As a gang of vigilantes drove him towards his death, Christopher Hughes pleaded his innocence.
Eight men spent 24 hours hunting the former boxer down and brutally murdered him in a chilling attack that rocked one area of Lancashire. They eventually located him on a housing estate and forced him into the boot of an Audi in broad daylight.
He was then taken to a secluded country road where he was brutally stabbed 90 times in a horrific and sadistic attack. The dad’s mutilated body was found by a dogwalker on the outskirts of Skelmersdale.
Christopher’s lonely and brutal death is the subject of a new Channel 4 documentary. Manhunt, which is a three-part series, and follows officers from Greater Manchester Police’s Serious Crime and Specialist Operations teams as they investigate two murders and a piece of intelligence.
In the first gripping episode, which aired on Tuesday (January 14), the cameras follow detectives as they work around the clock to find Christopher after receiving a call from a distressed member of the public, who witnessed him being snatched off the street. Eight men are currently serving life sentences after being convicted of Christopher’s abduction and murder.
A trial at Liverpool Crown Court heard that the gang had taken the law into their own hands under the mistaken belief that Christopher had raped a teenage girl at knifepoint. His desperate protests of innocence did not save him.
He suffered knife wounds to his head, neck, body and limbs. The vast majority were inflicted while he was still alive, the M.E.N reports.
The 37-year-old’s body had lay there for four days before being found near a motorway in Skelmersdale, on February 22, 2022. A wrong-headed plot which ended in appalling violence began on the evening before Christopher’s murder, when the attackers wrongly believed he had committed a sexual offence.
Eight men were convicted of kidnapping and murdering Christopher Hughes
However, DNA evidence submitted in that investigation did not match Christopher’s. The gang – who all knew each other or were related – chose to deliver their own ‘justice’. They roamed the Wigan area for hours on the evening of February 17, eventually turning up at Christopher’s home and storming in.
But he was not there, and the gang’s efforts to trace him were suspended overnight. They resumed the following day and, at about 4.30pm, Christopher was finally spotted in Almond Grove, on the Worsley Hall estate. The former boxer was cornered and struggled as he was forced into the boot of a blue Audi A4.
A man who witnessed the abduction was warned by one of the gang, Erland Sphahiu, to “keep your f…ing mouth shut, or your’e next’. As Christopher was driven at speed towards his death, he asked desperately from the boot: ‘What have I done wrong?’
Near the remote area of White Moss Road South, in Skelmersdale, he was brutally attacked and killed in an act of mistaken retribution. While he fought for his life, two knives, including a machete, were used to hack him to death, inflicting at least 90 sharp wounds to his head, body and limbs including injuries to his scrotum and anus.
Christopher’s mutilated body was left at the scene on a grassy embankment. Later that evening, however, the gang reconvened and formed a burial party to hide the body.
Equipped with a spade, wellies, gloves, bottles of bleach and bin bags, the men were digging a grave on nearby wasteland when they were disturbed by police, who were investigating a road traffic accident nearby, and abandoned the burial. The killers tried to cover their tracks by destroying CCTV, changing telephones, deleting messages and disposing of the Audi used in the kidnap.
Floral tributes at the spot in White Moss Road South near Skelmersdale, where Christopher’s body was found
Hours of CCTV footage was recovered and painstakingly reviewed by police officers who were able to discover the defendants’ activities, and movements which ended in Christopher’s life being cruelly taken. Following a trial at Liverpool Crown Court that began in October 2022, eight men were convicted of kidnapping and murdering Christopher.
Erland Spahiu (13/10/1988), of White Moss Road, Skelmersdale, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 35 years for murder, 12 years for kidnap to run concurrently.
Curtis Balbas (01/01/1992) of Matheson Drive, Wigan, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 34 years for murder, 9 years for kidnap to run concurrently.
Martin Smith (02/05/1988) of Laithwaite Road, Wigan, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 33 years for murder, 12 years for kidnap to run concurrently.
Razgar Khader Mohammed (01/01/1982) of Plane Avenue, Wigan – life with a minimum term 27 years for murder, 12 years for kidnap to run concurrently.
Alan Jaf (01/09/1970) of Ridyard Street, Wigan – life with a minimum term of 26 years for murder, 12 years for kidnap to run concurrently.
Khalil Awla (01/01/1974) of Greenwood, Wigan – life with a minimum term of 26 years for murder, 12 years for kidnap to run concurrently.
Dean Smeaton O’Neill-Davey (12/08/1992) of Bulteel Street, Wigan – life with a minimum term 25 years for murder, 12 years for kidnap to run concurrently.
Erion Voja (18/08/2001) of Peall Road, Croydon – life with a minimum term of 23 years for murder, 10 Years for kidnap to run concurrently.
A ninth man, Andrius Uzkuraitis (12/04/1995) of Holly Road, Wigan, was convicted of assisting an offender and jailed for six years.
Christopher Hughes pictured with his mother, Susan
The jury heard that all the defendants were connected to one another by family ties, work or socially. Jaf, Awla and Mohamed are married to sisters of Balbas and are all Kurdish Iraqis.
Jaf and Awla owned M6 Motors and Mohammed owned Star Autos, both in Wigan. O’Neill Davey worked for M6 Motors and lived in a house owned by Jaf. Balbas and Spahiu owned the convenience store, Mini Express in Beech Hill.
On the afternoon of his death Mr Hughes, who had become a drug addict, told friends he was aware that people were out looking for him because of rumours he had attacked a girl. Instead of going to police with their ill-founded suspicions, the gang decide to take things into their own hands.
After the brutal murder, Balbas hid at his girlfriend’s home in Audenshaw and replaced his telephone as did some of the other defendants. Shortly before his arrest on February 24 Balbas had been researching life sentences and the reduction in sentence for a guilty plea.
Both Spahui and O’Neill Davey searched the internet for newspaper information about the disappearance of Mr Hughes and Spahui bought Voja one way flights to Istanbul and Kosovo so removing him from the country. The blue Audi was initially left at M6 Motors but it was then decided that this highly valuable vehicle should be taken away, dismantled and broken into pieces and it was taken to a unit at Douglas Mill, Wigan.
Police went to the breakers yard on February 28 and found parts of the vehicle – and blood swabs from the boot tellingly matched Mr Hughes’ DNA profile.
The next episode of Manhunt will air on Channel 4 on Tuesday, January 21, at 9pm.
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