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NARRATOR: On the 13th of February 2003, 46-year-old Anil Chohan, a successful businessman from Hounslow
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in London, England, vanished after a mysterious meeting at Stonehenge. Two days later, his wife, two young sons and mother-in-law
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also disappeared. PAUL CHESTON: The Chohan case is truly remarkable, and chilling,
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and savage, and shocking like few other cases I have ever covered in my life. NARRATOR: The killers were 54-year-old career
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criminal Kenneth Regan, and his longtime associate William Horncy. Small-time criminal, 38-year-old Peter Rees was also brought
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on board to help with the plan. Regan was plotting to seize control of Anil's business
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by any means necessary. DAVID LITTLE: He had no legitimate buyer or no money to buy the company.
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So for him to do that, Anil effectively had to disappear. NARRATOR: Regan remained brazen throughout the investigation,
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feeding the police false information and fleeing the country after Anil's body was found.
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DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This was the systematic annihilation of a multigenerational family.
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The amount of harm that these offenders have caused, it really is very significant.
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NARRATOR: Cold and calculated, Regan and Horncy methodically wiped out members from three generations
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of the Chohan family, including two young children, for the sole purpose of getting rich quick.
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This makes them two of the world's most evil killers. [THEME MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: On the 1st of July 2005,
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one of the Uk's longest murder trials to date came to a dramatic conclusion at the Old Bailey in London.
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Paul Cheston was a court correspondent at the time, and followed the trial from the very beginning.
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They had been charged with not one, but with five murders. An entire family. In my experience of 23 years being in the courts,
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I've never known anything quite like that. NARRATOR: The cold brutality of these merciless crimes
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shocked detectives assigned to the case. Andy Baker was commander and head of homicide for London's Met Police
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when the family were first reported missing. ANDY BAKER: You do think, perhaps something has happened to them.
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Hopefully, you're going to find them alive, and this is something where they've just gone away for a while.
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Sadly, that wasn't the case. NARRATOR: The investigation gained national attention,
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but the road to conviction was not easy. David Little was the senior investigating officer
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when the case came to court. This was a very complicated case, made more so by the actions of Regan from the outset.
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He wove lies throughout the investigation, which is not unusual, but the way that he did so was very explicit,
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and he did a very good job. NARRATOR: The killer's story begins in 1948, in Ealing, West London.
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Kenneth Regan was born Kenneth Avery. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He was, from an early age, a thug.
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There's no two ways about it. He wasn't particularly tall, but he was broad, broad shoulders,
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and could fix you with an intimidating stare. NARRATOR: As an adult, Kenneth Avery
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put his intimidating stare to dangerous and lucrative uses. Kenneth's described as a career criminal.
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He is at the top end of the most brutal and the highest echelon of criminals in this country.
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He actually has the nickname of Captain Cash, because he was very heavily involved in drugs at that time,
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and moved a lot of money. He really fancied himself as a bit of a criminal entrepreneur.
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So he carried a load of cash around in his car. He felt that he was entitled to a really lavish lifestyle
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without the hard, legitimate graft that went with it. He was also involved in another conspiracy, which
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was conspiracy to obtain British passports with a guy called William Horncy. NARRATOR: Born in Windsor in 1952,
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William Horncy was five years the junior of Avery, but no less dangerous. William's also a career criminal,
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but not in the same league. He was more of a DIY criminal. William Horncy had quite a legitimate cover.
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He was a qualified accountant, so he has this veneer of respectability. But he was very much involved in the passport scam.
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He would give homeless people 50 pounds in order to use their details on applications.
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So he was part and parcel of all of this. NARRATOR: Despite his respectable cover,
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Horncy soon found himself in trouble with the authorities. In 1998, the extensive criminal enterprise Avery and Horncy
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had built came crashing down. The whole plot revolves around being arrested with 25 kilograms of heroin.
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It was in the boot of his Mercedes car when he was stopped by the police, along with hundreds
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of thousand pounds of cash. He was looking at a 20 year sentence. NARRATOR: Desperate to escape a lengthy prison term,
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Captain Cash sought to strike a deal with the police. After his arrest, he became a so-called supergrass,
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and he fed a lot of information to the authorities about criminal activities. Now this isn't out of a sense of morality.
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This is somebody who is looking out for his own interests. He decides that he's going to cut his losses.
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And supplying the police with a whole range of information on major drug dealing operations,
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he informed on providing evidence and names and information, including, strangely, his mate, Horncy.
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NARRATOR: In June 1998, after whistleblowing on one of his closest associates, Avery awaited his fate.
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When he came before the courts, instead of a 20 year sentence, he received eight years.
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And in fact, on that, he served less than half because of his informant role. NARRATOR: William Horncy also received
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a 21 month sentence for his part in the passport racket. Kenneth Avery was released early from prison in June 2002,
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despite the severity of his crimes. So here, we have a man who's only served four years in jail.
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Goes to live with his dad in a little bungalow near Salisbury. And he wants to get back to the big time.
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He is determined to become Captain Cash again. He decided to revert his name from Avery to Regan.
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His given name was Kenneth Avery. In fact, his mother's maiden name was Regan. He did that because, obviously, he
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wanted to reinvent himself and almost kind of cleanse himself of his past. NARRATOR: With his new identity, Regan started
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planning his rise to power. Kenneth Regan, as he was now, found work as an HGV driver,
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moving the pallets and the fruit about at CIBA. CIBA Freight was a very large import export
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company working in West London. The suggestion is it's up to 4 million pound turnover per annum.
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So it was a multimillion pound enterprise, and had been built up over some time.
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CIBA Freight was owned by 46-year-old Amarjit Chohan, known to his friends as Anil.
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Anil Chohan was a very successful businessman in West London. He owned CIBA Freight.
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He also had other dealings throughout the world, really, and he had property in India.
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But behind all that, there was a degree of a Jack the Lad. He was a chancer to put it mildly,
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and a small-time criminal, to put it slightly more harshly. He did have a history of an incident of tax evasion,
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and that is exactly the kind of thing that criminals like Regan will prey upon. Because that damages somebody's respectability.
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Because that was very helpful in creating a narrative around Anil, which was a wholly false one.
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You know, that he was a dodgy guy. NARRATOR: Despite his past, Anil was a successful and respected
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businessman. He was also a devoted father and a loving husband. Anil married Nancy, and had a very delightful family life.
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They had two small children, Ravinder, who was just three or four months old, and Devinder, who was 18 months old.
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We know that the grandmother flew over to be with her daughter and grandchildren.
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The husband and wife, Anil and Nancy, spoke more than once a day, always in Punjabi.
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Nancy would speak to her brother, Ankha, who lived in New Zealand, on a daily basis as well.
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So it just shows you how close they were. NARRATOR: Whilst at CIBA, supergrass and convicted
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drug dealer 54-year-old Kenneth Regan started to work his way into Anil's trusted inner circle.
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Regan somehow managed to get himself trusted by Anil Chohan, possibly through the way that he portrayed
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himself and his contacts that he said he had. NARRATOR: Whilst at CIBA, Regan reached out
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to his old associate, William Horncy. Horncy remained a friend of Regan, even though Regan had passed his name on to the police.
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And sometimes, criminal bonds are stronger than you would imagine. And he went to his friend, Horncy, and said,
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this is what I've got planned. Come on board. CIBA Freight was perfectly situated for his purposes,
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because he was so close to Heathrow. He knew that Chohan was interested in selling, so it
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was over a period of months, he worked out how he was going to take the company.
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He wasn't going to buy it. He was going to take it. NARRATOR: In February 2003, Regan put his plan
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into action, and with the help of Horncy, started his takeover bid. He told Anil that he had a buyer that
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was going to buy the company. So I think Anil trusted him and thought he was going to be a good middleman to sell the company.
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Regan went to him and said, look, we may have a man from Holland who would like to buy your business.
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A Dutch buyer who actually turned out to be Peter Rees. NARRATOR: Far from being an upstanding businessman
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from Holland, Peter Rees was a 38-year-old small-time criminal and associate of Horncy.
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Rees was a part car salesman, part roofer, part this, that, engineer, all that sort of stuff.
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Very low-level crime. He had a long history of criminal offenses, but they were all lower-end.
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But he was willing, and he was naive. NARRATOR: With the key players in place, Regan set about luring Anil into the trap.
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On the 13th of February, Regan asked Anil to come to a meeting at Stonehenge, where he was due to meet the people
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purporting to buy the company. So he went, prepared to discuss the sale of his company,
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and that was the last time Anil was ever seen alive by anybody other than Regan, Horncy and Rees.
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NARRATOR: On the 13th of February 2003, the day of this meeting, 46-year-old Anil Chohan
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vanished. His disappearance was immediately noticed by his devoted wife, Nancy, who became concerned
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when he didn't return home. There's no doubt Nancy would have been distraught. She was concerned that he didn't come home.
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And when eventually, he did say, he did telephone her, he spoke in English, which concerned her.
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Anil Chohan made a voicemail to allay Nancy's fears that anything bad had happened.
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And effectively, Anil said that he's running away from the authorities. He left that message in English.
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And Nancy immediately realized that he would not have done so. He would have spoken to her in Punjabi.
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So the first thoughts that she had was that, although she knew it was Anil speaking,
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she was worried about him. NARRATOR: Two days later, on the 15th of February, Nancy, her mother, and two young sons
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also vanished. She had been speaking to her brother in New Zealand, Ankha, on a daily basis.
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And those phone calls stopped just after Valentine's Day. Nancy's contacts with her brother,
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who lives in New Zealand, are very close indeed. They speak to each other almost every day on the phone.
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So when Nancy stops calling him, he's very suspicious indeed. NARRATOR: In the wake of the disappearances,
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Kenneth Regan assumed control of CIBA. Regan arrives at CIBA Freight, brandishing
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this power of attorney and saying, this is my company. I've now taken over it. Chohan has legged it.
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He's disappeared, taken his family with him. Goodness knows where they've gone. I am now in charge.
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NARRATOR: Claiming he was now the legal owner, Regan and Horncy convinced the employees
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at CIBA that all was well. The people at CIBA Freight were actually instructed that Anil Chohan had gifted
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the company to Kenneth Regan. So they thought, oh well. OK, you're in charge now.
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Away we go. So at this stage, no one had reported the Chohans missing, because they
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didn't think they were missing. And no one had suspected that a crime had been done.
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However, the Chohans were nowhere to be seen. NARRATOR: One person who refused to believe the family
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would simply vanish was Nancy's brother, Ankha. So no crime had been reported until Nancy's brother flew
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from New Zealand to the UK, convinced that his sister wouldn't just go missing. Something must have happened to her.
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He was convinced that his sister would not just run away without telling him. She would not disappear.
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NARRATOR: With concern mounting from Ankha, on the 19th of February, a missing persons investigation was launched.
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The initial investigation was a normal missing persons investigation, in that somebody has been
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reported missing to police. There are no suspicious circumstances at that time. It's just the fact that people have disappeared.
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NARRATOR: As part of the missing persons inquiry, police searched the family home in Hounslow
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and made a troubling discovery. There was wet washing in the washing machine, which is really unusual.
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Whilst there was no sign of a disturbance, it looked as if it was a quick leave.
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And you know, a mother and a grandmother of small children, they wouldn't have left wet washing in the washing machine.
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And the most important factor at the time, was Mrs Kaur was a very religious lady.
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And she'd left her version of her religious book at the premises, which she certainly
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would never have done. NARRATOR: The unusual circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the Chohan family
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alerted commander Andy Baker to the idea that something sinister might have happened.
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I'd decided, together with the local team, that it should become a major inquiry.
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The Detective Chief Inspector, the senior investigating officer was appointed on the 21st of February,
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so days after they were reported missing. NARRATOR: With warning bells ringing, the police started to take a closer
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look at CIBA Freight and those now controlling the company. Howard Pickard was a Detective Sergeant brought in
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to help with the case. HOWARD PICKARD: We had information coming from Regan himself, who came forward saying,
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yes, he was going to take over the company. And he had various documents purportedly
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signed by Anil Chohan, saying that this was the case and everything was above board.
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NARRATOR: It didn't take long for the police to realize not all was well at CIBA Freight.
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So of the three people that were involved in the takeover at CIBA, and that was our main line of inquiry,
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you had Kenneth Regan, a lady called Belinda Bruin, and a third person who, let's call Mike.
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We found out that Belinda Bruin and Kenneth Regan had met some time before, on the fifth floor
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at Harvey Nichols, a well-known bar in Central London. NARRATOR: Gregarious socialite Belinda Bruin
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had met Regan in 1997, before he was convicted of drug smuggling. Initially, she was intrigued by Regan's lavish lifestyle.
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She was an extraordinarily different character to Regan. Belinda Bruin is a PR executive at Chelsea Girl.
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Very well connected, which put her high up in the sort of glamorous West End world.
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NARRATOR: As part of the take over at CIBA, Regan duped Belinda into helping him run the company.
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Little did she know, she was to become the acceptable face of the business. She was the granddaughter of a millionaire,
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[INAUDIBLE] Pierre, and had lived on a massive, 50 acre estate near Tiverton in Devon.
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NARRATOR: The police began to make inquiries around the various parties running CIBA Freight.
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Kenneth Regan had been very clever in the way that he put a veil of lies around what had happened,
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and how it happened. So he made it very much look like Anil Chohan had run away from tax problems or others, and had left the country,
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and left the company in his hands. NARRATOR: Despite the police's intense interest in him,
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54-year-old Kenneth Regan remained cool, calm, and collected throughout the investigation.
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During his interviews, he was extremely helpful. Tried to tell the police as much information as he could.
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But what he was telling the police was false information that was purely to divert attention from him.
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And did so, initially. His lies were very, very clever lies, and they were backed up
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by documentary evidence. NARRATOR: But it wouldn't be long before Regan and Horncy's
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story started to unravel. At the same time, we obviously made some inquiries of a covert nature.
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So we would have been looking at their telephones, when they were last used, what messages they were
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on, what texts were on them. We were beginning to see that the phones had gone to somewhere in Salisbury, and then
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we then started tying that up with other phone inquiries of people that we thought were
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a bit too close for comfort. And that took us, then, to other inquiries, which led to Tiverton.
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NARRATOR: Tiverton in Devon was the location of Belinda Bruin's country estate. On the 19th of February 2003, the phones of Kenneth Regan,
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William Horncy, and Peter Rees were all in the idyllic countryside town. We obviously made inquiries to find out why they were there,
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what they were doing there. And during those inquiries, it transpired that they'd
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purportedly dug a drainage ditch in the fields where Belinda Bruin kept her horses.
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Belinda Bruin had no knowledge of this. She said that it was a surprise present from Regan
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to her, to dig a ditch and make the drainage better, and she certainly not asked him to do it.
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So police were drawn to the farmyard in Tiverton. The senior investigating officer approached me and said,
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we'd like to get a digger and dig a ditch. And I had no hesitation in saying, yeah, we must do this.
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NARRATOR: Shortly before the police were due to start digging, an urgent new lead came in.
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Regan and Horncy told police that they were having a meeting with Anil Chohan in Newport
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over the Easter weekend. They were going to give him passports so he could leave the country.
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NARRATOR: The meeting was due to take place next to the bronze pig statue in Newport.
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We obviously covered that potential meeting, and I have no doubt that Regan or Horncy covered
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us covering that meeting. The police investigation at Tiverton was delayed whilst they went to Newport
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to find Anil Chohan, where he was meant to be, according to Regan. NARRATOR: Anil never arrived for the meeting,
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and there were no further sightings of Anil or the Chohan family. In April 2003, police finally started excavation work on
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the drainage ditch at Tiverton. REPORTER (VOICEOVER): A tip off led police to this farmland in Stoodley, near Tiverton
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in Devon. After five days of excavations, police have found evidence that one or more bodies were
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buried here and then removed. They were there for a good week, in appalling weather.
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It had been very wet and raining. And they shifted and tried to sift the tons and tons of soil,
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looking for all sorts of exhibits. We, in fact, recovered nearly 90 exhibits, including bits
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of jewelry, hair, plastic gloves, rope, et cetera, a lot of which had been burnt.
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But the hair, obviously, was very important, and that was later submitted to the forensic science service.
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DR. STUART HAMILTON: Gravesites are actually very distinctive. The way that the ground is cut, the way that it's disturbed,
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even when you fill it in, it's still apparent. If they are excavated properly, it's even possible
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to identify what sort of tool was used to actually cut it, whether it was a spade or some sort of digger.
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NARRATOR: Police were convinced they were dealing with a burial site, but where were the bodies?
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Two months later, on the 22nd of April, two canoeists made a terrible discovery.
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They found the body near the pier. One of them stayed with the body and made sure it didn't float away or sink,
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and the other went and called the police. It was found to have had bite marks on the wrist.
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It was clothed, but gagged as well. So very suspicious circumstances. If somebody's been dead for a while
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before they're put in the water, there's probably no air in it. The body will then only really resurface
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when decomposition proceeds to the point where the body becomes gassy and bloats.
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NARRATOR: Crime scene manager DS Howard Pickard remembers being dispatched to the South Coast.
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I went down with the SIO to Bournemouth, where we spoke to the Dorset place, and a couple of days
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later, we had a special postmortem, where we eventually identified Mr Chohan. So we knew we now had a murder inquiry,
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and things went into full motion. NARRATOR: The forensics team discovered Anil's body had only been in the water for two days
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before it was found. But he and his family had been missing for over two months.
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When his body was recovered from the sea, it was months after he had been murdered.
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His face was still taped up with tape. There were two small holes in the nose, so he could breathe.
00:24:41
At a special postmortem, which we conducted with the home office pathologist down in Boscombe,
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I think we came to the conclusion that he had died of asphyxia. The postmortem did show that the body had, in fact,
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traces of drugs, GHB in the bloodstream, and there was a wound to the head, which could
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have contributed to the death. NARRATOR: The forensic examination suggested 46-year-old Anil Chohan had been beaten,
00:25:07
drugged, and asphyxiated. Suddenly, the new owner of CIBA Freight, 55-year-old Kenneth Regan, and his associates
00:25:16
looked more suspicious than ever. We had this covert work that had been going on,
00:25:21
this technical work of identifying footprints of where the people that were key people, the victims
00:25:28
and the perpetrators, had been. The movements of Regan, Horncy, and Rees, over the next few days after they had kidnapped
00:25:36
Anil were quite complex and very, very difficult to put together. Forensically, there was an awful lot
00:25:42
of work done in different areas, and also on different vehicles and with CCTV. NARRATOR: The mobile phone data led police
00:25:52
to believe Anil had actually been held at Forge Close for several days. When Anil Chohan was taken, he was
00:26:00
actually taken prisoner and taken to Regan's father's house. And that's where we-- well, we know he was actually detained
00:26:07
there for some period of time. Peter Rees, I think he was actually told what to do,
00:26:13
told when to do it. He, initially, was in Regan's father's home, guarding Anil Chohan whilst the other two, Regan and Horncy,
00:26:24
went to London. NARRATOR: With Regan, Horncy, and Rees nowhere to be found, crime scene investigators descended on the small house
00:26:33
looking for clues. When we first, obviously, arrived at Forge Close, it was sealed off completely.
00:26:40
And, obviously, we went in and assessed it. And it was quite clear that some of the walls
00:26:44
had been newly painted. There was a smell of fresh paint. And there seems to be a couple of new carpets
00:26:49
in various rooms. So, internally, there was a great lack of evidence. However, there was a spot of blood
00:26:56
from one of the children, Devinder, outside the address. So we were able to place one of the children,
00:27:03
certainly, at the address as well. We know that, not only from information received,
00:27:08
but certainly, the telephone footprint records, that Regan and Horncy, who had been in Forge Close
00:27:15
in Salisbury, Wilkshire, also went to Hounslow, to the home where Nancy, the mother, and the two children
00:27:20
were. NARRATOR: A horrifying picture was now starting to emerge around the family's last movements.
00:27:29
My suspicion is that they took the family hostage to try and use as leverage. I don't know how the sequence of events--
00:27:35
I don't know who was killed first, and who was killed last. Certainly, they would have had to kill the whole family
00:27:40
at some stage if they were going to get away with the fact that Anil had left the country and left the business to them.
00:27:46
Because there's no way that Anil would have left the business to somebody else, and leave Nancy with nothing.
00:27:51
NARRATOR: Cold and merciless, 54-year-old Regan, along with his accomplices, Horncy and Rees,
00:27:57
were prepared to go to extreme lengths for control of the multimillion pound company, CIBA.
00:28:04
Whether or not they'd been murdered in front of Anil, Anil still would have been under pressure.
00:28:11
I have no doubts that Regan would have joyfully said to him that his wife and children were in danger.
00:28:18
No doubts at all. It was all part of this torture and this pressure that they put on Anil to sign over his business.
00:28:27
Whilst Regan was keeping Anil Chohan in his father's house, he forced him, or coerced him, or somehow
00:28:35
got him to sign blank pages with his signature, and letters basically saying that he was going to hand
00:28:42
over the company to him. They put him under the most extreme duress. I mean, torture of the worst kind.
00:28:49
Basically, they get him to sign a false power of attorney, putting everything he owns into the hands of Regan.
00:28:59
NARRATOR: Police continued to track all three suspects movements via their historic telephone
00:29:05
signals. It was then that they made a gut-wrenching discovery. It was that weekend, the bank holiday weekend, that Regan,
00:29:14
Horncy and Rees excavated the bodies and took them out to the [INAUDIBLE] and dumped them in the sea.
00:29:19
NARRATOR: Whilst the police were on a wild goose chase, waiting for Anil Chohan back in April 2003, Regan, Horncy
00:29:27
and Rees were in Tiverton, exhuming the bodies of the Chohan family. Regan's ruse meant police missed the discovery
00:29:36
by a matter of days. Regan, Horncy, and Reese hired a van and boat to take-- well, effectively take the bodies out to sea.
00:29:45
We were able to get CCTV footage of them hiring a vehicle and driving from Tiverton down to the South Coast,
00:29:54
and so we were ready to follow them both on mobile phone traffic and by their movements on CCTV.
00:30:02
NARRATOR: Detectives were now more determined than ever to catch the killers. They contacted the hire companies who own the vans.
00:30:10
By the time police seized those vans and treated them as a crime scene, they'd been hired out on numerous occasions.
00:30:17
So the chance of forensically getting anything from these vans, again, was low. But we painstakingly took the vans apart.
00:30:25
We found blood and hair, again, identified as that belonging to Anil Chohan, in one of the two vans,
00:30:32
and also on one of the boats that we recovered. And linking that all in with the mobile phone evidence showing
00:30:38
the suspects at all the different addresses at the right times really put the case well and truly to bed.
00:30:46
NARRATOR: On the 30th of April 2003, as police started to close in on Regan and Horncy,
00:30:53
the pair made their escape. Regan and Horncy realized that after the bodies have been dumped at sea, that the game was up.
00:31:02
So they both fled the country. They knew they were wanted. And whilst fleeing the country's not evidence of what you've
00:31:08
done, it's obviously there's a reason for fleeing the country and not making contact with the people
00:31:13
you should make contact with. Police were aware that Regan and Horncy had got a ferry to the continent.
00:31:21
From that moment on, we don't know where they went. NARRATOR: Unlike these two hardened criminals,
00:31:26
Rees did not leave the country. Police located him on the 14th of May 2003. Rees was the first to be arrested.
00:31:34
He was arrested in a pub in the southwest. He denied it. He just said he'd helped out Regan.
00:31:39
He gave us all the history, but just enough to say, I'm innocent of everything. Peter Rees has been described as a foot soldier in this case.
00:31:47
And I think there is a real attraction for him to this case, because he's involved
00:31:53
with these exciting London gangsters. This is an opportunity for him to be a somebody.
00:31:59
And I think that's quite intoxicating for him. NARRATOR: Two months after the arrest of Rees,
00:32:05
whilst Regan and Horncy were still hiding in Europe, a boat trawling in Pool Bay, Dorset,
00:32:10
made a harrowing discovery. A fishing boat picked up a package or baggage, didn't know what it was, from the seabed,
00:32:18
and it was brought on board and brought back to shore. Then it was obviously taken to the mortuary
00:32:24
and DNA proved that she was in fact Nancy Chohan. She had been buried for two months,
00:32:31
and in the sea for three months. We are looking at somebody who is going to be significantly decomposed.
00:32:39
But in her case, it was quite clear that she'd been struck on the head with a hammer.
00:32:44
NARRATOR: The police knew they were dealing with two extremely violent individuals.
00:32:50
Finding Regan and Horncy was now a top priority. It turned out that Rees had actually arranged an apartment
00:32:57
for both of them in Spain. And we worked with international police agencies, particularly in Spain and elsewhere,
00:33:05
to identify where they were. Regan was arrested in Ghent in Belgium in August of 2003.
00:33:13
Apparently in a very disheveled state, no money, no way of looking after himself, basically.
00:33:19
And then was extradited to the UK. And a month later, Horncy gave himself up to police,
00:33:25
obviously having had enough time on the run. They had a significant amount of evidence,
00:33:30
and they were confident they had their men. But one thing they were short of, still,
00:33:36
was the bodies of the two youngest children, really just months old. NARRATOR: Along with the two children,
00:33:44
police still hadn't found the body of Mrs Kaur, Nancy's mother. Despite this, almost a year after Anil's body
00:33:52
was discovered, all three men were charged with murder. DS Howard Picard was gathering all the evidence
00:34:00
when he made a vital breakthrough with an unlikely piece of evidence. Anil Chohan's socks.
00:34:08
And I said, well, we've got his socks here, which Dorset had bagged up. Would you like me to submit them?
00:34:14
She said, yes. Send them to me. So the socks were duly submitted to the forensic science
00:34:19
service, and then I think a week later, she rang me and said, well, we've opened up the socks and inside is a very
00:34:27
tightly folded piece of paper. And on it, still visible because it's been really tightly
00:34:33
folded, is details of a building society in the name of Regan at Forge Close in Wiltshire.
00:34:40
NARRATOR: This extraordinary piece of damning evidence was the final nail in the coffin for Kenneth
00:34:46
Regan, William Horncy, and their associate, Rees. The building society letter would have arrived the day
00:34:53
that Anil had traveled to Stonehenge and was kidnapped, taken hostage. So we believe that Anil had come across that piece of paper
00:35:03
when he was in Forge Close. He folded it inwards, put it in his sock in the belief that he'd been kidnapped,
00:35:09
and the belief that he was going to come to some harm. The only reason he put that letter into his sock
00:35:16
was as an indication of something that might happen later on. He wanted to use it as a clue to solve his own murder.
00:35:24
So we know that he realized what was going to happen. But not only that, he took steps to actually
00:35:32
help the police catch his killer before he'd even been killed. NARRATOR: In a desperate attempt to maintain his innocence,
00:35:39
Regan claimed the letter had been planted by the police to frame him. And of course, when we forwarded this evidence
00:35:47
to the defense, it's not surprisingly, they all shouted, foul play. This had been planted in the sock by Dorset or the Mets
00:35:55
or the scientist. And obviously, that was a main bone of contention, where everyone was accused of a huge conspiracy
00:36:02
to put this item in the sock. NARRATOR: On the 15th of November 2003, police made another horrifying discovery.
00:36:15
Nancy's mother, Mrs Kaur, was found washed up on the Isle of Wight in November, in a very, very
00:36:21
bad state of decomposition. As the body decomposes and ligaments and muscles break down, the body will fragment.
00:36:32
If that is in a tide or moving water, it will separate out. So I think the simple process of decomposing and water
00:36:42
has led the body to become separated. NARRATOR: The only part of her body to be found was her skull.
00:36:52
The two children have never been found. I think what makes this case exceptional is
00:36:58
the very clinical and detached way in which these victims were killed and disposed of.
00:37:05
There were many opportunities for them to decide not to kill other members of the family.
00:37:10
But they literally followed it through like a plan, from start to finish. The only potential sighting of the children
00:37:19
was when Nancy Chohan was actually trawled up from the bottom of the sea, and as she was actually
00:37:25
lifted and remained in the net, there was another bundle fell from the net which was noticed
00:37:30
by the fisherman falling. And the supposition is that they were the children, but that is the only potential sighting of the children,
00:37:37
subsequently. This is worthy of the mafia. It's worthy of that kind of grotesque brutality.
00:37:46
We've sent them to the fishes. You know, we are literally in Godfather land. This is just extraordinary, depraved behavior.
00:37:58
NARRATOR: The trial of Regan, Horncy, and Rees began on the 8th of November 2004.
00:38:05
Nancy's brother Ankha flew from New Zealand to attend. The trial took place at the Old Bailey,
00:38:14
and it was the center of attention. A trial involving the murder of an entire family, including
00:38:19
two of the smallest children you could imagine, was a big story. And the savagery and brutality which had gone into it,
00:38:28
involving such hardened, hardened criminals was the stuff that made headlines. NARRATOR: All three of the accused pled
00:38:35
not guilty, weaving a web of lies to prove their innocence. Once the jigsaw had been put together,
00:38:42
the evidence was overwhelming against them. Even during the trial, Regan came up with an ambush defense.
00:38:49
That he said an Asian gang run by somebody called Nav had been dealing with Anil Chohan,
00:38:56
it was they who had killed him, and they who forced him into disposing of the body.
00:39:02
NARRATOR: Throughout the trial, Regan maintained that the letter found in Anil Chohan's sock
00:39:07
had been planted there by police. I gave evidence at the end of it, and I think it's fair to say that the defense gave me
00:39:14
a hard time, because they were obviously suggesting the sock evidence was a conspiracy between Devon and Cornwall
00:39:21
police, the Dorset police, the Met place, the forensic science service, the CPS, that were all in it
00:39:27
together, which, you know, I mean, it's complete rubbish. NARRATOR: As the trial continued,
00:39:33
cracks started to appear between Regan, Horncy, and Rees. Regan and Horncy gave an air of, we've seen all this before.
00:39:43
That the prosecutor got to prove this. We don't have to prove anything. We've been inside before.
00:39:49
You're not telling us anything new. Whereas Rees, who has certainly seen the inside of a court on many occasions,
00:39:55
but never of such gravity, was a frightened man. He was doing his best to try and keep a distance between him
00:40:03
and the two older, hardened ringleaders of the plot. NARRATOR: On the 1st of July 2005,
00:40:12
all three men were found guilty of murder. Regan and Horncy were convicted of all five murders,
00:40:19
and they received whole life sentences. So in effect, they're not coming out of prison.
00:40:24
Rees was only convicted of the murder of Mr Chohan, because we had evidence that he was holding him at Forge Close.
00:40:33
Life means life sentences on Regan and Horncy. First time in my career that two life means life sentences been
00:40:39
handed out in the same trial. They are very rare. There's only barely between 50 and 60 people
00:40:45
in this country, at present, serving life means life sentences. The totally unnecessary, brutal killing
00:40:53
of utterly innocent children and women, as well as the torture of Anil, it is utterly despicable.
00:41:04
There is nothing they could possibly forgive it, and it's entirely proper that Regan
00:41:11
and Horncy were given whole life terms of imprisonment. NARRATOR: Peter Rees was convicted of the murder of Anil
00:41:17
Chohan, and received a life sentence with a minimum of 23 years behind bars. He was cleared of the other four murders.
00:41:26
And it was at that moment that Peter Rees, the shock of what he now faced came home to him.
00:41:35
And he turned to his right, to Horncy in particular, a person he thought he could trust, and the look on his face
00:41:42
was, what have you done to me? It was the most extraordinary shock, like this. You know, knowing you two are going
00:41:49
down the rest of your life. I am going to get something almost as bad. And what have you done to me?
00:41:55
It was an extraordinary moment of realization that his life, now, would be in a prison.
00:42:02
But you have a choice in life, and to watch a man being tortured and killed over three days,
00:42:09
you are going to have to face the consequences. NARRATOR: Despite their arrogance and continuous lies,
00:42:15
Kenneth Regan, William Horncy, and Peter Rees had all been brought to justice. Richard Holwell was the prosecutor,
00:42:23
and he told the jury in words which will live with anyone who heard them because they were so fitting,
00:42:29
he told them that this was a case that was horrific beyond belief. And in those three words, it sums up the case exactly.
00:42:39
I've dealt with many murders over the years, if not hundreds of murder scenes, and there's probably half a dozen that stick in my mind
00:42:46
pretty much all the time. And this one is right up there. I think even the defense said that you would
00:42:51
have to be mad to kill a whole family just to take over a company. Well, they were quite mad, so he sort of
00:42:58
ate his own words, really. I mean, they were just despicable, and carried out this appalling act on five innocent people.
00:43:07
NARRATOR: Career criminal Kenneth Regan was a skilled liar and ruthless killer. He, along with his accomplice, William Horncy, systematically
00:43:16
planned the cold-blooded killing of the Chohan family for the sole purpose of financial gain.
00:43:23
Fearing the police were onto them, Regan, Horncy, and their associate, Rees, exhumed the bodies from their grave site in Tiverton
00:43:31
and dumped them in the sea. The bodies of the two children have never been found.
00:43:38
Regan and Horncy showed no remorse for their crimes. This makes them, forever, two of the world's most evil killers.
00:43:47
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