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Murdered Or Missing? - Season 1 Episode 2
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00:28Transcription by CastingWords
00:58Transcription by CastingWords
01:00Amajit Chohan's badly decomposed body was discovered near Bournemouth Pier.
01:07There are now concerns for other family members who disappeared with the millionaire businessman.
01:20Amajit's body washing up on Bournemouth Beach wasn't a case of someone's gone swimming and drowned, swam off a boat
01:27and drowned.
01:27He was gagged. He was murdered.
01:31The vibe around the team was horror and the sadness that we're now looking for the rest of the family.
01:37You know, where are they? Are they being detained somewhere? Or worse, have they been killed?
01:42I immediately authorised aircraft to fly over around that immediate area, see if we can identify any bodies in the
01:52sea.
01:56We had to find that family and we had to do everything we could to try and find them.
02:21My job as a crime scene manager was basically we were on call for any serious incidents, that's murder, shootings.
02:30We would go out and assess the scenes and deal with it like a murder scene until we were happy
02:35that it was not suspicious.
02:38But certainly this one, the fact that he had tape around his face and was gagged, that really pushes it
02:44straight up to this is a suspicious death.
02:49We've got to try and piece together, you know, what has happened to this man, he's obviously met a very
02:52uncomfortable end.
03:04The body was fully clothed and it often takes quite a while to remove each item of clothing.
03:11A either navy or purple sweatshirt, v-neck, long sleeve, had a certain amount of grit on it.
03:19A pair of blue jeans, heavily contaminated by sand.
03:23I felt each sock as I took it off, it felt squashy like any saturated sock.
03:30And there was a pair of navy boxer shorts.
03:34However, the important thing that was still left was the bindings round the lower face.
03:40It consisted of a mixture of a scarf and brown wide parcel tape that had been wound round and round
03:48the head repeatedly.
03:50There was a very mutilating injury to the top of the head, not just to the scalp but the skull
03:56underneath it.
03:57This was obviously a blunt force injury.
04:03If that had happened during life and we were dealing with a fresh body, you would expect to see bruising
04:10of the scalp.
04:11There was no bruising around that.
04:15He had fracture of the very bottom of the spinal column in his neck.
04:21If it had happened during life, you'd expect to see bruising around the fracture.
04:25There was no bruising around this one.
04:27And I felt that because that's a structure deep inside the body, that's probably a post-mortem fracture.
04:35Often called the undertaker's fracture.
04:37Because if a body is roughly handled after death, that is where it tends to break.
04:44I finished the autopsy saying this is a highly suspicious death.
05:02The matropotent police said he had died in appalling circumstances.
05:12I could see that Ankur's body was slightly trembling.
05:16Then he regrouped himself and started asking more questions on where that was, how that was found.
05:25We were shocked, totally horrified by what we were being told, and trying to digest that information.
05:34I think both of us thought, so how do we find Nancy and the other family members?
05:41But my head was going, this is not looking good for us at all.
05:58The day that Amajit's body washed up on Bournemouth Beach was the 10-year anniversary of Stephen Lawrence's murder.
06:09And at my level, we were very conscious of the fact the eyes of London, the eyes of the country,
06:14the eyes of the world were on the Met Police.
06:15What we did, how we did it, had we moved on?
06:22In fact, Amajit Chohan was an Asian man.
06:26The person had been lying to us all along about him being in touch and missing and going to meet
06:31us and get passports.
06:32He was a white man.
06:37Kenneth Regan was a good liar.
06:39And he gave us this story of the Chohan family going off on holiday.
06:44What's wrong?
06:45Well, yeah, of course I'm running the business.
06:48I'm a partner.
06:50So all the focus was on Kenneth Regan and his associate, William Hornsey.
06:57And Belinda Bruin was someone who was working on behalf of Regan on a daily basis for Ciba Freight Amajit's
07:04business.
07:04The complete focus now of the investigation was to track down Regan and Hornsey.
07:13And at this time, Belinda Bruin was also being sort of quite extensively interviewed because she clearly knew a lot
07:20of the background.
07:22And in a sort of throwaway comment, right at the end of her interview, she happened to sort of mention,
07:28I don't know if this has got anything to do with it, but I did come home, you know, a
07:31week or so ago.
07:32She had been working in London and had gone home to Tiverton in Devon earlier than she'd planned and had
07:39come across Regan, Hornsey and another man who she knew to be a guy called Peter Rees.
07:48And they'd been digging in the corner of her field.
07:55She had a couple of fields opposite her house where she kept horses.
07:59She was quite angry and said, what are you doing?
08:03And Regan said, look, you know, I told you I'd sort out the drainage in your field for you, so
08:07I've done it as a favour.
08:10That set alarm bells ringing, to say the least.
08:14So we immediately dispatched Detective Sergeant Tony Bishop down to Belinda Bruin's property.
08:23We were told, once you find this ditch, get it dug up.
08:28We get there and Belinda comes zooming up the lane in a massive panic, explaining that she's literally just bumped
08:36into Regan and Hornsey at the end of the lane.
08:40They had said to her, look, get in the car, we need to speak to you.
08:46As far as she was concerned, if she'd got in the car with them, that would probably be the end
08:50of her,
08:51because she's clearly a very loose end as far as they're concerned, certainly in terms of all the activity in
08:57the field.
09:01The DCI had sort of said to us, right, you know, you two stay down there and basically make sure
09:07Regan and Hornsey don't come back.
09:09And if they do come back, then arrest them.
09:13We didn't have any sort of protective equipment, so we were literally looking around, trying to sort of think, what
09:19could we arm ourselves with as potential weapons?
09:21We were looking at sticks and rocks.
09:25It was a pretty surreal moment in my policing career anyway, but Regan and Hornsey didn't come back.
09:36We found out at 2 o'clock the next morning, Regan and Hornsey booked onto a ferry going across to
09:44Calais.
09:48Why do people skip the country?
09:50Well, they skip the country because they've got something to hide, fear, run away from.
09:55We sent a couple of officers over to France to see if we could physically track where they were going.
10:02Over time, we did find out they'd gone to Spain.
10:09We started working with the authorities, Europol, Interpol, Spanish police.
10:14So if Regan and Hornsey had turned up at an airport and tried to book a flight to the Far
10:20East, we would have got them that way.
10:25Regan, Hornsey and Peter Rees were our three key suspects in this murder investigation.
10:31Peter Rees, we didn't know where he was.
10:33Norman McKinley, as the SIO, had made a decision of, I want to get Regan and Hornsey before Rees.
10:44The police then not just distributed two pictures of their prime suspects, but held them up for the TV cameras.
10:52I am satisfied that these two men are involved.
10:56It was a bold and dramatic move, but it showed just the sense of importance of this number one priority
11:03the Met Police had at that time.
11:08I am still hopeful, and I am praying to God for my mother, my sister, and my two nephews.
11:22There was a lot happening both in London and in Devon.
11:28The next step was to excavate in the corner of Belinda's Field.
11:36There was evidence that an area had been recently dug up and refilled.
11:41With forensic officers and exhibits officers, we did do literally a fingertip forensic search of this trench.
11:49They were looking for anything that would put the Chohans, or could put the Chohans, into a potential gravesite.
11:59Very difficult process.
12:00Basically, everything has to be dug out and then put through sieves.
12:04I think it had rained for nearly two weeks non-stop down there, so it was like a caugmire.
12:11I don't think any of us really thought that there were going to be any bodies in this field.
12:15You know, it just seemed too incredulous.
12:35Police already knew about Kenneth Reagan's significant criminal past,
12:40and that he had associates, some of the highest and most dangerous criminals in London and the south of England.
12:50We then found out that in the 90s, when he'd been charged with possession with intent to supply heroin,
12:57he had turned Queen's evidence and actually gave information against his co-conspirators.
13:05As a result, given that evidence, he had a reduced sentence from 20 years to 8 years.
13:11The names that Reagan handed over to the police in 1998 resulted in a £100 billion cocaine operation being busted
13:20and 15 people being convicted, one of which, quite astonishingly, was his best mate, William Hornsby.
13:27He had somehow had forgiven Reagan for landing him behind bars,
13:31and they were now as thick as thieves in an even closer association.
13:43I got a phone call from one of the officers in the field in Devon.
13:49We haven't found any bodies, but we have found something.
13:55They've recovered Indian jewellery, bits of hair,
14:02certainly poppers, which look like they might have come off nappies or children's clothes.
14:06There was burnt bits of wood and furniture.
14:08We weren't sure where that had come from at that stage.
14:12In our minds, we think the family were buried here,
14:16and Regan, Hornsby, and Rees have then come back and excavated the bodies.
14:23There was clear indication that bodies have been buried too.
14:29Certainly, we believe one body, and that is Mr. Chohan.
14:34It's too early to say whether the other members of the family,
14:38that is, the two children and the two female adults who are here.
14:55Regan, having told us all these stories, he was the focus.
15:01Some people that worked at CBER were saying that all they could hear Ray's voices
15:07whenever Amadjic was on the phone.
15:09And then we heard that he was quite nervous about going to this meeting at Stonehenge about the business.
15:17Subsequently, we found out that meeting was with Regan and these two Dutch guys.
15:24We believe that he met with Regan, Hornsby was there, and Rees, but Rees was making out he was a
15:30Dutch buyer.
15:30So, start to look what's around Stonehenge, and we quickly established that Kenneth Regan
15:38was living with his father in Wiltshire, which is not that far away.
15:44Officers had visited Kenneth Regan's father's address on the weekend that we knew that Chohan had gone missing.
15:53Kenneth Regan had told his father that he was packing him off for the weekend.
15:58The father, when he spoke to us, said that when he came home, he had new carpets and a new
16:03sofa in the house.
16:10You go in there thinking, this is possibly a major crime scene.
16:16And when you walk in the front door and you smell fresh paint, that definitely makes you think, has there
16:22been a cover-up?
16:24There was a new carpet.
16:26You could see where maybe an old carpet had been, and certainly some new wallpaper had been put up.
16:33There seemed to be some bits of furniture missing, which may account for some of the bits of wood burnt
16:38down in Devon.
16:41To me, this is covering up something that's happened in this house.
16:47So we called Claire Austin from the Forensic Science Service to come out, and we used luminol, which is a
16:53chemical which we spray around,
16:55and then we leave it for a few days, and then we go back, and we can see where possibly
17:00blood has been cleaned up.
17:03The problem is luminol reacts with peroxide, and they'd use bleach to clean up.
17:11We found sort of 20 areas, which possibly was blood, and they were swabbed and sent off for analysis.
17:19But it all came back negative.
17:23After spending several days examining inside of Forge Close, we looked around the outside of the house to see if
17:29there was anything out there,
17:31and approximately four feet in height from the ground on the outside wall of the house,
17:36we found a small bloodstain that looked like it had come from above in a downward trajectory.
17:44And that was then sent for DNA analysis and found to match one of the Chohan males of the family.
17:52Hello.
17:53Nina, Nina, Nina, Nina.
17:57We started to realize that potentially all five of the Chohan family had been murdered.
18:06Kenneth Reagan was actually very, very canny.
18:10He covered his tracks very well initially.
18:12And he wrote letters.
18:14He told people he'd been speaking to Amajit, and Amajit was running away.
18:20When Chohan's belongings were recovered in a suitcase sometime later on,
18:24there were 23 blank pieces of papers signed by Amajit Chohan.
18:32Some of the documents that we recovered were printed on Rishi's home computer,
18:37or on his word processor.
18:39We managed to match the paper up.
18:42I can only imagine that Amajit Chohan signed those pieces of paper under duress.
18:48So they were either torturing him or his family being tortured in front of him.
19:13The police had been given information that Peter Rees was in hiding in a bed and breakfast at a forest
19:22of Dean.
19:24He'd watched this press conference and said something spontaneous, like, I know this case.
19:33And he told the owner of the bed and breakfast.
19:35And she got really worried and frightened, and she rang the matchpot and police to give more information.
19:41I think he was cornered.
19:44He didn't know me from Adam.
19:46And he just started saying, have I seen him on TV?
19:51And I said, no, should I have done?
19:53And he just said that he was involved with an Asian family that had disappeared.
19:59They could put me at the scene, but I didn't kill anybody.
20:03He was going, I can't pin that on me.
20:05And I say to him, you know, what is going on, you know?
20:08He just said that Regan was crazy.
20:12It was Regan.
20:13He's a psycho.
20:14I knew what I had to do.
20:20It wasn't that long before Peter Rees was found by a police team from the Met just drinking in a
20:26pub.
20:27When he was arrested, he knew his time was up and sort of came quietly.
20:34Rees was charged and interviewed by police and predictably said not a single word.
20:42He was someone, I think, overawed by the fact that he was dealing with such superior league criminals.
21:10Months after the body of Armageddon Chohan came up at Bournemouth Pier,
21:15a body came up in a fishing trawler just off the coast at Dorset.
21:20They found the body.
21:22It had been tightly wrapped in tarpaulin, arousing some suspicion.
21:27The body had been in the water for some time in quite a dilapidated state.
21:33We had a special post-mortem and samples were taken.
21:37And it came back that it was Nancy Chohan.
21:48It was a moment knowing that she was dead.
21:52She had a head injury.
21:54It was quite obvious that she'd recently given birth.
21:58She was just post-natal.
22:00It's so sad.
22:03I don't know how anyone could do that to someone.
22:17It's only when we are told what happened, it becomes even more horrifying because you realize
22:24that you're not going to find them.
22:27Anka is just breaking.
22:32The funeral director actually rang and said, I understand that you want to see the body.
22:37Can I tell you that it's battered?
22:39Because Nancy had received a hammer blow on her head.
22:44And I said, look, I need to talk to Anka.
22:46I don't need to see it, but Anka is insisting on it.
22:48And I actually went to the funeral director with Anka and Jean, the funeral director, actually
22:54tried to be as sensitive as possible.
22:57What she'd done was clothed the coffin and put a scarf around the skull, but actually had
23:03a massive image of Nancy in her beautiful sari.
23:09For me, it was not a skeleton.
23:11For me, it was my baby sister.
23:16For me, she was still alive, and I was talking to her.
23:25And that was it.
23:29A tearful goodbye, that's what I said.
23:47Then we heard from the Metropolitan Police that the mother had been found.
23:56Mrs. Cor's skull was found on Alham Bay Beach on the Isle of Wight.
24:03Some children playing football came across a skull.
24:10Anka is a man who has lost everything in a period of months.
24:18There is still, I think, in Anka's head, you'll find the children.
24:21It's not common sense.
24:23It's irrational.
24:26When Nancy Chauhan was dredged up by a trawler,
24:30the trawler men did see a package fall, or something fall from her body.
24:38We can only assume that they were the children.
24:44Speaking to sort of marine experts, they said that children, you know, bodies that size,
24:48would just never resurface.
24:54I don't think we'd believe before that day
24:57that anyone would be capable of murdering three generations of one family.
25:01Two baby boys, a mum, a dad and a grandmother.
25:04I didn't think anything like that was possible.
25:07We've seen some horrific cases in our time,
25:09but at this time, it was the realisation that the family were all dead.
25:14It was shocking.
25:21By now, the investigation had become a huge, widespread investigation.
25:25You know, you've got crime scenes in London,
25:28potentially crime scenes in Stonehenge,
25:31the crime scene where Chauhan has been held as a prisoner.
25:36Belinda Bruin, I think she literally only had like one or two neighbours,
25:40but the neighbour did also recount to us
25:42what Linda had said about Kenneth Regan, William Hornsey and Peter Rees
25:46digging in the field.
25:48A neighbour had seen them with a white transit van
25:51that they had tried to sort of block the view into the field.
25:56So we started looking at Regan, Hornsey and Rees
26:00as to any vans, any cars they've hired,
26:03have they hired any diggers?
26:06We established that Regan had hired a white transit van
26:10using his own driving licence, paying by his own credit card,
26:14making no attempts to sort of cover their tracks.
26:18The guy who ran the van hire company, you know,
26:22actually remarked that when they returned the van,
26:24there was just this awful smell.
26:28But the inside of the van had been pressure washed,
26:30which according to the van hire guy,
26:32it's unheard of, no, pressure washes the van.
26:36And Regan sort of explained that they'd been moving some dead livestock.
26:39Well, it was clear that that van had obviously been used for something by Regan.
26:44Clearly he hadn't been moving livestock,
26:45so the van was immediately seized and brought in for forensic examination.
26:54Regan, Hornsey and Rees seem to be very forensically aware.
26:58Their actions of redecorating forged clothes
27:01and cleaning the back of the van
27:03suggest that they were aware of their actions
27:05and trying to get rid of any evidence.
27:08I think someone would expect if they pressure washed an area
27:11to have got rid of all the evidence that could be there,
27:14but blood will go in places you wouldn't expect it to go.
27:19We went over it literally millimetre by millimetre looking for blood,
27:24looking for blood in crevices or gaps or areas that might have escaped.
27:30We did find blood inside the van that looked like it had been as a result of an impact,
27:35and that blood was sent away for DNA analysis.
27:39And that blood matched that of Amarjit Chohan.
27:45We were making huge, extensive CCTV inquiries.
27:52We were able to track your transit van going into a service station
27:56down to the coast,
27:58and we found that Regan had bought a boat.
28:06The boat was brought into the lab,
28:08and it was stored in one of our forensic garages,
28:10and me and some assistants examined the boat.
28:14We spent several days going over it,
28:17doing a fingertip search of it.
28:18We think that they were transported
28:21in the open part of the back of the boat.
28:24And when we lifted up one of the mats,
28:26we found some hair.
28:29The hair looked like it had just fallen off the head,
28:31so it was obviously off someone who had been dead.
28:34And whether they had a head trauma or something,
28:36it was sort of black, very black hair.
28:41Finding something like the hair on the boat
28:43was a little bit of a breakthrough.
28:45I remember we phoned the police officer in charge
28:47and gave him the news that we'd found this hair
28:50and rushed it through for forensic analysis
28:52to see if we could get any DNA from it.
28:56We got a partial profile of DNA.
28:58It indicated the hair had possibly come from an Asian male
29:02that we believed to have originated from Amajit Chohan.
29:07That was an indication
29:08that the bodies had come out of the pit in Devon,
29:11put into a speedboat,
29:13and taken out to the sea.
29:18We subsequently realised,
29:20looking at all the timeline,
29:21that was when Regan was becoming spooked
29:24by the police investigation
29:25and probably felt that they could just lead us
29:28a bit of a merry dance
29:29with the story about meeting Chohan in Newport.
29:35That's when they went back to Devon,
29:38exhumed the bodies from their makeshift grave,
29:41put in this transit van,
29:43and then put them on the boat
29:45and went out to sea.
29:47There was a local police marine unit
29:49coming into sort of harbour
29:51as they were going out.
29:52They sort of pulled up alongside
29:53to say, look,
29:54it's pretty choppy conditions out there.
29:56You know, you guys know what you're doing.
29:58Regan and Horncy were sort of,
30:00yeah, thank you very much.
30:01Yeah, we know what we're doing.
30:02We're fine.
30:03So off they went, you know,
30:05and we know now
30:06that once they got out to sea,
30:08all the bodies were dumped into the channel.
30:17The thing with Regan is
30:18it seemed that crime had moved on
30:21since he was last sort of in prison.
30:25And he just didn't seem aware
30:27of any phone cell site evidence
30:30that we could use.
30:34Sophisticated criminals tend to use
30:35sort of burner phones
30:36that they use for a very short period of time
30:39and then they discard.
30:39But throughout this entire crime,
30:42Kenneth Regan,
30:44William Horncy and Peter Rees
30:46each kept the same mobile phone.
30:49Now everybody knows about phones being tracked.
30:52But in 2003, you've got to remember
30:54this was cutting-edge technology
30:56and not many people actually comprehended it
30:58or understood it.
31:01You could not pinpoint,
31:03but you could find a location
31:04of where a phone had been
31:06and when it was last used.
31:07There was an awful lot of telephone evidence
31:09showing Regan,
31:11Horncy and Rees
31:12moving around the country
31:14at the times
31:15to the sites
31:16where we know the bodies
31:17were buried originally
31:18and also when they moved them
31:20down to the south coast.
31:27We started to look and see
31:29where Amadjit Chohan's phone
31:31had gone,
31:31you know,
31:32around the time
31:33of the alleged sale
31:34of the business.
31:34And it's quite clear
31:35that Chohan's mobile phone
31:38is mirroring
31:39Kenneth Regan's mobile phone.
31:42Chohan would have realised
31:43at some point
31:44he'd been duped,
31:45was clearly then taken down
31:47to Regan's dad's house
31:50down in Wiltshire
31:51where he was held prisoner
31:52and tortured
31:55and made to sign
31:56a number of sheets of paper
31:58that were subsequently used
31:59by Regan
32:00to be made into
32:02letters of power of attorney
32:03so that they could be presented
32:05to the CBER employees
32:08and obviously any authorities
32:10that came sort of asking.
32:13I think he probably really felt
32:14or bomb-proofed
32:15that he'd covered dead tracks.
32:20Then once Chohan
32:21was either being held prisoner
32:23or had already been murdered,
32:24Regan and Hauntzi
32:25then had to deal
32:27with the rest of the family.
32:29They couldn't leave
32:30that avenue open.
32:33We'll never know
32:34what exactly took place
32:36in that house
32:37but quite clearly
32:38Regan and Hauntzi
32:39murdered Nancy Chohan,
32:41murdered Chharanjit Kaur
32:43and most chilling of all
32:45murdered those two
32:47two young boys,
32:48one who was eight weeks old.
32:50Kenneth Regan
32:51was a fairly major criminal
32:54and had been involved
32:56in the large-scale importation
32:58of drugs
32:59but it's beyond belief
33:01that they went to those lengths
33:04just for the pure greed
33:06of taking over this warehouse
33:07so they could use that
33:08as a front
33:09for importing drugs again.
33:17Regan and Hauntzi,
33:18they jumped on the ferry
33:19and went off to France.
33:20We know that.
33:22They're both wanted
33:23for multiple murders.
33:25They've both got
33:26sort of extensive criminal connections,
33:28certainly with the ability
33:29to make false documentation,
33:31passports, etc.
33:35We were able to see
33:37through cell site analysis
33:38where Regan's phone was,
33:40where Hauntzi's phone was.
33:42They were actually in Belgium.
33:48So officers were dispatched
33:50and they worked with
33:51the northern part
33:52of the Belgium authorities
33:54and we identified
33:55where Regan was.
33:59He was tracked down
34:01to a campsite
34:01and was pretty robustly
34:04taken into custody.
34:06He was adamant
34:07he wasn't coming back
34:08voluntarily.
34:10But it was upheld
34:11by the High Court in Brussels
34:13and we were given
34:1515 days to extradite him,
34:18basically.
34:22Meanwhile, Hauntzi
34:23was elsewhere in Belgium,
34:25in the southern part
34:26and we asked
34:26the northern authorities
34:28to contact their counterparts
34:30in the southern part
34:31but one lot were Flemish
34:33and one lot were French
34:34and they didn't really
34:34talk to each other.
34:35So we missed the opportunity
34:38of arresting Hauntzi
34:38in Belgium.
34:42Hauntzi was just on his own
34:43and didn't seem to have
34:45the same sort of contacts
34:46and connections
34:47and finances
34:48that Regan had had.
34:52One Friday afternoon
34:54we got a phone call
34:55from a solicitor
34:56for Hauntzi
34:57saying,
34:57look, he's had enough.
34:59He's getting on the ferry
35:00at Calais.
35:01Two or three of us
35:01immediately sort of
35:02jumped into the car
35:03and shot down to Dover.
35:06Literally got there
35:07just as he was coming
35:08off the ferry.
35:10I arrested him
35:11for murder
35:14and he was brought back
35:15to a London police station,
35:17subsequently interviewed
35:18and ultimately charged.
35:22Both Regan and Hauntzi
35:23were interviewed by police
35:24and predictably declined
35:25to give any evidence
35:27whatsoever.
35:29They never, ever, ever
35:31gave an account
35:32of what they did
35:33and that for me
35:35spoke volumes by itself.
35:47Murder cases
35:48at the Elbele
35:49are very big stories
35:50and a family
35:51wiped out entirely
35:53is a massive story.
35:58It's going to be
35:59front page material
36:01and what's more,
36:02it's going to run
36:03for a long, long time.
36:06Anker was
36:08wrought with worry
36:09whether we'll get
36:10the conviction.
36:12There's no
36:13admission,
36:14there's no eyewitness accounts
36:16apart from
36:16circumstantial evidence
36:17of where they are.
36:18Nobody's seen
36:19the killings taking place.
36:22Any jury trial
36:24has unpredictable,
36:26uncertain quality to it.
36:27It was by no means
36:29a full-long conclusion
36:30that this would end
36:30with guilty verdicts.
36:34The prosecutor
36:35took over a day
36:36to outline
36:36all the evidence
36:37against each of the defendants
36:39producing what he
36:40described as a compelling
36:41case of their guilt.
36:44As he described it,
36:46even though they got
36:47what they wanted,
36:48the documents signed
36:49that they took the decision.
36:51Amarjid and his family
36:52all had to die.
36:54They then went off
36:55and buried them
36:56a week later
36:57in some remote
36:58part of the country
36:59hoping the police
37:00would never discover
37:01the bodies.
37:03This gang,
37:04utterly ruthless,
37:06utterly immoral
37:07and utterly intent
37:09on getting away
37:10with their crimes
37:11was not just the horror
37:13of what the prosecutor
37:14was describing.
37:15It was the moment
37:16when he produced,
37:17I think,
37:18his Trump card.
37:19There's almost
37:20a universal lean forward
37:22and scribbling started
37:23even more furiously.
37:34Claire Austin
37:35from the Forensic Science
37:36Service rang me
37:37and we just went
37:38through all the exhibits
37:39before the trial.
37:41There was a pair of pants
37:43and a pair of socks
37:44which belonged to
37:45Amarjid Chohan
37:46which she had on
37:47when he came out
37:48of the water.
37:49You don't get much evidence
37:51from socks or pants
37:52normally,
37:53you know,
37:53unless it's some sort
37:54of sexual thing going on
37:55but Claire was very thorough
37:56and she said,
37:57send them up to me.
38:01We took it out of the bag
38:02to see if we could
38:03find anything externally
38:05whether maybe someone
38:06had been wearing it
38:07without their shoes on.
38:08There might be some
38:09DNA evidence
38:09on the sole of the sock.
38:12I think it was
38:13about four days later
38:14she rang me back
38:15and said,
38:16oh,
38:16you're never going
38:16to believe this.
38:19There was a piece of paper
38:20that was folded up
38:21inside the sock.
38:23I remember
38:24the realisation
38:25that this could
38:26change the whole case.
38:30The letter
38:31was a letter
38:32from the Cheltenham
38:32and Gloucester
38:33Building Society
38:34addressed to
38:35Reagan
38:36and Mr. Avery,
38:38his father,
38:39in relation to
38:40a mortgage
38:41for Forge Close
38:42where they lived.
38:45Which means
38:46that Amarjid Chohan
38:47had been in Forge Close
38:49when he put it
38:50into his sock.
38:53So he was a piece
38:54of evidence
38:55which absolutely
38:57categorically
38:57put Chohan
38:58in that house
38:59at the time
39:01that he was murdered.
39:04It seemed Chohan
39:06had probably realised
39:07he was going to fall
39:08foul of these men
39:09and perhaps when he was
39:10left unattended
39:10for a moment
39:11must have seen
39:12that letter on the side
39:13and just thought,
39:14if anyone finds me
39:15I'm going to give them
39:16a clue.
39:18In headline terms
39:20there's nothing
39:21more exciting
39:22than evidence
39:23arriving almost
39:24from beyond the grave.
39:34Each defendant
39:35had a team
39:35of their own
39:36which meant
39:37that every witness
39:37was subjected
39:39to one of the defence
39:41teams individually
39:42consecutively
39:43questioning them.
39:46I had no idea
39:47that they were going
39:48to go with the angle
39:49that the letter
39:50that was found
39:51in Amarjid's sock
39:51had been planted
39:52there by myself
39:53or one of the other
39:54police officers
39:55in the case.
39:58It's vital
39:59when collecting evidence
40:00in a case like this
40:02to have a chain
40:03of custody
40:04between the people
40:06transporting it
40:07to the evidence store
40:08the evidence store
40:09to the laboratory
40:10the laboratory
40:10to the court.
40:11So every person
40:12that handles it
40:13has to sign the label
40:14so there's a complete
40:15chain of evidence
40:16so that was done
40:17with everything.
40:19Continuity of evidence
40:20just proves an item
40:21has not been tampered
40:22with for example
40:23it can't have been planted
40:24because the pathologist
40:26put it into the brown paper
40:27bag and I was the person
40:28to open it.
40:33The police
40:33when they retrieved
40:35the body from the sea
40:37in Bournemouth
40:37gave the defence
40:39the opportunity
40:40to say how could
40:40possibly a letter survive
40:42having been in the sea
40:42for two months
40:43let alone been underground
40:44for several weeks.
40:46It did plant confusion
40:48in the minds
40:49of the jury.
40:51The letter survived
40:53because it's been folded
40:54up so many times
40:56like into the size
40:57of a stamp
40:57and because it's
40:59you know postage size
41:00and it's really
41:01squashed together
41:02that the sea water
41:04hasn't got into
41:05the paper.
41:19I did worry
41:20about jury fatigue.
41:23The sheer amount
41:24of evidence
41:25that the jury
41:25had to sit through
41:26you're sitting there
41:28thinking
41:28I really don't know
41:29how this is going
41:30to turn out.
41:32We started getting
41:33worried because
41:34normally if somebody
41:35is going to be
41:35found guilty
41:36it comes up
41:36very quickly.
41:39You were sitting
41:40there almost
41:41like an expectant
41:42mother wondering
41:43what the result
41:44is going to be.
41:47I knew that
41:48they were guilty
41:48I knew that
41:49there was no reason
41:50to doubt anything else
41:51but the jury
41:52have to consider
41:53everything very carefully.
42:06this was a quintuple
42:08murder case
42:09record breaking
42:10in terms of length
42:11and amount of evidence
42:12that's produced
42:12it was unbelievably
42:14tense
42:15this was a big
42:16big moment.
42:18They come back
42:19and the form of the jury
42:20stands up
42:21and when he gets
42:22asked
42:22do you find
42:23the defendants
42:24guilty or not guilty
42:26his foreman
42:27says guilty.
42:36It was almost
42:37like a release
42:38of pressure
42:40yes we got it
42:41through
42:41we've managed it.
42:52It was a total
42:54sense of relief
42:55we were happy
42:56that people
42:57were found guilty
42:58and justice
42:59had been done.
43:00It's unfortunate
43:01that Onkar
43:03cannot be here
43:03and express
43:04his concerns
43:05with you.
43:06He believes
43:07the death
43:08of his nephew's
43:09very young
43:10children
43:11could only
43:12be influenced
43:13by hatred
43:14and contempt
43:14by the killers.
43:49the judge
43:50told the two men
43:51your crimes
43:53are uniquely
43:53terrible
43:54the cold-blooded
43:56murder
43:56of an eight-week-old
43:58baby
43:59and an 18-month-old
44:00toddler
44:01not to mention
44:02the murders
44:02of their mother
44:03father
44:04and grandmother
44:06provide a chilling
44:07insight
44:08into the
44:08utterly
44:09perverted
44:10standards
44:11by which
44:12you have
44:12lived your
44:12lives.
44:13Your characters
44:15are as despicable
44:17as your crimes.
44:19Each of you
44:20is a practice
44:20resourceful
44:21and manipulative
44:23liar.
44:24For these crimes
44:25you two highly
44:26dangerous men
44:27must now pay
44:29the heaviest
44:29sentence.
44:31They had no
44:32prospect
44:33of release.
44:37That is absolutely
44:38what should have
44:39happened to them.
44:39For what they did,
44:41how they did it,
44:43lack of remorse,
44:44lack of explanation,
44:46it was absolutely
44:47the right sentence.
44:51I've dealt with
44:52a huge number
44:53of cases.
44:54I've met families
44:55in enormous
44:56tragic circumstances.
44:58But I think
44:58Onkar
44:59is one of the
45:00most bravest
45:01men that I've
45:01ever met
45:02in my life.
45:03He's brave
45:03not just
45:04because of
45:05the enormity
45:06of the tragedy
45:06that he's had
45:07to deal with.
45:08He's,
45:08throughout the whole
45:09process,
45:10yes,
45:11he cried,
45:12but he kept
45:13his composure
45:14and his dignity
45:15and his calmness
45:16throughout the process.
45:17I don't know
45:18how he did it.
45:21And I just wish
45:24that we could
45:25go back
45:26and get his family
45:28back.
46:04And I just wish
46:04and get his family
46:04back.
46:04And I just wish
46:04that we could
46:04get his family
46:04back.
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