Charlene Elizabeth Caroline Downes (born 25 March 1989) disappeared on 1 November 2003, when she was 14, from her home town of Blackpool, a seaside town in

north-west England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

. Downes was last seen in an area of the town centre that contained several takeaway and fast-food units.

Lancashire Constabulary Lancashire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the ceremonial county of Lancashire in North West England. The force's headquarters are at Hutton, near the city of Preston. , the force has 3,088 police officers ...

, the police force investigating her disappearance, believe that she was murdered within hours of the last sighting. Two men were tried in May 2007—one for Downes' murder, the other for

helping Helping behavior refers to voluntary actions intended to help the others, with reward regarded or disregarded. It is a type of prosocial behavior (voluntary action intended to help or benefit another individual or group of individuals, such as shar ...

to dispose of her body—but the jury failed to reach a verdict. A re-trial was scheduled, but in April 2008 the accused were released because of concerns about the evidence compiled by Lancashire Constabulary."IPCC concludes managed investigation into reasons behind collapse of Charlene Downes trial"
, Independent Police Complaints Commission, 15 October 2009. The trials brought to light what

Julie Bindel Julie Bindel (born 20 July 1962) is an English radical feminist writer. She is also co-founder of the law reform group Justice for Women, which has aimed to help women who have been prosecuted for assaulting or killing violent male partners. A ...

described in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' in May 2008 as "endemic child sexual abuse" in the town. The police believe that, for a protracted period before her disappearance, Downes had been the victim of

child sexual abuse Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child (whet ...

at the hands of one or more men. They interviewed 3,000 people and found that she and other girls in the area had been "swapping sex for food, cigarettes and affection", a form of child sexual exploitation known as localised grooming. It is thought that 60 local girls may have been targeted. On 1 August 2017, a 51-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murdering Downes and was released two days later."Charlene Downes: Murder arrest in missing Blackpool girl probe"
BBC News, 1 August 2017."Charlene Downes: Man released in 2003 missing girl murder probe"
BBC News, 3 August 2017. A £100,000 reward remains on offer for information leading to the conviction of her killer(s) or the recovery of her body.

Background

Charlene Downes lived in Buchanan Street, Blackpool, with her parents—Karen and Robert Downes, a former soldier—as well as her brother and two sisters. The family had moved to Blackpool from the

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

in 1999. Charlene attended St George's School, Blackpool. Although described in court as "well and happy", she had experienced a "chaotic" lifestyle after being expelled from school, frequenting the area around Blackpool's Central Promenade. According to an internal police report, Downes was one of 60 girls in Blackpool, some as young as 11, who had been groomed by men to carry out

sex act Human sexual activity, human sexual practice or human sexual behaviour is the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts, ranging from activities done alone (e.g., masturbation) ...

s. The girls would be given food and cigarettes by the male employees of fast-food outlets in exchange for sex.

Last sighting

Charlene’s mother, Karen, last spoke to Charlene early in the evening of 1 November 2003, in Blackpool town centre. Downes was wearing black jeans with a gold-eagle design on the front, a black jumper with a white-diamond pattern, and black boots. Police say she may also have been wearing a white cardigan or top with a hood. Karen was in Church Street handing out flyers for an Indian restaurant when she saw Charlene and one of her other daughters, Rebecca, at around 6:45 pm. The three of them talked briefly. Rebecca said she was going home; Charlene said she was going to meet some female friends. She called them from a local telephone box, then waited with her mother until they arrived. Karen watched the girls walk off together toward the Winter Gardens. That was the last time she saw her daughter. The friends spent a short time together. Downes then met another friend at around 9:30 pm and visited the Carousel Bar on the

North Pier North Pier is the most northerly of the three coastal piers in Blackpool, England. Built in the 1860s, it is also the oldest and longest of the three. Although originally intended only as a promenade, competition forced the pier to widen its ...

."Charlene Downes Murder", ''Crimewatch'', BBC, 13 December 2004, fro
00:01:55
There is CCTV footage of a girl at 9 pm on the junction of Dickson Road and Talbot Road (a main thoroughfare that leads from North Pier to the town centre) that is believed to be Downes; she is with an unidentified woman in her 30s with dyed-blonde hair wearing a three-quarter-length coat. According to Downes’s friend, she and Charlene left the Carousel Bar and returned to the town centre at around 10 pm. Her friend last saw her at around 11 pm near Talbot Road/Abingdon Street.

Murder trial

Following a police decision to treat Downes’s disappearance as murder, there were several arrests in the case, and two men stood trial in May 2007. The prosecution alleged at

Preston Crown Court Preston Crown Court or more properly the Crown Court at Preston is a criminal court in Preston, Lancashire, England. The court is based on two sites in the city; Preston Combined Court Centre on Ringway and Sessions House on Lancaster Road. A firs ...

that Charlene had been murdered by Iyad Albattikhi, a 29-year-old man from Jordan and the owner of Funny Boyz fast-food outlet in Blackpool. Mohammed Reveshi, Albattikhi's business partner, was accused of disposing of her body. According to the prosecution, Albattikhi had sex with Charlene. The prosecution alleged that the men had discussed disposing of her body by putting it in kebabs sold from the fast food outlet. The jury failed to reach a verdict. A re-trial was ordered and scheduled for April 2008, but such serious errors in the Lancashire Constabulary's covert-surveillance evidence were identified that the

Crown Prosecution Service The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The main responsibilities of the CPS are to provide legal advi ...

could offer no case, and the men were released. In 2011, Albattikhi was convicted of assault after headbutting an 18-year-old woman. After a critical report by the

Independent Police Complaints Commission The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was a non-departmental public body in England and Wales responsible for overseeing the system for handling complaints made against police forces in England and Wales. On 8 January 2018, th ...

, one of the detectives involved, Det Sgt Jan Beasant, was found guilty of misconduct by Lancashire Constabulary and told to resign, but the Police Arbitration Tribunal overturned the decision. In 2014, Beasant's lawyer said she was suing the police for up to £500,000, as her transcripts were, in fact, entirely accurate.

Subsequent publicity

Blackpool tower from central pier ferris wheel

The trial brought to public attention what

described in ''

'' as "endemic child sexual abuse" in Blackpool. According to a police report, the employees of 11 takeaway shops in the town centre had been grooming dozens of white girls aged 13–15, giving them cigarettes, food and alcohol for sex. Mick Gradwell, a former

detective superintendent Superintendent (Supt) is a rank in the British police and in most English-speaking Commonwealth nations. In many Commonwealth countries, the full version is superintendent of police (SP). The rank is also used in most British Overseas Territories ...

with Lancashire Constabulary, said that the police inquiry into child grooming in Blackpool, Blackburn and Burnley had been "hampered by political correctness", according to ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'', because the girls were white and the perpetrators non-white. In July 2013, journalist Sean Thomas noted in ''The Daily Telegraph'' that the original Charlene Downes article on

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

had been deleted in June 2007, and argued that this might be an attempt to "redraft" history and to not give coverage to

far-right politics Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...

. Downes’s disappearance became the subject of a

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

'' Panorama'' programme, "The Girl Who Vanished", on 10 November 2014. In December 2014, BBC ''

Crimewatch ''Crimewatch'' (formerly ''Crimewatch UK'') is a British television programme produced by the BBC, that reconstructs major unsolved crimes in order to gain information from the public which may assist in solving the case. The programme was o ...

'' staged a reconstruction of the last sighting of Downes, and the police offered a £100,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the killer(s) or recovery of the body. In April 2008, the week after the attempt at re-trial failed, Karen Downes stabbed her husband during an argument. The wounds were minor and he declined to press charges, saying that she was maddened with worry and frustration. In March 2009, Charlene's sister, Emma, pleaded not guilty to racially aggravated assault against the brother of the man who had been charged with murdering Charlene. She maintained that her assault on the man's brother had never been racially motivated; on the first day of her trial the prosecution accepted her plea to common assault, a less serious offence. She was sentenced to community service. In 2012, Charlene's younger brother admitted in court to punching the man who had faced the charge of helping to dispose of her body. He was given a fine and a suspended sentence.

2017 arrest

On 1 August 2017, police arrested a 51-year-old man from Preston, who lived in Blackpool at the time of Downes’s disappearance, on suspicion of murdering her. He was released two days later.

References