Omar Benguit Case

Case background

Omar Benguit was arrested twenty-four years ago on 22/8/02 and after facing three trials was unanimously convicted on 31/1/05 of murdering Korean student Jong Ok-Shin ("Oki") as she walked home from a night out in Bournemouth town centre on 12/7/02. She had been stabbed in the back at 02.50 by "a man wearing a mask, who then ran away" (her dying words), and she died later that morning in hospital. Doctor's statement.

Mr Benguit had been subjected to two earlier trials on 13/7/03 and 5/4/04 for Oki's murder as well as for allegedly raping the chief prosecution witness "BB", but he was acquitted of rape in the second trial.

The evidence against Mr Benguit was provided by BB and corroborated by numerous other drug addicts and prostitutes. She had allegedly driven Mr Benguit along with two other men in her car (Nicholas Gbadamosi and Delroy Woolry) when they spotted Oki and jumped out to accost her. Mr Benguit stabbed her. They then ran back to the car and ordered BB to drive them to a crack house, where Mr Benguit was seen by other occupants to be agitated and with blood on his t-shirt. BB then drove the men to another address where Mr Benguit washed and changed and a bag allegedly containing his clothes was then thrown into the River Stour at Iford Bridge.

The three men later allegedly gang-raped BB using "red-handled pliers" in the act and Mr Gbadamosi allegedly raped her again separately before daybreak.

Various statements were made by witnesses who testified that Mr Benguit had blood on his clothing; that he had confessed to the murder; and that in the weeks leading up to the crime he had coincidentally possessed a knife identical to the murder weapon in size and shape (6" long with a curved tip). This last witness statement 3/7/03 was taken by DC Mark Prince almost a year after the crime. However, the witness later told the BBC that it had already been typed out and she had been pressurised to sign it while in the back of a police car: BBC investigation 16/2/26.

A bag of clothes was however retrieved by police divers from the River Stour at Iford Bridge, which a forensic scientist said were possibly stained with blood and could have been thrown into the river at the time of the crime. The clothes had a La-Coste and Nike Hoops logo and were shown to another witness, who confirmed in a statement 5/5/03 that they were "identical" to what she could recall Benguit wearing.

It should be noted that the second man, Mr Gbadamosi, was cleared by the time of the second trial of having any involvement in the murder or the rape of BB. The third man, Mr Woolry, whom BB said was also in her car, was arrested but not charged with any of the above offences and was deported to Jamaica as an overstayer by Dorset Police on 5/9/02. The CCRC wrongly noted in its statement of reasons 19/12/12 at paragraph 5 that he had fled the country. It is not known who gave the CCRC this misleading information. The jury asked about the "third man", but the trial transcript does not indicate whether the jury was told that he had "fled the country", or was left to speculate that he had pleaded guilty or was being tried separately.

The police conceded that, despite extensive viewing of CCTV in the area of the crime and opposite the crack house, no sign of either of BB's two cars that she may have used could be seen; none of the three men or BB could be seen on a CCTV camera facing the property to have entered it; and as for the red-handled pliers found in one of BB's cars, no DNA from any of the three men could be detected on them or in either car.

Mr Benguit's only defence was that he was innocent, as he said that he had nothing to do with the crime.

He had no alibi and could only recall walking along Charminster Road on his way home from the town centre, because the police had blocked off streets in the vicinity of the murder. He said in his police interview on 22/8/02: "If you see the police tapes, you should see me walking home at that time."

CCTV evidence

The images below show Mr Benguit attending a pub at 20.36 on the evening of 11/7/02 and a man exiting a car at 03.20 on 12/7/02, who waited to make a call from the telephone box before walking away along Charminster Road.

The most remarkable fact about the CCTV is not just that the person resembles Mr Benguit - it is that he has never been identified as anyone else. It is regrettable that Mr Obar Nsugbe KC, who defended Mr Benguit in all three trials, paid no attention to CCTV, but only sought to pick holes in the evidence of the witnesses to try to show that they were not credible. CCTV however does not lie.

The police identified the man standing in the telephone box and others nearby as Spanish students, but the identity of the person whose call was traced to the "third man", Mr Woolry (a drug dealer whose diary contained Mr Benguit's mobile number), was not pursued, even though the person would have lived locally and was walking in the direction of Mr Benguit's flat.

DC 694 Mark Prince of Dorset Police conceded that the person "was possibly Benguit" (Action report A2944) but misleadingly said in a statement 3/7/03 that the person was wearing a baseball cap. The person however is actually bald-headed with a "five o'clock shadow" of hair at the back of the head - which Mr Benguit had, as can be seen from CCTV of him in the Richmond Arms. These colour images were not available to Mr Benguit's defence team. The police had instead only provided very poor quality black-and-white photocopies in a folder of CCTV stills, from which it was possible to believe that the person was wearing a baseball cap, and therefore not related to Mr Benguit.

Mr Benguit seeks a review of other CCTV recordings made at locations along the route which he told the police he took while walking home from Bournemouth town centre, and also the later part of the same CCTV recording shown above, as he said that he returned to the town centre after going home. As at 9/9/26, this request has still not been acted upon by the CCRC, which has declined to provide any CCTV to Mr Benguit's legal team. The extract from the CCTV recording showing the 03.20 images was provided by Dorset Police during the making of a BBC documentary. See Unsolved: The Man with No Alibi.

The three trials orchestrated by Dorset Police and the CPS involved substantial resources and left no stone unturned in securing Mr Benguit's conviction. However, if the CCTV above shows him walking home from the town centre as he told the police he was doing - because he recalled seeing the streets opposite the telephone box blocked off by police - then he could not have had anything to do with the crime, because according to the evidence he should have been in a crack house miles away at the time with blood on his t-shirt, and later raping the chief prosecution witness BB, who had dumped his clothes in the river etc.

How then did Dorset Police manage to find a busload of crack addicts to sign printed statements - in some cases almost a year later - which formed a perfect case against him; and who was the perpetrator?

Trial and sentencing

Mrs Justice Hallett sentenced Mr Benguit to life imprisonment on 31/1/05 and told him:

"This was a wicked crime... Poor Oki-Shin lies dead. Her family must mourn her terribly. From everything we have heard she was a lovely and kind girl. But for the courage of a number of your fellow addicts you would have walked free and you very nearly did. In my view on the evidence presented to this court you are a totally nasty piece of work and a very dangerous young man."

Detective Sergeant Kevin Connolly DS391 of Dorset Police, who was in charge of the police investigation assisted by DC 694 Mark Prince, said:

"I would like to welcome today's outcome on behalf of Oki's parents. Today's verdict represents the imprisonment of a very violent and dangerous offender whose sexual desires drove him to murder Oki. Many witnesses from the drug world gave evidence, as they were appalled by Benguit's crimes and I would like to personally thank them. Omar Benguit has now been imprisoned which I hope assists Oki's family come to terms with their loss."

Danilo Restivo

Danilo Restivo settled in Bournemouth in March 2002, having moved there from Italy. His presence was notified to Dorset Police by a telex from the Italian police on 29 August 2002, warning that Restivo was a "grave danger to women" and advising that "he should be investigated for the Oki murder". Dorset Police replied that they need not worry about Restivo, as they had apprehended Benguit.

On 12/11/02 Heather Barnett was brutally murdered in her own house opposite where Restivo lived and a few streets away from where Oki had been slain, but this did not ring alarm bells with the police, even though Restivo was pretending to comfort Mrs Barnett's children.

The third and final trial of Mr Benguit started on 18/1/05 while Danilo Restivo was being kept under 24-hour surveillance on suspicion of murdering Mrs Barnett and after he had already been cautioned on 12/5/04 for possessing a knife identical in size and shape to the murder weapon used against Jong Ok-Shin and a balaclava. On 31/1/05, Mr Benguit was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Danilo Restivo was eventually convicted on 29/6/11 of murdering Mrs Barnett, after the body of Elisa Claps was discovered in a church alcove in Italy. Both Mrs Barnett and Ms Claps had been murdered and mutilated in a similar manner and each had a lock of hair in her hand.

A fresh clump of human hair had been found on the pavement where Oki had initially been stabbed outside 223 Malmesbury Park Road. See the forensic report. She had then stumbled on before collapsing outside number 219. The photograph of the hair was found by chance by Mr Benguit's sister Amie while looking in a folder of crime scene photographs after news of Danilo Restivo's hair fetish had become public knowledge. Girls living in Bournemouth had complained to the police about a man surreptitiously cutting their hair with scissors while using public transport. In the Heather Barnett trial, as in the case of Elisa Claps, the presence of cut hair at the crime scene was considered to be the "calling card" of Danilo Restivo. In addition, Elisa Claps, Jong Ok-Shin and Heather Barnett were all murdered on the twelfth day of the month.

On 30/6/11 DS Kevin Connolly, the senior detective in the Oki murder investigation, along with DC Mark Prince, said this about the hair:

"Dorset police can confirm that during the initial investigation into Jong-Ok Shin's murder, approximately 2,000 items were recovered, including many from the surrounding area - typical with the findings of any major crime investigation. This included an extremely small quantity of animal hair combined with uncut human hair which was located a distance away from the victim on Malmesbury Park Road. They were not found next to the victim or on the victim. They were not attributed to the victim or the incident in any way and following examination were excluded from the investigation."

A statement made by DC Mark Prince dated 14/3/14 just before Mr Benguit's appeal on 25/3/14 confirms that he interviewed Ms Donna Welstead who said that she "immediately remembered" hiring a mobile hairdresser in 2002 who may have dropped the clump of hair in the street after leaving her home. Statement 12/3/14. It is not clear why the CCRC would have instructed Dorset Police to make belated enquiries about the hair in 2014, or how the police linked it to Ms Welstead, who stated that she lived opposite the crime scene, when the CCRC had previously confirmed in an email dated 27/11/12 that the hair could not be linked to any person, because no DNA could be detected on it.

CCTV image of a man believed to be Danilo Restivo cycling on his black mountain bike along Charminster Road towards the murder scene at camera time 02.35. The camera was running slow by 4 minutes 17 seconds, so the real time was approximately 02.40—ten minutes before the murder. Notice Restivo's chunky watch caught by his left sleeve. See also the statement of a taxi driver who expressed concern about a man following oriental girls on a bicycle.

CCTV image of a man believed to be Danilo Restivo carrying a satchel over his left shoulder and walking along Charminster Road towards the murder scene at 02.55 real time - five minutes after the murder. It takes just under that time to walk back around from the murder scene and pass the telephone box. Was he returning to collect his bicycle and to view the result of his work? Note again his watch caught by his left sleeve shown below in a surveillance image taken while spying on women in Throop Park on 12/5/04.

The forensic pathologist described the knife with which Oki was attacked as "single-edged, 14–15 cm long and tapering to the point", which matched the knife found in Danilo Restivo's car when he was arrested in Throop Park on 12/5/04. Before Oki Shin died, she managed to tell a doctor that her attacker was wearing a mask. Oki was an English-language student and so would have been unlikely to know the word balaclava.

While police watched Danilo Restivo 24 hours a day as the suspect in Heather Barnett's murder, DS Connolly, DI Jez Noyce, Detective Superintendent Mark Cooper and DC Mark Prince were sitting in court on 31/1/05 listening to Mrs Justice Hallett describe Benguit as "a nasty piece of work". The Dorset Police officers congratulated themselves following the third and final trial and thanked the local drug community for helping to capture "a very violent and dangerous criminal".

Appeals and case documents

Benguit has so far lost two appeals: the first appeal on 12/7/05 and the second appeal on 9/4/14.