FRANKIE GREER

Sentence fury over 'Samaritan' killing March 12, 2001

THE FAMILY of a Good Samaritan stabbed to death by a runaway Manchester soldier have described the killer's four-year jail sentence as ''a disgrace''.
Frankie Greer died at the hands of the soldier after he took pity on the teenager who had nowhere to stay.
He let Clifford Briggs, 19, and a 16-year-old youth stay at his flat in Blackpool after being told they planned to sleep the night on the beach.
But Briggs, of Attingham Walk, Denton, who was AWOL from the Royal Irish Regiment, killed 19-year-old Frankie in a frenzied attack.
Briggs admitted manslaughter on the grounds of provocation. The 16-year-old from the Stalybridge area was given a year's training and detention order after admitting grievous bodily harm with intent.
Now papers on the case have been sent to the Attorney General by the Crown Prosecution Service after a campaign by Frankie's family and Blackpool MP Gordon Marsden.
There was outrage when the prosecution accepted lesser charges than the original murder charge.
Frankie's mother Ana said: ''I think the sentence was an absolute disgrace. They should have faced a murder charge. Frankie was just being a Good Samaritan. We are a Catholic family and that is the way my children have been brought up.
''Frankie had no criminal record and had never been in any trouble. He was stabbed 13 times.
''It was a savage attack. The biggest mistake he made was feeling sorry for those two.
''When Frankie had not been seen for a while I got two friends to break into his flat and Frankie was lying on the bed with a knife in his back.''
Frankie, had two brothers, Brad, four, and John 15. His father, also named Frankie, died last week, aged 41, from a heart attack. Ana added: ''This has ruined our lives. I believe Frankie's father died from a broken heart. He never came to terms with losing him.''
More than 450 people attended Frankie's funeral. Friend Mark Swift said: ''He had many friends and was well liked. I feel that no justice has been done with these sentences.''
Leading criminal lawyer Hugh Pond is advising the family. He said: ''They consider the sentence of four years for the main offender to be totally inadequate and an insult to the memory of their son.''
The Attorney General, Lord Williams of Mostyn, has the power to refer the case to the Court of Appeal if he considers the sentences to be unduly lenient. 

OUTCOME: NOTHING WAS CHANGED. 

CHARLENE DOWNES  

Charlene was a girl from Blackpool who disappeared in 2003, aged 14. She is presumed murdered. During police investigations covert tape recordings were made in which local kebab shop owner Iyad Albattikhi allegedly admits to having sex with Downes, killing her, feeding her body into a meat grinder and apparently using her as kebab meat. Albattikhi and his business partner Mohammed Reveshi were put on trial in 2007. The jury failed to receive a verdict and a retrial was set for April 2008. However, senior police officers raised objections to the evidence and the Independent Police Complaints Commission and Crown Prosecution Service were notified. The CPS offered no evidence against Albattikhi and Reveshi, the trial was called off and the two men - who claim never to have met Charlene - were released.

On 15 October 2009, after an eighteen-month investigation, the IPCC declared that the conversations had not been properly transcribed, that the officers on the case were "inexperienced and untrained" and that the informant had not been properly briefed.  

OUTCOME: BOTH RECEIVED SUBSTANTIAL PAYOUTS.