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True Crime Documentary - The Family That Was Murdered for £5 Million · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:05
Speaker 1: Aha, there, Hello, Nina.
0:11
Speaker 2: Nina, Nina, and Hey. Eighteen month old Dovenda and his
0:16
Speaker 2: baby brother Avinda were the sons of successful businessman Neil Chohan.
0:22
Speaker 2: With a loving marriage to his wife Nancy, Neil had
0:25
Speaker 2: everything a man could want. But in February two thousand
0:33
Speaker 2: and three, just two days after this film was shot,
0:36
Speaker 2: all five members of this happy family simply disappeared.
0:44
Speaker 3: Vanished without a trace, the generations of one Faba Choan's
0:48
Speaker 3: and out the center of a major police hunt.
0:49
Speaker 2: Why would anybody want to simply walk away?
0:52
Speaker 4: And Anina told me hide.
0:53
Speaker 2: This is the story of a man who made an
0:55
Speaker 2: entire family disappear.
0:57
Speaker 1: Detectives later found evidence of a car bridge an.
1:02
Speaker 2: The story of an extraordinary deception by a ruthless criminal
1:05
Speaker 2: who wanted to get rich at any cost.
1:07
Speaker 4: Had absolutely no moral conscience whatsoever, a.
1:10
Speaker 2: Man who almost succeeded in outwitting the police by committing
1:13
Speaker 2: a crime so unique and horrific no one dared to
1:17
Speaker 2: believe it had taken place.
1:18
Speaker 4: Prosecution had described the crimes as beyond belief.
1:32
Speaker 2: In two thousand and three, businessman Neil Chohan was the
1:35
Speaker 2: owner of a successful fruit importation firm based at Heathrow
1:39
Speaker 2: called Siba Freight, with a wife and two children. Choen
1:42
Speaker 2: was known to his staff as a contented family man
1:45
Speaker 2: and an easy going boss.
1:48
Speaker 5: Niel's way of running the company was a relaxed, sort
1:50
Speaker 5: of like happy girl lucky attitude. We were mucked in
1:55
Speaker 5: whenever it was busy. Here, get pizzas, get drinks. They
1:59
Speaker 5: want to sort of like one big, happy family.
2:03
Speaker 2: But owning a freight company had made Neil Chohan a target.
2:12
Speaker 2: In January two thousand and three, a recently released convict
2:16
Speaker 2: arrived at siber Freight looking for work. His name was
2:22
Speaker 2: Kenneth Reagan.
2:27
Speaker 4: You must be kep, that's me. You're mister choin right.
2:31
Speaker 2: Neil Chohan had spent time in prison for tax evasion
2:34
Speaker 2: and was sympathetic to the ex con who said he
2:37
Speaker 2: wanted to go straight.
2:39
Speaker 6: It was a very fair person. He'd always give people
2:42
Speaker 6: not a second chance, but a tenth chance. He'd been
2:47
Speaker 6: in prison himself, and obviously he'd had a second chance,
2:50
Speaker 6: so why shouldn't anybody else. Ken came on as a
2:56
Speaker 6: year driver, not frightening again, his hands dirty. As a worker.
3:01
Speaker 6: I thought he was good.
3:04
Speaker 2: But Kenneth Reagan was no ordinary delivery driver. Five years earlier,
3:16
Speaker 2: Reagan had been a successful drug smuggler known to his
3:19
Speaker 2: friends as Captain Cash.
3:23
Speaker 7: In the late nineties, Ken Reagan was a career criminal.
3:28
Speaker 7: Reagan set up freight companies in around the Heathrow area
3:33
Speaker 7: and he'd used those as a front to bring drugs
3:37
Speaker 7: into the country.
3:39
Speaker 2: He knew most of the major.
3:41
Speaker 7: Criminals in London and criminal families, and he was very
3:45
Speaker 7: much living the high life.
3:51
Speaker 2: It was in a fashionable London bar that Reagan first
3:54
Speaker 2: met celebrity agent and socialite Belinda Brewin.
4:00
Speaker 4: He was a bit rough, I think, not well educated,
4:05
Speaker 4: quite charming, dressed well, nice watch, spent a lot of money.
4:11
Speaker 4: He was kind of like a rich wide boy. Reagan's
4:21
Speaker 4: nickname was Captain Cash. He always had a lot of money,
4:24
Speaker 4: and I mean high denomination notes. He had a briefcase
4:29
Speaker 4: and I've seen that twice and it was just full
4:31
Speaker 4: of money, and I think he thought it bought in
4:34
Speaker 4: class when he had none whatsoever.
4:39
Speaker 2: Belinda would eventually be drawn unwittingly into Reagan's world of
4:43
Speaker 2: crime and deceit. It started when the gangster became obsessed
4:47
Speaker 2: with her.
4:49
Speaker 4: He used to phone me quite a lot and emails
4:52
Speaker 4: saying I've never i haven't felt like this in thirty years.
4:56
Speaker 4: You're like a drug. I can't, I mean, just bizarre,
4:59
Speaker 4: considered that he didn't really know me at all. And
5:04
Speaker 4: then one day a friend of mine said to me,
5:09
Speaker 4: why on earth are you going out with someone like Reagan?
5:11
Speaker 4: And I said to him, I'm not, and he said, well,
5:14
Speaker 4: he told me that you're his girlfriend. And I said,
5:16
Speaker 4: you've got to be kidding, and he said, no, I'm not,
5:19
Speaker 4: which I found slightly worrying. And then literally, I think,
5:22
Speaker 4: a few days later, he got arrested.
5:26
Speaker 2: June the seventeenth, nineteen ninety eight, Reagan was caught with
5:29
Speaker 2: twenty five kilograms of heroin. Facing eighteen years in prison,
5:34
Speaker 2: he decided to become a grass. Reagan's testimony helped convict
5:38
Speaker 2: twelve major criminals, while his own sentence was reduced. By
5:43
Speaker 2: the time he was released from prison four years later,
5:46
Speaker 2: Captain Cash had few friends and little money.
5:50
Speaker 7: When Reagan was released from his prison sentence, He's very
5:53
Speaker 7: much gone back to having nothing. All his assets have
5:56
Speaker 7: been stripped from him. It's part of the confiscation order.
6:00
Speaker 7: And here he was back living in one bedroom of
6:03
Speaker 7: a very small Bungalow with his father. Reagan I think
6:09
Speaker 7: very much wanted to get back in the driving seat
6:11
Speaker 7: as a drug importer. Mister Chohan's business was the perfect
6:16
Speaker 7: framework to hang his drug dealing activities on.
6:24
Speaker 2: Reagan came up with a plan to steal Neil Chohan's company,
6:28
Speaker 2: a plan so ruthless that no one would realize it
6:31
Speaker 2: had taken place. He began by setting a trap. Soon
6:39
Speaker 2: after starting work at SEBA, Reagan approached Chohan and said
6:42
Speaker 2: he knew some investors who wanted to buy the company.
6:47
Speaker 2: The bait was a cash offer of three million pounds,
6:50
Speaker 2: a large enough sum to tempt the businessman whose wife
6:53
Speaker 2: Nancy wanted him to retire investors.
6:57
Speaker 6: I knew that Nancy wanted to go back to Inda.
7:00
Speaker 6: She'd made it clear she missed India, and we talked
7:04
Speaker 6: about it a couple of times, because he did say
7:07
Speaker 6: that the level of education India was higher than the
7:10
Speaker 6: UK and Nancy was desperate to go back there.
7:16
Speaker 2: While Chohan considered his offer, Reagan began working on the
7:19
Speaker 2: next phase of his plan. Seber freight was not the
7:23
Speaker 2: only thing he wanted to acquire. By this time, Belinda
7:32
Speaker 2: Bruin had given up her house in Chelsea for a
7:35
Speaker 2: new life in Devon. Reagan's obsessive calls and letters had
7:41
Speaker 2: stopped during his four years in prison, but now free,
7:45
Speaker 2: he began to pursue Belinda once more.
7:49
Speaker 4: A few weeks after you got out of prison, he
7:51
Speaker 4: left me a few messages on my mobile. He said
7:54
Speaker 4: that he had a business deal he wished to discuss
7:56
Speaker 4: with me. And at the time, I had this huge house,
8:00
Speaker 4: a huge mortgage and two kids at private school. When
8:04
Speaker 4: I'd given up my job and then my boyfriend left me.
8:06
Speaker 4: So I was it was how can I put it? Yes,
8:14
Speaker 4: so I rang him.
8:16
Speaker 2: Reagan told Belinda he was planning to take over Seber
8:19
Speaker 2: Freight and needed a new managing director. Although she had
8:23
Speaker 2: no relevant experience, Reagan offered her a huge salary for
8:27
Speaker 2: a two day week.
8:28
Speaker 4: At first, he offered me fifty four thousand pounds, which
8:34
Speaker 4: is a lot of money. But I thought, you know,
8:37
Speaker 4: I've got two kids at private school and a huge mortgage.
8:40
Speaker 4: That's not going to cover everything. And so he said, fine,
8:43
Speaker 4: I'll pay you seventy two thousand, and I thought, well,
8:45
Speaker 4: that's great.
8:47
Speaker 2: The job offer gave Reagan an excuse to visit Belinda
8:51
Speaker 2: at her isolated Devon home.
8:54
Speaker 4: He'd come up with bizarre reasons, like he'd want me
8:58
Speaker 4: to sign a letter or form, or he'd want me
9:02
Speaker 4: to help him fill in a form, and he'd drive
9:04
Speaker 4: all the way from Salisbury or from London to my
9:06
Speaker 4: house for twenty minutes.
9:11
Speaker 2: Reagan seemed to become strangely fixated on the land around
9:14
Speaker 2: Belinda's farm.
9:17
Speaker 4: He used to moan about the mud a lot the
9:19
Speaker 4: mud in the lane. You know, I couldn't live here,
9:21
Speaker 4: it's so disgusting. He wanted to cut down some of
9:25
Speaker 4: the trees and build a nice wall and electric gates.
9:29
Speaker 4: I mean, this was an old farmhouse, not a football
9:32
Speaker 4: as pad in Essex. He kept saying, I could make
9:36
Speaker 4: this place really, really nice for you. What you need
9:39
Speaker 4: is a drainage ditch.
9:49
Speaker 2: By February, chohen had made up his mind he would
9:53
Speaker 2: meet the investors that Reagan said wanted to buy his company.
9:58
Speaker 2: On the Thursday morning before Valentine's Day, he left his office,
10:02
Speaker 2: telling staff he had a meeting at Stonehenge.
10:06
Speaker 6: He said, I'm going off to do a deal and
10:10
Speaker 6: sell the company. He said, and I'll let you know.
10:14
Speaker 6: And that was the last time I saw him.
10:32
Speaker 2: On Monday morning, the employees at Siba were greeted with
10:36
Speaker 2: a shock announcement.
10:38
Speaker 5: I came in on a shift on Monday. We all
10:41
Speaker 5: gathered around and Blinda was introduced as a new owner
10:44
Speaker 5: of the company by Ken.
10:47
Speaker 4: Came in. The shocked everyone.
10:48
Speaker 5: It was something we were expecting.
10:52
Speaker 3: Everyone was thinking, what had happened to Neil? Where he
10:55
Speaker 3: had gone? But is it real that he sold the company?
10:58
Speaker 3: Or what about our jobs? And so many things happening
11:00
Speaker 3: At the same time.
11:03
Speaker 2: Reagan produced a letter which explained that Chohan had sold
11:07
Speaker 2: the company and was retiring abroad with Nancy due to
11:10
Speaker 2: ill health. It bore the signature of Neil Choen Well.
11:15
Speaker 3: Because of it being a busy company, you couldn't sort
11:18
Speaker 3: of sit down and start whinging about her or do
11:21
Speaker 3: anything about it. You just had to get on with
11:23
Speaker 3: the work. Because it was a busy company, you would
11:25
Speaker 3: have to get on with the work and get the
11:26
Speaker 3: work done.
11:29
Speaker 2: Belinda was given a desk and a computer and began
11:32
Speaker 2: examining the books as Reagan had asked her to, but
11:37
Speaker 2: on her second day she felt ill. Instead of going
11:41
Speaker 2: to Siba, where Reagan was expecting her, she drove home
11:44
Speaker 2: to Devon.
11:53
Speaker 4: When I pulled into the drive, I couldn't believe it.
11:56
Speaker 4: There was this old beaten up jack yo and I thought,
11:59
Speaker 4: what an's going on here? And I saw these two
12:02
Speaker 4: guys in my field with a digger.
12:07
Speaker 2: The two men were William Harnsey and Peter Reese, both
12:11
Speaker 2: friends of Ken Reagan.
12:19
Speaker 4: I went absolutely mad and I swore a lot, and
12:25
Speaker 4: I said, you know, what on earth did they think
12:27
Speaker 4: they were doing? And he said, well, we're building you
12:29
Speaker 4: a drainage ditch, you know. And there's this bloody great
12:34
Speaker 4: big ditch in the middle of my field running along
12:38
Speaker 4: the side of the hedge. I just couldn't believe it.
12:43
Speaker 4: Reagan arrived. I said, you know, it's not the fact
12:47
Speaker 4: that I might not need a drainage ditch. It was
12:49
Speaker 4: my land. You never asked my permission. You just don't
12:53
Speaker 4: go digging up people's land. He said, well, I thought
12:55
Speaker 4: you would appreciate it. I mean, it just looked like
12:58
Speaker 4: a car park and now I'd just hated it. But
13:01
Speaker 4: I was going to have it taken up, and they
13:05
Speaker 4: said wait till the summer. But as it happened, the
13:08
Speaker 4: Metropolitan Police dug it up for me.
13:15
Speaker 2: In two thousand and three. Convicted drug smuggler Kenneth Reagan
13:19
Speaker 2: was on the verge of regaining his former millionaire's lifestyle.
13:24
Speaker 2: Neil Chohen, the previous owner of siber Freight, had disappeared.
13:29
Speaker 2: Now Reagan was in control of his bonded warehouse, an
13:32
Speaker 2: ideal front for importing drugs. For five years, Reagan had
13:37
Speaker 2: been obsessed by socialized Belinda Bruin from a farm, but
13:41
Speaker 2: now she was on his payroll. It seemed as if
13:44
Speaker 2: Reagan's dreams had all come true, but the secret behind
13:48
Speaker 2: his success was about to be exposed. Twelve thousand miles away,
13:55
Speaker 2: on Coverma was working as a journalist in New Zealand.
14:00
Speaker 2: Nancy was raising a family in England with her husband,
14:03
Speaker 2: Neil Chohan, and Onca was planning to visit the family
14:06
Speaker 2: for the very first time.
14:11
Speaker 8: I was very excited because I was going to see
14:14
Speaker 8: Nancy after nine years, and it was like our family
14:17
Speaker 8: reunion after a long time.
14:20
Speaker 2: Onca used to speak to his sister and mother almost
14:23
Speaker 2: every day, but on the fifteenth of February, the phone
14:27
Speaker 2: calls simply.
14:28
Speaker 8: Stopped, and I was trying to get all of Nancy.
14:30
Speaker 8: I was trying to get a lot Mom and ill.
14:32
Speaker 8: Nobody was here, so you know, I thought something's not right.
14:42
Speaker 2: Concern for his family's safety, Onnka contacted the Metropolitan Police.
14:47
Speaker 2: A routine missing person's inquiry established that the family home
14:51
Speaker 2: was empty, but neighbors and colleagues seemed to think the
14:54
Speaker 2: Choen's had all gone to India.
14:57
Speaker 7: You have to remember that if people wish to leave
15:00
Speaker 7: a country and relocate to somewhere else, then it's their
15:03
Speaker 7: right to do so. In this particular inquiry, the friends
15:08
Speaker 7: and family in the UK were very much of a
15:11
Speaker 7: belief that mister Chohan had decided to do that.
15:17
Speaker 2: Onkar decided that if the police couldn't find his family,
15:21
Speaker 2: he would fly to Britain to investigate the disappearances himself,
15:26
Speaker 2: alone in a country he'd never been to before. Oncer
15:29
Speaker 2: went to the family home in Hounslow and was shocked
15:32
Speaker 2: by what he discovered.
15:35
Speaker 8: As I entered the house, I could the kids twice
15:39
Speaker 8: on the floor, the baby feed boards, all the baby
15:44
Speaker 8: feed and the clothes they were still in the house.
15:48
Speaker 8: They opened the afraid that there was a cook food inside.
15:54
Speaker 2: Onca became even more suspicious when he discovered his mother's
15:58
Speaker 2: most treasured possession.
16:00
Speaker 8: My mom's prayer book was there inside the house. That
16:04
Speaker 8: was something strange because my mum used to carry it
16:06
Speaker 8: with her all the time. One thing I couldn't figure
16:11
Speaker 8: out that Harwood a family disappear. We're talking about two
16:17
Speaker 8: three adults and two kids, you know, two babies, and
16:21
Speaker 8: how can they just disappear without telling me?
16:28
Speaker 2: With compelling evidence that his family had left the house
16:30
Speaker 2: against their will, uncle went to the police and convinced
16:33
Speaker 2: them to launch a full investigation. DCI Andy Rowl began
16:39
Speaker 2: his inquiry by interviewing the last person who was known
16:42
Speaker 2: to have seen Chohan on the day he disappeared, Kenneth Reagan.
16:48
Speaker 7: Mister Reagan told us that mister Chohan was trying to
16:51
Speaker 7: sell his business and he was very much trying to
16:55
Speaker 7: steer it down the lines of that mister Chohan was
17:00
Speaker 7: an unsavory businessman who had got himself into deep water
17:05
Speaker 7: financially and that had no other choice really but to disappear.
17:13
Speaker 2: But detectives were unconvinced by Reagan's story. Using new forensic technology,
17:19
Speaker 2: they were able to track the movements of both Reagan
17:21
Speaker 2: and Chohan's mobile phones on the day of the disappearance.
17:26
Speaker 7: Initially, we could see mister Chohan's telephone was in the
17:29
Speaker 7: Handslow area. We then tracked the phone down to the
17:33
Speaker 7: Stonehenge area. Now, of course, mister Reagan lived not far
17:40
Speaker 7: from Stonehenge in a village called Wilton in Salisbury. What
17:46
Speaker 7: we could see is that Reagan's telephone met up with
17:49
Speaker 7: mister Chohan's telephone, and then the two telephones traveled from
17:56
Speaker 7: that meeting point further down into the West Country towards.
18:09
Speaker 2: The only lead the detectives had in Devon was that
18:12
Speaker 2: it was home to the new managing director of SIBA
18:16
Speaker 2: by Linda Brewin. They decided to pay her a visit.
18:20
Speaker 4: When Reagan found out that the police were coming to
18:22
Speaker 4: my house, he was furious and he said to me,
18:25
Speaker 4: you know, you mustn't allow the police to come to
18:27
Speaker 4: your house. They'll just cause you aggravation. You know, once
18:33
Speaker 4: they get a foot in your house, you mustn't let
18:34
Speaker 4: them come to your house. I want you to phone
18:36
Speaker 4: them back and go and meet them somewhere else. And
18:40
Speaker 4: I thought, well, why would I want to do that.
18:44
Speaker 2: Later that day, DC hi Andy Rowell received a phone
18:47
Speaker 2: call from Reagan's associate.
18:49
Speaker 3: I've got some information about Neil Chohan.
18:51
Speaker 2: William Harnsey claimed he'd recently spoken to Neil Chohan and
18:54
Speaker 2: that the missing businessman was still in the UK.
18:58
Speaker 7: I don't know if he told me he's on the
19:00
Speaker 7: Mister Hauntsey had told me that he was going to
19:03
Speaker 7: meet with mister Chohan in Newport in Wales by the
19:07
Speaker 7: Passport office to supply him with stolen passports. So what
19:11
Speaker 7: he was saying to us was is that he was
19:13
Speaker 7: happy to deliver mister Chohan into our hands.
19:18
Speaker 4: And then what happened was that got a phone call
19:20
Speaker 4: from Dr Ral saying listen, thank you very much, Blind,
19:23
Speaker 4: but we won't be coming to see you today. We
19:25
Speaker 4: have other information and in fact we probably won't need
19:29
Speaker 4: to come and see you at all. Reagan then rang
19:34
Speaker 4: me up, obviously to check to make sure that the
19:37
Speaker 4: police had canceled their meeting, and he seemed to know
19:40
Speaker 4: that they had and I said, yes, they're not coming.
19:42
Speaker 4: He said, yes, I know. They're going to go to
19:44
Speaker 4: Wales and arrest Neil Chohan. So that was the end
19:48
Speaker 4: of their.
19:54
Speaker 2: The meeting with Chohan was due to take place on
19:57
Speaker 2: Easter Monday, but over the weekend, Belinda received an unexpected
20:01
Speaker 2: visit from Reagan. Harnsey and Greece.
20:10
Speaker 4: Reagan said, I'm going to do the lane by your stables,
20:12
Speaker 4: which actually did need graveling, and that would have been
20:16
Speaker 4: a great place for the gravel. So I thought, well, okay.
20:20
Speaker 4: So when a digger arrived, I wasn't. It didn't surprise
20:25
Speaker 4: me because I thought, oh, they're going to come and
20:26
Speaker 4: grade the lane. And it was a Saturday, and I
20:35
Speaker 4: took the kids into town and I let them get
20:37
Speaker 4: on with it.
20:49
Speaker 2: Two days later, detectives traveled to the spot where Harnsey
20:52
Speaker 2: said he was planning to meet Chohan.
20:55
Speaker 7: In Newport where the passport of this is quite an
20:58
Speaker 7: iconic bronze statue of a pig, and that's where Haunsey
21:03
Speaker 7: said that he would bring mister Chowhan to notice. On
21:07
Speaker 7: the day in question, he in fact turned up with
21:09
Speaker 7: mister Reagan as well, and the pair of them stood
21:12
Speaker 7: there for some moments. They then enacted receiving a phone
21:19
Speaker 7: call and a text, and then made it plainly obvious
21:24
Speaker 7: through their body language that something had gone wrong with
21:26
Speaker 7: the arrangement, and they explained they'd received a phone call
21:31
Speaker 7: from someone saying we know you've told the police. We're
21:35
Speaker 7: friends of Nil's or Annul Chohans. The deals Off.
21:39
Speaker 2: Police traced the calls, but only to an unregistered phone.
21:44
Speaker 2: They were no closer to finding Neil Chohan, and all
21:47
Speaker 2: they knew for certain was that they had been led
21:50
Speaker 2: on a wild goose chase.
21:53
Speaker 7: I don't think personally he was having a swipe at
21:56
Speaker 7: the police and the sort of the subtle choke about pigs.
22:01
Speaker 7: I hope not.
22:02
Speaker 2: Anyway, While Reagan returned to work at SIBA, the police
22:07
Speaker 2: reverted to their original plan and called in Belinda Brewin
22:10
Speaker 2: for questioning.
22:11
Speaker 4: D I Raoul said to me, I want to have
22:13
Speaker 4: a full and frank discussion with you. And as I
22:17
Speaker 4: was leaving, Reagan said to me, listen, Belinda, if the
22:19
Speaker 4: police ask you what I was doing on your land,
22:23
Speaker 4: he said, you're to tell. He said, just tell them
22:26
Speaker 4: that I was helping you with your water system. I
22:30
Speaker 4: thought that was very odd. I mean, he'd said he'd
22:32
Speaker 4: look at it, but no work had been done on it,
22:34
Speaker 4: and I just thought it was odd. When I went
22:38
Speaker 4: to meet the police, they said to me, what do
22:40
Speaker 4: you think has happened? And I said, well, I don't
22:42
Speaker 4: really know. I said, I've told you everything that I know,
22:46
Speaker 4: and he said is there anything else that you think
22:48
Speaker 4: is odd? And I said, well, when I was leaving today,
22:52
Speaker 4: Reagan asked me not. It said that if you were
22:56
Speaker 4: to ask what he was doing on my land, I
22:59
Speaker 4: was to say he'd been working on my water system.
23:03
Speaker 4: And they said, well, what was he doing? And I
23:05
Speaker 4: said he'd dug a drainage ditch. And the two of
23:08
Speaker 4: them looked at each other and said he did what.
23:16
Speaker 2: Detectives rushed to Tibetan, convinced that a gruesome discovery awaited
23:20
Speaker 2: them on Belinda's farm.
23:32
Speaker 7: We exhumed the dig site painstaking fingertip forensic examination using
23:38
Speaker 7: highly trained forensic archaeologists and pathologists.
23:44
Speaker 2: The murder squad spent the next five days digging in
23:47
Speaker 2: Belinda's field, but the bodies they had expected to find
23:51
Speaker 2: were nowhere to be seen. In April two thousand and three,
23:59
Speaker 2: police had been so watching for the Chowan family for
24:01
Speaker 2: over two months, but they'd been looking in the wrong place.
24:08
Speaker 1: We planned to go out for an evening's canoe in
24:12
Speaker 1: nice quite a day, nice calm, see pleasantly warm time
24:16
Speaker 1: of year. Yeah, it was an enjoyable evening that we
24:19
Speaker 1: decided to venture out further than what we know we
24:22
Speaker 1: would do. After a short while, I noticed on the
24:32
Speaker 1: floating in the sea. It appaid to be three floating objects,
24:38
Speaker 1: which at a distance was unusual, you know, as we
24:44
Speaker 1: were sort of just canoeing around looking about, or I
24:46
Speaker 1: hadn't noticed something, but I just totally discarded it.
24:49
Speaker 4: It wasn't until he sort of shouted body at me.
24:53
Speaker 2: I was just like what.
24:59
Speaker 1: As I approached them, realize that he.
25:01
Speaker 9: Was obviously our body, a large body because it was oversized,
25:06
Speaker 9: somewhat inflated, but the feet were floating out of the
25:09
Speaker 9: water and the torso the head was face downwards in
25:13
Speaker 9: the water.
25:19
Speaker 3: He got me to go in call up nine ninety nine.
25:29
Speaker 1: I'll determine to stay with the body, come what may.
25:34
Speaker 1: But I did expect the rescue service would have been
25:36
Speaker 1: there sooner rather than later. It mightn't have been in
25:41
Speaker 1: the water cano in in the dark for nely three hours.
25:48
Speaker 4: He does get a bit unnerving.
25:51
Speaker 1: You can't ignore a body. Since you find a body,
25:53
Speaker 1: just say it's there, as I think I can still
26:02
Speaker 1: see the body flatting.
26:13
Speaker 2: The body was taken to a mortuary in Bournemouth, but
26:16
Speaker 2: it would be almost a week before it was identified
26:18
Speaker 2: as that of missing businessman Neil Chowman.
26:23
Speaker 8: I went to Bournemouth and saw the body the first
26:28
Speaker 8: time I had a look on Neil's face. I could
26:34
Speaker 8: see that he suffered a tragic debt. Here was he
26:42
Speaker 8: suffered a violent debt.
26:47
Speaker 7: He had received a blunt drawn ra injury to the
26:49
Speaker 7: back of his head. He had had a packing tape
26:53
Speaker 7: wound round his mouth, but the main blow to the head,
27:00
Speaker 7: followed by a subsequent suffocation, is the likely cause of
27:04
Speaker 7: death of mister Chohan.
27:08
Speaker 2: While Neil Chohan's clothes were removed for forensic analysis, a
27:12
Speaker 2: hundred miles away, police was still searching for evidence that
27:16
Speaker 2: his body had been buried in Belinda Bruin's field.
27:20
Speaker 7: The sight of the dig obviously became extremely important and
27:23
Speaker 7: we recovered some substantial evidence from that dig site, namely
27:28
Speaker 7: hares from their burnt clothing jewelry, which suggested that there
27:34
Speaker 7: had been, in fact been a burial site. Those hares
27:39
Speaker 7: were subsequently identified as mister Chohan's. He had been murdered
27:45
Speaker 7: at some stage he had been placed in the grave
27:48
Speaker 7: down in Devon, that he had been exhumed from that
27:52
Speaker 7: grave at a later date put into a boat. The
27:57
Speaker 7: boat had gone out into the middle of the bay
27:59
Speaker 7: at Bournemouth and dumped it into the sea.
28:07
Speaker 3: Until his body was found. We all hoped that he
28:09
Speaker 3: would be back one day, even if he had sold
28:11
Speaker 3: the company or not, he would still be back one
28:13
Speaker 3: day just to to visit us or whatever. But when
28:16
Speaker 3: his body was found, you had just lost all hope
28:19
Speaker 3: and that it was the end of him.
28:22
Speaker 5: But then our concerns sort of we knew what happened
28:25
Speaker 5: to Neil, but then our concerns drifted towards Nancy and
28:27
Speaker 5: the kids and the mother.
28:33
Speaker 7: The fact that the dig site was so big, and
28:36
Speaker 7: that if if you had wanted just to hide one body,
28:40
Speaker 7: you wouldn't needed to have gone to the extent of
28:42
Speaker 7: digging such a huge sight. Couple with the fact the
28:46
Speaker 7: entire family had gone missing. Couple with the fact there
28:49
Speaker 7: had been a bonfire there and we had recovered some
28:52
Speaker 7: items of jewelry which we believed to belong to Nancy.
28:56
Speaker 7: And also there was some small poppers found that that
29:00
Speaker 7: one would find on baby gross suits, so we believed
29:05
Speaker 7: that the family had all been put into the ground
29:09
Speaker 7: at that point. From that moment on, the entire investigation
29:20
Speaker 7: changed focus and became a category A which is the
29:24
Speaker 7: highest category of murder inquiry. Kenneth Reagan, obviously, from that
29:34
Speaker 7: point on, became prime suspect. At that stage, Reagan's whereabouts
29:38
Speaker 7: were unknown, as were Hauntsey's. They were very much on
29:44
Speaker 7: the loose, so to speak.
29:48
Speaker 4: I was a bit overcome by the whole thing, really,
29:50
Speaker 4: and I don't really know what I thought, but it
29:52
Speaker 4: never sort of maybe I just didn't want to think
29:55
Speaker 4: that somebody had been buried in my field. So I
29:57
Speaker 4: tried to make myself busy. And I noticed that my
30:00
Speaker 4: horse had ripped its horse blanket, so I took it
30:05
Speaker 4: off the horse, put it in the car, and I
30:08
Speaker 4: drove up the lane and lo and behold, I bumped
30:15
Speaker 4: into Reagan and Haunsey, who were in a car. I
30:23
Speaker 4: was really shocked to see them, and Reagan wound the
30:27
Speaker 4: window down and I said to what are you doing here?
30:29
Speaker 4: And he said we need to have a little chat.
30:32
Speaker 4: And Haunsey then said, why didn't you get in the car.
30:35
Speaker 4: We'll go and have a coffee. And I thought, well,
30:37
Speaker 4: I don't want to get in the car with them.
30:39
Speaker 4: So I had the horse blanket next to me, and
30:43
Speaker 4: there was a little cottage just and I said I've
30:46
Speaker 4: got to take this back. I've borrowed this from you know,
30:49
Speaker 4: pointed to I've got to take it back, and they
30:51
Speaker 4: were expecting it back. I'll be back in two minutes,
30:53
Speaker 4: I said, so they said okay. So I drove off
30:58
Speaker 4: and I drove round the corner and I phoned d
31:02
Speaker 4: Iral and he said, whatever you do, don't get in
31:04
Speaker 4: the car with them. So I said, okay. He said,
31:07
Speaker 4: I'm going to send two police officers back. Two police
31:11
Speaker 4: officers arrived, but Reagan and Hauntsey had gone.
31:17
Speaker 2: Reagan and Haunsey had escaped to Europe, leaving Peter Reese behind.
31:22
Speaker 2: But alone and on the run, Reese developed a guilty conscience.
31:30
Speaker 10: I think he was cornered. He didn't know me from Adam.
31:34
Speaker 10: He just came in, sat down, and more or less
31:38
Speaker 10: started pull his heart.
31:39
Speaker 2: At at the time, Wendy Powells was staying at a
31:42
Speaker 2: boarding house when a new lodger moved in within hours.
31:45
Speaker 2: Reese made a startling confession.
31:48
Speaker 10: I just took him as any you know, new lodger
31:51
Speaker 10: that came there until he started saying have I seen
31:57
Speaker 10: him on TV? And I said no, should I have done?
32:03
Speaker 10: And so I just wondered. He said, because I have
32:06
Speaker 10: been on TV and I thought, oh, he's not a
32:09
Speaker 10: celebrity or anything. You know, he didn't look that way,
32:12
Speaker 10: and he just said that he was involved with an
32:16
Speaker 10: Asian family that had disappeared.
32:19
Speaker 4: They could put me at the scene.
32:21
Speaker 10: Of where the bodies were buried, but I didn't kill
32:26
Speaker 10: anybody was going. You know, they can't do that. They
32:28
Speaker 10: can paign that on me. And I'd say to him,
32:30
Speaker 10: you know what is going on?
32:31
Speaker 7: You know?
32:32
Speaker 10: He just said that Reagan was crazy because he killed
32:37
Speaker 10: two children. I gasped and I said, hey, did you
32:41
Speaker 10: were they killed? He said that Reagan had shot them.
32:46
Speaker 10: It was Reagan. He's his psycho, he said he killed
32:51
Speaker 10: them all. I knew what I had to do because
33:00
Speaker 10: how many people come to your home every day and
33:02
Speaker 10: say that they've killed five people and two babies, three
33:10
Speaker 10: adults and two babies.
33:16
Speaker 2: Wendy Powells alerted the police, and after just twelve days
33:20
Speaker 2: on the run, Peter Reese was arrested at a nearby pub.
33:24
Speaker 2: Despite his confession to Wendy Powell's, Reese refused to answer
33:28
Speaker 2: any questions, and the whereabouts of the Chowen family remained
33:31
Speaker 2: a mystery, but three weeks later, a fisherman discovered another
33:36
Speaker 2: body floating in the solent.
33:40
Speaker 8: I was told that Nancy's body was decomposed, but I
33:45
Speaker 8: interested on seeing the body because for me, it was
33:49
Speaker 8: not a securitan. For me, it was my baby sister.
33:55
Speaker 8: For me, she was she was still alive, and I
33:59
Speaker 8: was to her.
34:03
Speaker 4: And that was it.
34:09
Speaker 8: Tearful goodbye, that's what I said. I felt sorry that
34:16
Speaker 8: I can't hear her. I did say that, Nanty, I
34:21
Speaker 8: tried my best, but I can't tear you.
34:29
Speaker 2: Kenneth Reagan was tracked down by police in Belgium after
34:32
Speaker 2: two months on the run, and just six weeks later,
34:35
Speaker 2: William Harnsey gave himself up. The three prime suspects were
34:40
Speaker 2: now in custody, but they refused to answer any questions.
34:45
Speaker 2: With three family members still missing and no witnesses to
34:48
Speaker 2: the murders, police needed hard evidence to link their suspects
34:52
Speaker 2: to the crime. Little did they realize that the vital
34:55
Speaker 2: clue they needed had been left by Neil Chohan himself.
35:01
Speaker 2: April two thousand and five saw the start of the
35:04
Speaker 2: longest criminal trial in the history of the Old Bailey.
35:08
Speaker 2: Police were trying to prove that Kenneth Reagan, William Hornsey
35:11
Speaker 2: and Peter Reese had abducted and murdered all five members
35:14
Speaker 2: of the Chohan family. The nine month trial saw almost
35:19
Speaker 2: four and a half thousand different exhibits from financial transactions
35:23
Speaker 2: to petrol receipts, but it was telephone tracking evidence which
35:26
Speaker 2: provided the foundation for the whole case.
35:30
Speaker 7: We got ourselves into position where we pretty much knew
35:33
Speaker 7: exactly what had gone on and could give a very
35:36
Speaker 7: clear indication to the trial the enormity of the crime
35:41
Speaker 7: and who'd committed it.
35:45
Speaker 2: Initially, police had established Reagan and Chohan's movements by tracking
35:48
Speaker 2: their mobiles. Once they gained access to Haunsey and Reese's phones,
35:53
Speaker 2: they had compelling evidence for an abduction.
35:57
Speaker 7: Our telephone intelligence had suggested that mister check Johan had
36:01
Speaker 7: been with mister Reagan, Haauntsey and Reese, and then the
36:06
Speaker 7: telephones traveled down to Wilton in Salisbury, namely three Forge Close,
36:12
Speaker 7: which was Ken Reagan's home address. Over the critical period
36:17
Speaker 7: when mister Johan had initially been had gone missing, there
36:21
Speaker 7: was never a time that one of those telephones wasn't
36:24
Speaker 7: in that area, leading us to believe he was being
36:28
Speaker 7: guarded at number three Forge Close.
36:41
Speaker 2: All the men could now be placed at the scene,
36:44
Speaker 2: but detectives still needed further clues as to what really
36:47
Speaker 2: happened at three Forge Close. In the run up to
36:50
Speaker 2: the trial, they unexpectedly received some vital new evidence from
36:54
Speaker 2: one of the suspect's own relatives.
36:57
Speaker 11: Mister Hauntsey's son approached police and produced to us alex
37:01
Speaker 11: Mark color printer and also this gray suitcase, which contained
37:07
Speaker 11: a number of pieces of a four paper with mister
37:11
Speaker 11: Chohan's signature.
37:12
Speaker 2: On the printer and documents from Horns's suitcase explained how
37:18
Speaker 2: Reagan had managed to convince the staff at SIBA that
37:20
Speaker 2: Neil Chohen had sold the company and left the country.
37:30
Speaker 2: Police argued that Neil Chohan was held at three Forge
37:34
Speaker 2: Close so Reagan could force him to sign the documents
37:37
Speaker 2: under duss what are you playing at?
37:40
Speaker 4: What are you doing? Just fucking sign it.
38:01
Speaker 2: The suitcase contained ten blank sheets with Showen's signature spares,
38:06
Speaker 2: which Reagan could have used to produce other forgeries if
38:09
Speaker 2: they were needed.
38:25
Speaker 7: Reagan's initial plan was to get rid of Annual Chohan.
38:29
Speaker 7: I think once he'd gone down that road, he was
38:32
Speaker 7: left in a position where he had to murder the
38:34
Speaker 7: entire family because he knew that had he not done so,
38:38
Speaker 7: that Nancy would have raised the alarm. We could see
38:42
Speaker 7: clearly from the telephone intelligence that while mister Reese remained
38:46
Speaker 7: in Salisbury, Reagan and Hauntsy traveled to London to Sutton
38:54
Speaker 7: Road House, though where they spent several hours I can
38:59
Speaker 7: only guess, but it's possible that that is when the
39:01
Speaker 7: family met their deaths in that address. I don't know
39:04
Speaker 7: that to date. What I can say is that Reagan
39:07
Speaker 7: haunts you were in the area, and I can say
39:10
Speaker 7: that the family disappeared on that day. For mister Reagan,
39:14
Speaker 7: these murders were something he had to do to get
39:17
Speaker 7: what he wanted, and it was meant almost as meant
39:22
Speaker 7: little to him as changing his shirt.
39:26
Speaker 2: The police were unable to establish precisely where or when
39:29
Speaker 2: the family were murdered, but they were convinced that Neil
39:32
Speaker 2: Chohen had been killed at Reagan's bungalow. The problem was
39:36
Speaker 2: proving it.
39:37
Speaker 11: We carried out a full forensic examination of the premises
39:40
Speaker 11: over many days. There was nothing significantly found there. The
39:45
Speaker 11: reasons for this was that the room had been recently
39:47
Speaker 11: decorated and certainly the furniture from that room was certainly removed,
39:53
Speaker 11: and Reagan had replaced it immediately with new furniture.
39:59
Speaker 7: The fact that premises had been redecorated, the carpet had
40:02
Speaker 7: been removed, the sofa had been removed, really was clearly
40:07
Speaker 7: indicative of someone trying to conceal evidence and clean up
40:11
Speaker 7: a crime scene.
40:12
Speaker 2: But despite the suspicious activity at the house, it was
40:15
Speaker 2: not proof that Chohen had been murdered by Reagan. It
40:19
Speaker 2: was only a single extraordinary piece of evidence that will
40:23
Speaker 2: convince the jury beyond reasonable doubt, a clue which had
40:27
Speaker 2: been initially overlooked by the scientists and left in storage
40:30
Speaker 2: for almost eight months, a clue left by Neil Chohan himself.
40:37
Speaker 11: We have two exhibits here. One is the right sock
40:40
Speaker 11: of mister Chohan, which was taken from him at the
40:43
Speaker 11: post autumn down in Dorsets. Most of the clothes were
40:47
Speaker 11: submitted immediately to the Forensic Science Service for examination, but socks.
40:53
Speaker 11: Normally is very little evidential value in socks. But for completeness,
40:58
Speaker 11: we decided to send the remaining items of clothing to
41:02
Speaker 11: the scientists who had requested them. When the scientists unpackaged
41:06
Speaker 11: the sock and examined it. Inside was found a folded
41:12
Speaker 11: piece of paper. As you can see, it's in a
41:16
Speaker 11: very delicate state. He has been dried, but it's obviously
41:20
Speaker 11: been in the seawater. I think the way it's been
41:24
Speaker 11: folded so many times has protected it. And it's a
41:27
Speaker 11: letter from the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society and it's
41:31
Speaker 11: addressed to mister Reagan of number three Forged Close and
41:36
Speaker 11: it's dated the twelfth of February two thousand and three,
41:40
Speaker 11: which clearly meant it arrived the day we believe mister
41:42
Speaker 11: Chohan was being held captive at Forge Closet. You can
43:08
Speaker 11: only imagine the fear that mister Chohan would have been
43:11
Speaker 11: in to secret this in his person, and certainly to
43:14
Speaker 11: put it into his sock. He must have realized that
43:18
Speaker 11: he faced imminent death.
43:22
Speaker 7: Of course's overwhelming evidence of the message that mister Chohan
43:26
Speaker 7: was trying to descend from beyond the grave as to
43:29
Speaker 7: who had actually murdered him.
43:33
Speaker 2: After a nine month trial, the jury reached a unanimous verdict.
43:37
Speaker 2: Peter Reese was sentenced to twenty three years for the
43:40
Speaker 2: murder of Neil Chohen Harnsey and Reagan each received five
43:44
Speaker 2: consecutive life sentences for murdering the Chohen family. They will
43:48
Speaker 2: never be released from prison. The remains of Charrange at
43:54
Speaker 2: corp Neil Chohen's mother in law, were eventually found off
43:57
Speaker 2: the coast of the Isle of Wight. The bodies of
44:00
Speaker 2: the two babies, eighteen month old Divender and eight week
44:04
Speaker 2: old Ravender, have never been found.
44:08
Speaker 7: I think that the killing of any child is extremely tragic,
44:13
Speaker 7: and I think as a police officer, having investigated such crimes,
44:18
Speaker 7: you can normally see a reason why that happened. Someone snapped,
44:23
Speaker 7: someone was depressed, someone was mentally ill, and there's normally
44:28
Speaker 7: a variety of motivations for a child being murdered. In
44:32
Speaker 7: these circumstances, the motivation was purely self gain and greed,
44:39
Speaker 7: and for me, I found that particularly horrific.
44:46
Speaker 8: I still have nightmares about all the killers might have
44:51
Speaker 8: killed Nancy, or who was killed first. Was Nancy killed
44:58
Speaker 8: in front of my mom, or my mom killed in
45:03
Speaker 8: front of Nancy, or the kid killed in front of
45:08
Speaker 8: Mom and Nancy. And it's just very hard, you know,
45:19
Speaker 8: and I don't think I'll ever be able to come
45:22
Speaker 8: to terms with it.
45:26
Speaker 2: Uncle returned to New Zealand. He would never meet his
45:29
Speaker 2: sister's children. The only time he saw them altogether was
45:32
Speaker 2: on a family video he found in their empty home.
45:36
Speaker 8: When I found Nancy's video was filmed just two days
45:41
Speaker 8: before the disappearance, Hello, and I could see in the
45:49
Speaker 8: video of the family celebrating life and the kids playing
45:53
Speaker 8: in the house. The eldest son, he took his first
46:00
Speaker 8: steps in the video, and my mom, she was very
46:03
Speaker 8: happy in the video. When I had looked at the video,
46:10
Speaker 8: I was very happy, you know, because I never actually
46:13
Speaker 8: saw Anil and Nancy living together.
46:16
Speaker 4: It's probably gardener, very nice.
46:21
Speaker 8: But through that video, I came to know that Nancy
46:24
Speaker 8: was very happy with Neiland. She was, you know, she
46:29
Speaker 8: was very lucky to have a guy like Anil with her.
46:35
Speaker 8: Every time I close my eyes, I can I can
46:38
Speaker 8: see Nancy smiling and as if nothing has happened. She's
46:43
Speaker 8: still there and she's waiting for me to come over.
47:00
Speaker 1: Battle Fold accupate b