On the latest episode of the Daily Mail’s Charlene: Somebody Knows Something podcast, campaigner Nicola Thorp interviews Jodie, a woman who claims to have spoken to the missing teenager three weeks after she vanished.
Charlene Downes, 14, disappeared from the streets of Blackpool on November 1, 2003. Despite a £100,000 police reward for information leading to the conviction of her killer, no one has ever been brought to justice.
In mid-2023, Jodie contacted Nicola through a private investigator who was working on the case with information she believed Lancashire Police had not fully investigated.
Jodie was in her thirties when Charlene vanished. She was living alone in a Blackpool flat in the Claremont area, on the outskirts of the town centre, the same neighbourhood where Charlene’s family lived.
Charlene Downes, 14, disappeared from the streets of Blackpool on November 1, 2003
She claims she and other residents had made repeated complaints to the council about suspicious activity at a neighbouring flat, where older men were allegedly meeting young girls.
Jodie identified convicted paedophile Raymond Munro, who was staying at the Downes family home at the time of Charlene’s disappearance, as one of the men who frequented the flat.
She said local girls would enter the property and leave shortly after with gifts such as cigarettes and alcohol. Jodie claims one of these girls was Charlene.
‘I witnessed them give Charlene a mobile phone and a pair of red and white Reebok trainers – that was just months before she went missing’, she told the podcast.
Jodie said she recognised Charlene because they both regularly visited the same local cafe and were friendly with each other.
She alleged that the suspicious flat was being rented out by a man called Ronnie Fraser, who died in 2007.
On the afternoon Charlene disappeared, her sister Becky told police she had witnessed her being given £70 in cash by a man called ‘Ronnie’ who was riding a push bike. Police have never conclusively identified the man.
From November 18 to 22 2003, three weeks after Charlene was reported missing, Jodie claims she saw and spoke to the girl on multiple occasions near Fraser’s flat.
She didn’t report it to police at the time. Jodie, who was in Blackpool fleeing a bad relationship, knew there had been violence in the Downes home and believed Charlene may have chosen to run away.
Jodie said she recognised Charlene because they both regularly visited the same local cafe and were friendly with each other
In mid-2023, Jodie contacted Nicola (pictured) through a private investigator who was working on the case with information she believed Lancashire Police had not fully investigated
In their final encounter, Jodie claims she asked Charlene directly whether she was being abused.
‘She just put her head down to the floor as though she were upset or ashamed’, she told the podcast.
‘That was the last time I ever saw or spoke to her. It’s just so upsetting.’
Lancashire Police told the podcast they had conducted a search of Ronnie Fraser’s flat in the months after Charlene’s disappearance. Officers found pornography stacked in piles but no evidence linking Charlene to the property. Police also couldn’t prove that he owned a push bike.
However, Jodie claims police searched the wrong address. She alleges Fraser had two properties on the same street – and officers searched the one where he wasn’t actively meeting the girls.
The podcast team investigated Jodie’s claim but could not find anyone else to corroborate that Fraser had a second property on the street.
Years later, when Jodie went to the police with her story, she said she felt ‘fobbed off’ by investigators.
She asked officers to retrieve council records of the complaints she and neighbours made about the flat between June 2003 and December 2004.
According to Jodie, the council responded in writing saying the records had been destroyed when they moved offices.
During the making of the podcast, Jodie sadly passed away. When the podcast team presented her full account to Lancashire Police, officers said there was ‘nothing new’ in the information but would not provide further details.
Police logged over 200 alleged sightings of Charlene after she disappeared, though none were ever confirmed by investigators.
The sixth instalment of Charlene: Somebody Knows Something, where Nicola Thorp interviews Jodie, is available now wherever you get your podcasts.
Or, get the whole series immediately at www.thecrimedesk.com.
