The documentary also revealed that eight days after her disappearance was reported, authorities decided that, if found, Charlene would not be returning home, but would be put under a police protection order instead.
The man leading the investigation into Charlene Downes' death is Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Webster, Lancashire Constabulary's Head of Investigations. His message is clear in the hunt for Charlene's killer(s). 'We remain committed to finding Charlene's killer(s) and her body despite it being more than 15 years since she went missing. A £100,000 reward remains on offer for information leading to the conviction of her killer(s) or recovery of her body."
The investigation of Charlene Downes' disappearance in Blackpool, UK, is burdened by the fact that one of the trails led directly inside the Downes family home. Confidential witness statements, social services records and internal police reports reveal that the child protection authorities first became concerned about Charlene's home environment in 1989, the year she was born.
The story of Charlene Downes' disappearance in Blackpool, UK, has now entered into local folklore: a racism-tinged lament conjuring up images of evil Asian grooming gangs predating on young white girls, offering cigarettes and alcohol, fast food and drugs in exchange for sordid sex acts; a sensationalist tale that reaches it's gruesome climax with the image of Charlene's dead body being fed into a mincing machine and sold to unwitting drunken customers in kebabs at the Funny Boyz takeaway on Dickson Rd.
The Downes family moved to Blackpool in 1999 after Walsall social services, in West Midlands, threatened to prosecute the parents for willful neglect and to have the children taken into care. When, the family were living in the West Midlands, police and social services launched a joint investigation because a convicted rapist, jailed three times for buggery and indecent assaults on two young girls, was a regular visitor to the house and was allowed unsupervised access to a child.