[Bev]

http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/local/downes_case_eaterie_ruling_1_3359923

TWO men who were accused of murdering a Blackpool schoolgirl have had their late night takeaway shut down.

Mr Beanz closed at 11pm yesterday evening on the orders of a judge who had been told it had become the centre for grooming under-age girls for sex.

Iyad Albattikhi, 33, and his business partner Mohammed Reveshi, 53, have previously stood trial at Preston Crown Court in connection with the disappearance of former St George’s High School pupil Charlene Downes.

It was alleged her body was disposed of in the takeaway’s food but the men were acquitted of charges and went on to get almost £300,000 of compensation each.

Now the business partners have lost an appeal to have a late night licence, which allowed them to open the takeaway on Dickson Road between 11pm and 5am before it was revoked by Blackpool Council.

Judge Jeff Brailsford, sitting at Blackpool Magistrates Court yesterday, said: “I am entirely certain the original decision to revoke the licence was absolutely right.

“I have no doubt the revocation of this licence will enhance licensing objectives, reduce crime and disorder thereby improving the quality of life for those who live in the area and those lawfully in the area.”

The court heard Albattikhi had been pictured with a “provocative and scantily clad” 14-year-old girl on his knee in his office.

The judge said the arrest sequence of Albattikhi for rape was a remarkable statistic even though criminal proceedings did not follow.

But Albattikhi told the court: “I have been arrested five times for it but never charged.

“And each of the five times came after the Charlene Downes case.

“The police don’t like me because I have proved they are corrupt.

“They have so called intelligence reports on me but they are not right - we are talking about a conspiracy.

“When the licensing officers go to Club Sanuk there are just two of them when they come to our place there are eight.”

Earlier in the hearing he had been accused of plying teenage girls with drink and drugs in exchange for sex.

Reveshi told the hearing he and his partner had invested a lot of money in the business which had suffered when they both spent more than a year in jail awaiting trial on the Charlene Downes charges.

He said: “One of the pieces of information on the police intelligence reports the council committee made its decision on to revoke our licence was the fact I was seen driving a teenage girl around in a car – that was my foster daughter.”