[caption]: Charlene Downes disappeared on 1st November 2003. The Disappearance of Charlene Downes, Vice/Youtube 2.14.04, 2025
The police were given conflicting accounts of Charlene’s last sighting. ibid.
A lot of kids would be scared to say what was really going on. ibid. comment
The police faced a wall of lies from the start. ibid. rozzer
He [David Cassidy, local businessman] came forward with some shocking information about two kebab shop owners. ibid. journalist
Charlene was exposed to a network of Asian males that were actively involved with grooming. ibid. rozzer
The alleyway backed on to a row of kebab shops. ibid. journalist
An epidemic of sexual abuse of children. ibid. rozzer
Police were convinced that Raveshi and Albattikhi were key players in the grooming gang. ibid. caption
They approved me as a special foster parent to foster a young girl. ibid. Raveshi
He [Raveshi] had any number of girls going to his house. ibid. rozzer
Reveshi was a groomer. There is no doubt about it. ibid. rozzer
I don’t think Eddie Albattikhi can ever claim to be a man of good character. ibid.
Albattikhi and Raveshi’s release was met with public uproar. ibid. caption
Both men received substantial damages for malicious prosecution by the police and they continue to strenuously maintain their innocence. ibid.
Joe [journalist] has received a leaked report into Charlene’s home life. ibid. caption
It says here in these reports that there was a man friend of Bob Downes [father] apparently was staying at the Downes' home at the time, and that he’d made sexual advances toward Charlene. ibid. Joe with leaked report
I was horrified about Raymond Munroe when I found out [sentenced for paedophilia]. ibid. mother
Ray Munro was only one of a number of men that visited the Downes’ home. ibid. caption
Nigel Lloyd is a 50-something … He settled in Blackpool. Lloyd was sentenced to 64 months in prison for attacking 2 15-year-olds in Blackpool between 2001 and 2003. So this fellow was active and in Blackpool at the time when Charlene Downes was skipping up and down that alleyway. This alleyway is the centre of this whole story. It’s really depressing and I’m sure there’s a lot of lost souls down here. On the day that Charlene went missing she was seen in this alleyway three times. Three times she was up and down this god-forsaken hellhole … Nigel Lloyd – he lived in that flat up there with that window overlooking that alleyway. And I think that’s where the story lies. ibid. Joe
DOWNES, JANINE murder [viz also Kyte, Alun]: In the Footsteps of Killers TV -
2 February 1991: The layby where Janine was found: Off the A464 near Shifnal in Shropshire … A couple found her body at nine o’clock in the morning. In the Footsteps of Killers s1e6: Janine Downes
No-one has ever been charged with Janine’s [Downes] murder. ibid.
An historic rape committed on a young boy. Now that offender was Alun Kyte. But mention was made of two women he murdered … Samo and Tracey were sex workers in the Midlands … [murdered] by a serial killer called the Midlands Ripper. ibid.
‘If you look at the nature of Janine’s death, there are huge similarities.’ ibid. Alun Kyte case rozzer
Pippy Perry: ‘She said he was in the area the night Janine disappeared. He’s got convictions for violence against women. He’s got convictions for knife-point robbery. Before 1991 he was convicted of kidnapping of two sex workers from Birmingham at knife-point … He died in 2017.’ ibid. Kate
We’ve heard story after story from women about the violence that they also could experience from pimps, or indeed rival pimps. ibid. David
Alun Kyte remains for me very much a prime suspect. ibid.
DOWNIE, JASON: Evil Up Close TV - BBC online - Crimes that Shook Australia TV - Justice John Sulan -
Jason Downie ferociously stabbed a mother and father to death and then turned on their daughter. Evil Up Close: Family Killer, CI 2013
Detectives were positively furious that Downie had tried to appear remorseful. ibid.
A jealous Scot who brutally murdered a teenager and her parents after she spurned his advances has been jailed in Australia for at least 35 years.
Jason Downie, 20, stabbed 16-year-old Chantelle Rowe, her father Andrew and mother Rose at their house in Kapunda, near Adelaide, in November 2010.
He admitted stabbing her more than 33 times, her father at least 29 times and her mother more than 50 times.
Downie emigrated to Australia with his mother from Kilmarnock in 2006.
The South Australian Supreme Court heard that Downie, who was 18 at the time of the murders, had fantasised about Chantelle and became jealous of his friend who was dating her. BBC online article 17th April 2012
In November 2010 a small town on the fringe of the famous Barossa Valley is the scene of the most gruesome multiple murders. A family savagely murdered in their own home. Crimes that Shook Australia, CI 2014
Downie pleads guilty to the three murder charges. ibid.
The cold-bloodied merciless attack upon Chantelle – who was hiding under the bed in fear and who you dragged out, stabbed, sexually assaulted and then stabbed again and murdered – was a chilling act. Justice John Sulan
DOWNING, STEPHEN: Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders TV - Ananova online - Guardian online - BBC online - Murder in the Graveyard: Wendy Sewell murder TV - In Denial of Murder TV - Murder in the Graveyard: Wendy Sewell Murder TV -
Stephen Downing served 27 years for the murder of Wendy Sewell. He is the longest miscarriage of justice in British legal history. Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders, ITV 2022
Stephen Downing, jailed 27 years ago for a murder he said he did not commit, has been freed on bail by the Court of Appeal.
Downing, 44, is being released from Littlehey Prison in Cambridgeshire to await the hearing of an appeal against his conviction and life jail sentence for the killing of Wendy Sewell.
The married typist’s badly beaten body was found in a cemetery where he worked in his home town of Bakewell, Derbyshire.
Bail was not opposed by the Crown, which conceded the appeal was ‘highly likely’ to succeed in the light of serious questions raised over the admissibility of Downing’s confession statements which formed a main plank of the prosecution case.
Downing, who was 17 at the time but had the mental age of an 11-year-old, has always denied murder and so has been ineligible for parole. Ananova online article
The quashing of Stephen Downing’s conviction for murder last week was not just an indictment of our police and courts. It sheds awkward light on our parole system, too. Mr Downing’s prison treatment was prejudiced throughout by his refusal to admit guilt.
During 27 years of incarceration – convicted of an offence for which you might normally serve 12 years – he was beaten, scalded and abused. That is still disgracefully commonplace in our prisons. But Mr Downing was also deprived of better jobs, training opportunities and parole consideration on the basis that he was – in Home Office jargon – IDOM, in denial of murder. Parole is no longer automatically refused in such cases, but it is still frequently withheld. (The exceptions are, all too often, only those where journalists are taking an interest.) Guardian Unlimited online article 20th January 2002
Since his release from prison, Stephen Downing has been able to walk through the streets of Bakewell a free man.
In January last year the Court of Appeal decided that his conviction for the 1973 murder of Wendy Sewell was unsafe.
It was hailed as a triumph for campaigning journalism ... and an end to one of the worst miscarriages of justice in English legal history.
In the small Derbyshire town, Mr Downing was suddenly a celebrity. People stopped him in the street to say hello. There were smiles, handshakes, and words of encouragement. BBC online article 27th February 2003