The jury, which took 13 days to come to its
verdict, was told how the plan would have worked had it not been
for Mrs Chohan's brother, Onkar Verma, in New Zealand.
Bodies dug up
He refused to accept that his mother, his
sister and her family would have just vanished.
As police inquiries were about to turn to a
farm in Tiverton, Devon, where the defendants had buried the
family, the men returned to the farm to dig up the bodies.
The trial heard that on Easter Sunday 2003
the bodies were taken out to sea and dumped.
Two days later, Mr Chohan's body was found
floating in the water near Bournemouth pier. His wife's body was
found in the same area that July and Mrs Kaur was found in
November in a bay off the Isle of Wight.
Paul Mendelle, defending Regan, said he "would
have had to be desperate beyond belief to slaughter an entire
family for the sake of a business".
After the conviction his legal team
maintained he was innocent and was planning to appeal.
Police still do not know how Mr Chohan died
and have said they will be asking the men to tell them where to
find the bodies of two-month old Ravinder and 18-month-old
Devinder.
Det Ch Insp Dave Little, who led the
investigation, said it was a crime "utterly beyond the
comprehension of decent society".
"A young family, a new family, was entirely
wiped out at the hands of these murderous men, in an attempt to
line their own pockets," he said.
A Chohan family friend, Suresh Grover, read
out a statement on behalf of Mr Verma saying: "The last two
years have been a living nightmare.
"The deliberate, premeditated slaughter of my
innocent family is akin to me being given a life sentence - a
life with no laughter, no happiness and no joy."
The murder trial, which cost more than £10m,
is thought to be the longest in the history of the Metropolitan
Police and of the Old Bailey.
Family murder men jailed for life
BBC News
Tuesday, 5 July,
2005
Two men who murdered a millionaire and
three generations of his family have been jailed for life.
Kenneth Regan, 55, of Wiltshire, and William
Horncy, 52, of Dorset, were convicted at the Old Bailey on
Friday.
Peter Rees, 39, of Hants, who was found
guilty of murdering Amarjit Chohan, of west London, but cleared
of killing four others, was also jailed for life.
The judge told Regan and Horncy they should
never be released and Rees will have to serve at least 23 years.
The family disappeared from their home in
Hounslow, in February 2003.
The men wanted to take over Mr Chohan's
freight business and use it to import drugs to the UK.
Judge Sir Stephen Mitchell, passing sentence,
told Horncy, of Adeline Road, Bournemouth, and Regan, of Forge
Close, Wilton, near Salisbury, they were "highly dangerous men".
He said: "Your crimes are uniquely terrible.
"The cold-blooded murders of an eight-week-old
baby and an 18-month-old toddler, not to mention the murders of
their mother, father and grandmother, provide a chilling insight
into the utterly perverted standards by which you have lived
your lives.
"Your characters are as despicable as your
crimes. Each of you is a practised, resourceful and manipulative
liar."
Rees, of Kings Close, Rowlands Castle, near
Portsmouth, was also convicted of assisting an offender.
The bodies of Amarjit and Nancy Chohan and
Mrs Chohan's mother Charanjit Kaur, 51, were found washed up off
Bournemouth and the Isle of Wight on various dates in the months
after they went missing.
Their two young sons Devinder and Ravinder
have never been found.
When Mr Chohan's body was discovered a note
was found in his sock pointed to convicted drug dealer Horncy as
being his killer.
Police said they believed Mr Chohan had been
held captive for several days before his death and when he
realised he was going to be murdered he concealed the letter
which was addressed to Horncy's father.
Det Ch Insp David Little said the crime was
the worst he had ever dealt with, saying the family died purely
because of "financial greed".
He told BBC News: "All of the officers
involved in the case did a fantastic job, it spanned two and a
half years and the conclusion proves the amount of work they put
into it."
The murder trial, thought to be the longest
involving the Met, cost more than £10m.
Chohan murders: Timeline
BBC News
Two men have been convicted
of the murder of a family - including two children, one of them
eight weeks old. A third man has been convicted of murdering the
father and assisting an offender. BBC News traces this crime's
history.
1997
Kenneth Regan befriends Belinda Brewin after meeting her at the
bar in Harvey Nichols, Knightsbridge, London. He showers her
with gifts, including a Cartier watch, and offers to take her to
Monte Carlo.
1998
Regan is arrested in possession of 30kg of heroin. He is later
jailed for eight years after agreeing to turn Queen's evidence.
2000
Dec: Regan is given a concurrent eight-year sentence for
his part in a huge fake passport racket. Among those he gives
evidence against is his friend Bill Horncy.
2002
Jun: Regan is released from jail after serving four years.
He soon begins to plot ways of making big money. Regan also gets
in touch with Belinda Brewin again. She has moved from London to
a farmhouse in Devon.
2003
Jan:
Regan tries to organise a £3m deal involving land near Heathrow
which Amarjit Chohan has an option to buy.
When this falls through he begins to focus on Mr Chohan's
haulage company Ciba Freight, which is based near London's
Heathrow airport.
13 Feb:
Mr Chohan disappears after going to meet a man allegedly
interested in buying Ciba Freight. He is abducted by Regan,
Horncy and Peter Rees and taken back to Regan's father's home
near Salisbury, Wiltshire.
15 Feb:
With Rees guarding Mr Chohan, Regan and Horncy travel to
Hounslow, west London, and talk their way into Mr Chohan's home.
They kill his wife Nancy, her young sons Ravinder and Devinder
and her mother Charanjit Kaur. They hire a van and take the
bodies to the West Country.
16 Feb:
Mr Chohan is forced to sign a series of blank letters and make a
couple of phone calls. Later that night they kill Mr Chohan.
17 Feb:
Regan turns up at Ciba Freight's office with a power of attorney
- signed under duress by Mr Chohan - and proceeds to start
running the company.
19 Feb:
The five bodies are loaded onto a hired van and driven down to
Belinda Brewin's farm near Tiverton, Devon. Regan, Horncy and
Rees dig a ditch and bury the bodies, covered with aggregate.
21 Feb:
Regan takes Mr Chohan's car to a friend in Southampton who
agrees to dispose of it.
5 Mar:
Nancy Chohan's brother Onkar Verma travels to London from New
Zealand to put pressure on police to find out what has happened
to his sister.
21 Mar:
The case is referred to Scotland Yard's Serious Crime Group and
a week later a detective interviews Regan for the first time.
19 Apr (Easter Saturday):
Regan is spooked by the progress of the police investigation and,
fearing they will soon learn of the farm in Devon, he returns
with Horncy and Rees and digs up the five bodies.
20 Apr (Easter Sunday):
Having bought a boat, Regan, Horncy and Rees take the bodies out
to sea and dump them off Dorset.
21 Apr (Easter Monday):
Police monitor Regan and Horncy at a fictional rendezvous in
Newport, south Wales. But neither Mr Chohan nor his supposed
kidnappers turn up.
22 Apr:
A body is found floating in the sea off Bournemouth pier.
29 Apr:
The body is confirmed to be that of Mr Chohan. That night, as
detectives interview Belinda Brewin, Regan and Horncy, realising
the game is up, flee by ferry to France. They then travel to
Spain. Rees also goes on the run, hiding out with a friend in
Gloucestershire.
30 Apr:
Police begin excavating the field in Devon. They later discover
DNA belonging to the Chohan family and other incriminating items.
14 May:
Rees is arrested in a pub in Coleford in the Forest of Dean.
15 Jul:
Another body is discovered by fishermen off the Isle of Wight.
It is later identified as being that of Nancy Chohan.
2 Aug:
Regan, having run out of money in Spain, is arrested at a
campsite in Ghent, Belgium.
2 Sep:
Horncy, fed up with life on the run, returns to Dover and gives
himself up.
7 Sep:
A third body is washed up on the Isle of Wight. It is later
identified as being that of Mr Chohan's mother-in-law, Charanjit
Kaur.
2004
8 Nov:
Regan, Horncy and Rees go on trial at the Old Bailey. All deny
murder and false imprisonment.
2005:
1 Jul:
Regan and Horncy are convicted of the murders. Rees is convicted
of Mr Chohan's murder and of assisting an offender, but cleared
of the other four murder charges.
The bodies of Ravinder and Devinder have never been found.
Regan, Hornccy and Rees: The Murder Game
By Guy Toyn
Courtnewsuk.co.uk
Ken Regan had lived the criminal high life
and was desperate to taste it again.
Through drugs and bogus passports he had
rubbed shoulders with some of the country's most notorious
gangland figures.
Dealing heroin in the late 1980s had made him
a fortune and set him up as a country gentleman.
Regan, 56, drove the latest Mercedes sports
cars and invested in a freight company which he was using as a
front for drugs smuggling and money laundering.
It all went wrong in 1998 when police caught
him with 25 kilos of top grade heroin and wads of cash in the
boot of his car. He was jailed for eight years.
When he was released Regan was desperate to
start operations again but he had no money to invest in a
freight firm.
The solution was simple. If he couldn't buy a
firm he would steal it.
Regan's target for the theft was millionaire
Anil Chohan who had been jailed for three years for tax evasion
and later became involved in the exporting of pallet loads of
‘chat’ to the United States - the soft drug chewed by North
Africans.
Mr Chohan was desperate to sell his freight
firm - importing chat was a high pressure job with crowds of
Africans regularly turning up at the warehouse hoping for a
sample from the latest shipment.
Kill the entire family
It may never have occurred to Regan that to
get control of the Heathrow based company CIBA Freight he would
have to kill not only Mr Chohan but his entire family.
To put his plan into action he recruited two
accomplices who he had known thought the criminal underworld for
many years - Bill Horncy, 53, and Peter Rees, 40.
Rees would be used to guard Mr Chohan at
Regan's father's house in Salibsury while the two others made
the arrangements for the 'transfer' of the business.
The final member of the team was Regan's
unwitting dupe Belinda Brewin, 43, the ex PR executive and
former best friend of Paula Yates, the late wife of Bob Geldolf.
Regan was besotted with her and wanted the
glamorous divorcee to be the front for the takeover of CIBA
Freight.
Coincidentally she had 50 acres of land at
Great Coleford House at Stoodleigh near Tiverton in Devon -
perfect place to bury a body.
Regan began calling Mr Chohan in February of
2003 claiming he had Dutch backers who wanted to buy the firm
and he became a regular visitor at the offices.
He also began assembling the kit that would
be needed to hold Mr Chohan captive while he signed the
necessary documents - the drug GHB and rolls of brown packing
tape from the victim's warehouse which would be used to 'mummify'
him.
On Thursday, February 13 2003, Mr Chohan was
invited to a business meeting at Stonehenge and told his
workforce: 'I'm off to do a deal.' He was never seen alive again.
Father's home used as house of death
Mr Chohan was taken to Regan's father's home
in Forge Close, Salisbury, where he was held for three days.
He suffered a living nightmare as Mr Chohan
was drugged, tortured and made to sign away his livelihood.
Throughout the ordeal he would have known his
family were in grave danger as he was made to record messages
telling them not to worry, write letters explaining his
disappearance and sign 23 blank pieces of paper which would be
used by the gang to write different letters after he was dead.
Regan may have involved the Chohan family as
a lever, forcing the businessman to hear their terrified voices
as he sat bound, gagged and helpless.
But somehow he managed to find the courage
and guile to conceal a bank letter sent to Regan at the
Salisbury address in his sock.
The clue from beyond the grave would nail
Regan and his accomplices and leave his lawyers desperately
grasping at claims of a police fit-up.
At first Regan coolly played the concerned
friend as he assured Anil's young wife Nancy, 24, her husband
was returning home soon. She was shown the letters and played
the recordings.
But two days after Mr Chohan disappeared
Nancy, their sons Devinder 18 months, Ravinder eight weeks and
Mrs Chohan's widowed mother Charanjit Kaur, 51 were also
murdered in their home in Hounslow, west London.
Police believe they were all probably
strangled.
Buried under 48 tonnes of rock
Their bodies were taken to the farm in
Tiverton to share Mr Chohan's grave and entombed under 48 tonnes
of stone and gravel.
As he buried the family with a mechanical
digger Regan could not resist a sick joke about his landscaping
experience and told neighbouring farmer Keith Luxton: 'I've done
a lot of driveways for Pakistanis.'
Staff at CIBA Freight knew Mr Chohan was 'a
chancer' and they accepted Regan's cover story that he and his
family had fled after getting into trouble over the chat deals.
But Onkar Verma, Mrs Chohan's brother who
lived in New Zealand, refused to believe she had simply
disappeared and called the police.
When detectives spoke to Brewin and she
revealed her connection with Regan he knew it was only a matter
of time before the farm was searched and the grave discovered.
He had to buy time so the bodies could be
removed and characteristically combined it with his last big
joke.
Regan told police Anil Chohan had asked him
to supply him with a false passport and had arranged to meet him
at the bronze pig in Newport, south Wales, trading on the slang
name for police officers.
Detectives kept the pair under observation as
they waited at the pig and saw them making exaggerated head
scratching gestures when Mr Chohan failed to turn up.
Regan and Horncy were 'utterly removed from
the horror of their actions' and believed they could afford a
laugh because the bodies would never be found.
Grim task of exhumation
The gang then began the grim task of digging
up the family and dumping the corpses in the Channel in a small
boat they had bought for the purpose.
Horncy would tell how he looked down into the
burial pit that weekend to see the businessman's body trussed up
in a sheet 'like a Christmas cracker' before they slung it into
the back of a van.
But two days after the burial at sea later Mr
Chohan's body was found by a canoeist near Bournemouth Pier and
the bank letter sent to Regan at his father's address was
discovered.
The bodies of the two women were also
recovered from the water but those of the two children were
never found.
Regan and Horncy were sentenced to die behind
bars when they were both given whole life sentences at the Old
Bailey.
Rees was ordered to serve at least 23 years
of a life sentence.
The judge, Sir Stephen Mitchell told them: 'Your
crimes were uniquely terrible.'
