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True Crime Documentary - The Brutal Murder Of The Chohan Family · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

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