Murder of Jong-Ok Shin

In the early hours of the morning of 12 July 2002, Jong-Ok Shin, a 26-year-old Korean English-language student living in Bournemouth, United Kingdom, was murdered in the Charminster area of the town, as she walked home from a night out with friends.

Shin arrived in the United Kingdom in November 2001, before starting studies at Anglo European School of English on Lansdowne Road in Bournemouth, where she was one of approximately 700 South Korean students in the town.

[27][48][49] At the time of Shin's murder, his family ran the Metro takeaway on Old Christchurch Road, in Bournemouth's town centre, where Benguit had worked regularly, before he was left blind in one eye, following an accident.

[51][54][25][21] Rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries, on arrival, Shin was still conscious and despite speaking poor English, was able to tell police and medical staff that she was attacked from behind by a man in a mask, who subsequently ran away.

[53][21] As a result of blood loss, Shin suffered a heart attack and seconds before her death, she had struggled as she attempted to tell doctors that she had been stabbed in the back by a masked man.

[21] Having been on drugs for a long time, she didn't trust police, however, having been arrested, she started to provide 'hints' as to who was responsible for Shin's murder, finally settling on the following version of events in a video recorded interview:[53][61][66][27][49][29][25][21] (1).

At some point in the early hours of 12 July 2002, Brown stated she was driving on Charminster Road, having dropped another drug addict off, when she was flagged down by three men - Omar Benguit, Nicholas Gbadamosi and Delroy Woolry.

[88][82] Other enquiries by police established that several individuals wearing balaclava-type headwear, despite it being summer, had been seen within the immediate area of the murder scene, including a sighting by a bus driver, who had seen a cyclist on the late afternoon of the 12 July.

Searches of the river continued the following day, with police appealing to local people within the area if they remembered seeing 'any suspicious or out of the ordinary or unusual activity' nearby on the morning of Shin's murder.

Having left the address on Cunningham Crescent, Brown told Oliver that she drove down a 'gravel road that comes to a dead end', where at approximately 04:30 BST, she was sexually assaulted and raped by the men in the vehicle.

She told Oliver how all three of the men took tools from the boot of her car, inserting them into her vagina and rectum, goading one another to do 'more horrific things', including attempting to use wire cutters to try and cut out a 'small plastic lump/ball' above her cervix.

[22] Another drug-addict, John Macleod, provided evidence at the trial that corroborated Brown's account, telling the jury that the morning after the murder, he had been with Benguit, who confessed to stabbing Shin in the back.

‘Mike’ had allegedly told Brown about what had happened and that it had begun as a bag snatch attempt on Malmsbury Park Road, where he stated ‘Benguit could not handle his drink and an innocent girl had died because of it’.

Evidence showing his car, a rare Renault 25, having been parked on Charminster Road, near to the crime scene at 03:20 BST on 12 July was put to Gbadamosi, who stated that whilst he couldn't recall being out at that time in the morning, if it was his vehicle he “must have been with it”.

He stated that CCTV footage of what appeared to be someone getting out of his vehicle on Charminster Road in the early hours of 12 July was “obviously” him there, but he “didn't really have a recollection of going back out again”, after returning home having left police custody.

[48][29] High Court Judge Sir Ian Kennedy told the jury to keep their deliberations ‘free from sympathy and consider the trustworthiness of certain witnesses’, as he summarised the facts of the case.

[117] In spite of the lack of forensic evidence and CCTV,[126] and the reliability of the accounts of the main witness being questioned with the discovery of the speed camera footage, the jury again failed to reach a verdict for Benguit regarding the murder of Shin.

[148] After the result of the second appeal, Detective Inspector Kevin Connolly, speaking on behalf of Dorset Police, said to BBC South Today: "It was a difficult case where the evidence was thoroughly tested by all parties.

Munro checked CCTV stills in 2021, which showed an image of the back of a bald-headed man that she thought may be Benguit, walking away from a phonebox on Charminster Road, just after the murder had occurred, at 03:15 BST on 12 July 2002.

Concluding the documentary, Munro outlined how Shin's dying words were ignored; that Restivo, who would later become a double murderer, wasn't investigated properly; five prosecution witnesses had admitted lying in court and; CCTV footage that could have provided Benguit with an alibi.

[72] In one instance, it was discovered that two witnesses, who originally had told police the either knew nothing about Shin's murder or didn't want to be involved, suddenly provided statements when an unnamed, junior officer approached them.

This officer had viewed CCTV from Charminster Road, that Munro had discovered, appearing to confirm an alibi for Benguit, at the time when the main prosecution witness, Brown, had told police he was at a crack house, cleaning himself up after murdering Shin.

I have reviewed the CCTV tape item KPA/2 freom [sic] from the external cameras of the Bank Wine Bar, Charminster Road between 001 and 0500 hours on 12/07/2002 and video stills of persons seen thereon.

They added that Benguit was unanimously convicted by a jury at his 2005 trial and that the Court of Appeal had considered his case on two occasions, with evidence about an alternative suspect, Restivo, as well as the reliability of Brown being questioned.

[154][49] After the 2021 documentary aired, Detective Chief Superintendent Ben Hargreaves, Head of Crime at Dorset Police said:[155]“Jong-Ok Shin, known as Oki, was a 26-year-old South Korean language student who was making her way home when she was brutally murdered in July 2002 in a sudden and unprovoked attack.

“As always, our thoughts are with Oki's family and friends who remain devastated by their loss.”Whilst drug-addict Stanton never gave evidence at Benguit's trial, she alleged she felt pressured into giving a false statement by police.

Six months after providing the statement, whilst Macleod was imprisoned for the robbery conviction at HM Prison Guys Marsh, police informed him that he would be required to attend Benguit's trial to give evidence.

Geographic profiler, Johnson, later stated that he couldn't think of a single case that matched the circumstances of three men jumping out of a car and launching an attack after attempting to chat up Shin.

In Autumn 2015, Director Marika Henneberg and one of the board of advisors, Barry Loveday from the Criminal Justice Clinic at the University of Portsmouth wrote an article for the British Journal of American Legal Studies, entitled 'Off Track'.

Examples would be vagrants, skid row alcoholics, the unemployed or casually employed residuum'Reiner had further stated that 'the prime function of the police has always been to control and segregate such groups and they are armed with a battery of permissive and discretionary laws for this purpose'.