Police used CCTV footage to track abattoir workers

POLICE used CCTV footage to piece together the movements of two former abattoir workers charged with double murder. Clips from various cameras capture Iacob-Bebe Chers and Ionut-Valentin Boboc before and after it is claimed they fatally stabbed and butchered two men at a house in Wood Street, Easton, leaving their mutilated bodies on “macabre display”.

It is claimed Chers and Boboc tricked their way into the home of former workmate Denzil McKenzie, who was with visitor Fahad Hossain Pramanik. Over the course of three hours the Crown says the defendants brutally stabbed both men and arranged their dead bodies in a scene of horror in Mr Mckenzie’s sitting room.

Mr McKenzie had been stabbed 23 times, Mr Pramanik three times, and it is claimed that after he was dead Mr Pramanik was disembowelled. Boboc, 22, of Abingdon Road in Hillfields, has pleaded guilty to murdering Mr McKenzie but denies murdering Mr Pramanik in September last year. Chers, 46, of Whitefield Road, Hillfields, denies both murder charges and they are on trial at Bristol Crown Court.

The jury has been told that in September last year the defendants visited the house of Mr McKenzie in Wood Street, Easton, where McKenzie and Mr Pramanik were. Kevin Dent KC, prosecuting, said around 10pm a neighbour heard shouting, and around 11pm the two defendants left with McKenzie’s property including audio equipment and jewellery.

Mr McKenzie’s thigh was cut open and Mr Pramanik’s stomach was slashed open. One body was on the sofa, the other on the floor, and the foot of one body was in the gaping wound of the other.

The jury looked at CCTV of the accused on September 11, the day of the alleged murders. At 8.12pm a camera captured Chers’ car arriving in Wood Street, before the accused are seen walking towards the alleged murder scene.

Chers and Boboc both appear to be carrying something in their hands. Just under three hours later, at 11.11pm, Chers is captured walking away from the alleged murder scene carrying numerous items, followed by Boboc who also appears to be carrying items.

The jury next looked at footage, taken at 12.30am on September 12, of Boboc walking along Acton Road in the direction of his home in Abingdon Road, and then a car matching Chers’ driving in the same direction. More footage captures Boboc appearing to wave at the car before he answers a mobile phone call.

At 12.50am Boboc and his partner Elena Palade can be seen walking in Abingdon Road. The Crown claims they were retrieving electronic tablets taken from the alleged murder scene that Boboc had just thrown in a bush.

The jury also looked at camera footage from 1.20am showing an Alfa Romeo heading to Coombe Brook nature reserve at the end of Moorlands Road, before it is seen driving in the reverse direction. The next CCTV clips, from 8.12am, showed Chers with his Alfa Romeo at the car wash where he works, putting items in a bin and cleaning the inside of his car.

At 9.14am Chers then went into the car wash office, took a phone call (phone records show from Boboc) and drove away from the car wash. An Alfa Romeo is later captured driving in the area of Boboc’s home – and heads to Coombe Brook nature reserve at the end of Moorlands Road. Boboc can be seen depositing a bag in a bin before the Alfa Romeo heads off.

The case continues.