidentially, please preface your comment with "Not for publication". This is why all comments are moderated.