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:
At the time of the trial’s collapse, the Daily Mail reported Karen Downes, Charlene’s mother, as saying:
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.
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.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.
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.
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.
