TWENTY-TWO years on from her little sister’s chilling disappearance, Rebecca Downes has a candle burning bright in her memory.
Charlene Downes was just 14 when she vanished without a trace, and her missing person‘s case became infamous across the nation when detectives revealed they believed she had been murdered, dismembered and served in kebabs after being sexually abused by takeaway workers.
Despite arrests, two trials and the offer of a £100,000 reward, justice is yet to be achieved for the teenager, and the Downes family feel it’s high time people in the know put an end to their pain.
On a Saturday evening in November 2003, Charlene left home to meet a friend at the Carousel bar on Blackpool‘s North Pier with £5 in her pocket and never returned.
“I cry for her every day,” says Rebecca, the schoolgirl’s big sister and best pal, who has the tiniest hope she will walk through the door one day.
“I miss her every single day.
“Every street I walk down holds a family memory of us together.
“I’ve been through hell: depression, trauma and anxiety.
“Our whole family has been ripped apart.
“I have a small strand of hope, yet it’s that hope which destroys me.
“I am pleading for information.
“We have lived in hell for 22 years, and it’s time for justice.”
Now a grandmother to eight, one of Karen Downes’ grandchildren reminds her of her missing daughter, a fact she finds both comforting and bittersweet.
“Somebody, somewhere, knows what happened to my daughter,” says Karen, who often wonders what grown-up Charlene would be like and if she would have her own children by now.
“Allegiances change, people make mistakes, someone has this on their conscience.
“I am begging you to please speak out and allow Charlene the respect and dignity she deserves.”
Described as a “typical teenager” by her mum, Charlene had been acting up before she went missing, but nothing would prepare her family for the dark revelations to follow.
“She’d been pushing the boundaries, smoking and staying out late,” Karen previously told The Sun.
“But to me, she was still a child; she loved Darren Day and Hello Kitty. She was a typical teenager.”
Charlene had promised Karen she would be home in time for dinner that evening, and her mum kept her portion in the fridge for days after she went missing in the vain hope she’d return.
“Every time a body was found, I was sick with nerves,” she said.
“I turned to mediums in the search for answers, but I never got any.”
Cops think the teenager was murdered within hours of reaching the town centre – and in a subsequent report revealed vulnerable Charlene was one of 60 girls who had been groomed by takeaway workers.
In a dark secret casting a shadow over the Lancashire seaside resort, scores of schoolgirls from the town, the youngest just 11, had been groomed with burgers, booze, cigarettes and affection by sick predators in exchange for sex acts.
Police believe Charlene, who was last seen hanging around in an alleyway full of fast-food outlets, was sexually abused by at least one man in the run-up to her going missing and that this abuse was linked to her death.
In 2007, just over three years after Charlene went missing, Iyad Albattikhi, who ran Blackpool’s Funny Boyz takeaway, was charged with her murder and the then 27-year-old’s landlord and business partner, Mohammed Reveshi, with helping him dispose of her body.
I know how it is to feel forgotten, as though nobody cares about your tragedy.
Karen Downes
The pair went on trial that May, with the jury hearing taped conversations in which it was alleged Iyad had joked that he killed the girl, that she was “chopped up” and her body had “gone into the kebabs”.
But the jury failed to reach a verdict, and a 2008 retrial was also dropped after a police watchdog found the investigation by Lancashire Police had been “handled unprofessionally” and plagued by a “catalogue of errors”, with serious doubts also uncovered over the way transcripts were made.
The men who went on trial each received £250,000 in compensation, with one of their lawyers accusing the force of “incompetence, manipulation and lies”.
In 2017, a 51-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murdering Charlene but was later released, and her disappearance remains Lancashire Police’s longest unsolved murder investigation and active case.
In a statement released on the 22nd anniversary of the teenager’s disappearance, a force spokesperson said: “This investigation remains open, and we would encourage anyone with new and relevant information to come forward.”
A £100,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction remains on offer.
“We’ve lost faith in the police, and we’ve heard very little from the new investigating team,” says Charlene’s mum, who spent hours pounding the pavements of Blackpool with homemade leaflets when her daughter vanished.
“I know how it is to feel forgotten, as though nobody cares about your tragedy.”
In 2021, Karen endured further heartache when she lost her son Robert, 30, to a heroin overdose.
“He never got over the loss of his sister,” she says.
“He used to climb out of his bedroom to look for her in the early days.
“Her disappearance cost him his life. It also killed my mum. She couldn’t cope with it.
“I hope they’re all together in heaven.
“It’s my only comfort.”
‘Grooming gangs are there for all to see’
For Rebecca, being connected to such a horrific, notorious case means she is turned away by potential employers.
“The moment people realise I’m Charlene’s sister, they distance themselves,” she says.
“I just wish people could show us some compassion.”
In June this year, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs would take place, with Baroness Anne Longfield CBE appointed chair on December 9.
“It breaks my heart that it’s still happening – I see young teenage girls with middle-aged men, in and out of cars,” says Rebecca of life today in Blackpool.
“The trafficking and grooming gangs are there for all to see.
“Nobody wants to admit it.”
This year, Charlene’s family marked November 1, the date of her disappearance, with a meal and a visit to her memorial bench in the town, which they had re-varnished for the occasion.
Their fight for justice continues.
“I have a candle lit in her memory, and it will continue to burn until I have justice for her,” vows Rebecca.
“This year, the anniversary fell on a Saturday, which is the same day she disappeared, so the memories were all the more poignant.
“I dread the anniversary, but then every moment is hard.
“If anything, our trauma gets worse as the years go by.”
