Age: 14
Sex: female
Date: 1 Nov 2003
Place: Abingdon Street, Blackpool, Lancashire
Charlene Downes was last seen in the early hours of 1 November 2003 at the junction of Abingdon Street and the back of Clifton Street in Blackpool.
A man was tried twice for her murder in 2008, but the jury were unable to reach a verdict in the first trial and in the second trial grave doubts were raised over the evidence. It was said that failures in police surveillance techniques resulted in the collapse of the trial that had heard that Charlene Downes had been raped by a kebab shop owner who was then alleged to have murdered her and put her remains in with the kebabs he was selling. The man and another man were said to have been heard talking about having sex with white girls and having joked that Charlene Downes had gone into the kebabs. The judge said that a witness in the case could no longer be considered reliable and the second trial collapsed. The other man that had been on trial with the kebab shop owner was charged with assisting an offender after it was alleged that he had helped to dispose of Charlene Downes's body but he was also acquitted.
