:00:24. > :00:29.Retreat in it human beings on a our doorsteps.
:00:29. > :00:39.Jan Leeming uncovers the mystery of the life and death of a hero of
:00:39. > :00:50.
:00:50. > :01:00.Battle of Britain. It was an extraordinary story.
:01:00. > :01:09.
:01:09. > :01:19.This is Rene -- This is Inside Out. Tonight we're at the Battle of
:01:19. > :01:20.
:01:20. > :01:27.Britain Memorial at Capel-le-Ferne. We are back year later.
:01:27. > :01:34.Human trafficking is a global crime. It is happening here in the UK. Its
:01:34. > :01:37.victims walk among us that a living in the shadows of our communities.
:01:37. > :01:45.We are investigating how traffickers exploit the most
:01:45. > :01:51.vulnerable people in society. The trade in human misery. Our journey
:01:51. > :01:59.will take us to meet the traffickers. We will be looking at
:01:59. > :02:08.how victims are being brought into a region to work as slaves. They
:02:08. > :02:12.are just going to sell me. This is a safe house. The girls who live
:02:12. > :02:19.here have been trafficked into the country to be sexually exploited.
:02:19. > :02:29.It is Flavia's home. She fled her home country desperate to escape
:02:29. > :02:49.
:02:49. > :02:59.from her uncle who sexually abused But her situation was about to get
:02:59. > :03:22.
:03:22. > :03:27.worse. She was taken to a house and Flavia joined an underclass of
:03:27. > :03:31.exploited foreign females living in the UK. Mike Emberson runs a
:03:31. > :03:41.charity that is helping her to charity that is helping her to
:03:41. > :03:47.
:03:47. > :03:57.recover. It is a profoundly evil business. You are degrading them.
:03:57. > :03:59.
:03:59. > :04:03.There are extra levels of horror. There are threats of murder. People
:04:03. > :04:11.often pay their traffickers to come here in the hope of a better life.
:04:11. > :04:19.Up when they get here at the reality is different. Individuals
:04:19. > :04:29.have been promised jobs in the UK, receptionist, cleaners in a hotel,
:04:29. > :04:29.
:04:29. > :04:39.even apposition as a model to stop -- even as a model. Then if they
:04:39. > :04:41.
:04:41. > :04:51.find out they are required to work in a brothel. Superintendent David
:04:51. > :04:53.
:04:53. > :04:58.Miller. They have been moved about the South of England. There at
:04:58. > :05:05.adverts in the back of the papers. And they are not new girls. The are
:05:05. > :05:13.the same goals being moved around. -- be seen people being moved
:05:13. > :05:23.around. Children are being born into slavery in the UK. In this
:05:23. > :05:27.
:05:27. > :05:34.safe house babies have been born, conceived as a result of rape.
:05:34. > :05:43.Trafficked women asked to do things that UK sex workers voluntarily
:05:43. > :05:53.would not do. They fill some unpleasant, and say that the gaps
:05:53. > :05:58.
:05:58. > :06:08.in the market. They have no say in the matter. This treatment puts
:06:08. > :06:22.
:06:22. > :06:28.Despite the fact this is happening in the UK some experts say we are
:06:28. > :06:38.only just beginning to realise the extent of the problem. There are no
:06:38. > :06:44.
:06:44. > :06:49.targets for this. If we do not do this we do not understand the scope.
:06:49. > :06:56.We uncovered exploitation been a number of places. This has made us
:06:56. > :07:06.realise how much is out there. the key to take inspiration from
:07:06. > :07:14.
:07:14. > :07:20.further afield? This is Romania. This is a country that some say is
:07:20. > :07:29.ahead of the game in recognising it has a problem and dealing with it.
:07:29. > :07:32.It has tougher maximum sentences and a dedicated law. This is a
:07:32. > :07:37.prison on the outskirts of Bucharest where some traffickers
:07:37. > :07:44.are taken to serve out their sentences. We have been given
:07:44. > :07:48.special access to speak to some of the prisoners.
:07:48. > :07:58.This man sold girls to the UK and Europe. Why did he start
:07:58. > :08:08.
:08:08. > :08:13.TRANSLATION: Became from abroad. People with money. They look for a
:08:13. > :08:23.typical girls. Where are the beautiful girls? Romania. Do you
:08:23. > :08:24.
:08:24. > :08:33.think about what happened to them? I knew how things worked. They took
:08:33. > :08:43.slaves from Romania. They can even kill them. They are bought, taking
:08:43. > :08:47.
:08:47. > :08:57.it illegally. -- taken illegally. This man is doing time for pimping
:08:57. > :08:59.
:08:59. > :09:09.trafficked women. TRANSLATION: Many women are not as developed as a
:09:09. > :09:12.
:09:12. > :09:18.girl of 15. They are told. You cannot tell the age. I was putting
:09:18. > :09:26.them on the market. I was taking them to where there was a crowd.
:09:26. > :09:31.asked to he sold the girls too. he paid he could talk, or not talk,
:09:31. > :09:40.just take her away and straddled her. Do you have the right to buy
:09:40. > :09:45.or sell people? I have to serve 13 years. Did it could be of? Yes. In
:09:45. > :09:55.this country we have harsh laws and well deserved. It put me off. When
:09:55. > :10:00.
:10:00. > :10:04.I come out I will be the best Romania has been cracking down on
:10:04. > :10:09.traffickers with one of the highest conviction rates in Europe.
:10:09. > :10:16.Campaigners like Mike Emberson from their The Medaille Trust think they
:10:16. > :10:22.could learn a lot. I want to know why we only get eight convictions
:10:22. > :10:27.per year and here they are getting 200 convictions. Is it because
:10:27. > :10:30.there is more trafficking? A I do not think so. I think it is
:10:30. > :10:36.legislation. How would you like to see our legislation improve
:10:36. > :10:43.question mark a single consolidated at would help our prosecution more
:10:43. > :10:53.than the current legislation. It is four different sets of
:10:53. > :10:57.
:10:57. > :11:01.legislation. They do not mesh This man is head of the anti-
:11:01. > :11:11.trafficking agency. He says having a single piece of legislation has
:11:11. > :11:21.helped bring offenders to justice. With a specific law it is easier to
:11:21. > :11:28.
:11:28. > :11:32.promote. It is easier to understand. It is hard legislation. What has
:11:32. > :11:42.targeting the traffickers meant? They have moved their criminal
:11:42. > :11:46.
:11:46. > :11:56.activity. Credit cards. What ever was not placing and in front of
:11:56. > :12:07.
:12:07. > :12:12.The Superintendents as we could be getting more convictions than we
:12:12. > :12:16.think. To convict the right people, it may be rape or sexual offence,
:12:16. > :12:21.some of the offences do not fall naturally under the umbrella of
:12:21. > :12:26.human trafficking. It is unlikely that many of the women here it will
:12:26. > :12:31.ever see justice. This man says the UK needs to do more to make sure it
:12:31. > :12:35.is not seen as a soft touch by traffickers. At the moment the UK
:12:35. > :12:41.represents a fairly low-risk environment with a high-return. One
:12:41. > :12:46.of the reasons why it is a high return is that to put it bluntly if
:12:46. > :12:56.you have got a human Slava you can use them and we use them. Day after
:12:56. > :13:01.day week after week to bring you money. Greed. That is what his
:13:01. > :13:04.feeling it. It is as simple as that. While it is easy to think about
:13:04. > :13:10.traffic came as something that happens in faraway places like
:13:10. > :13:20.Romania, it is happening in the south-east in ordinary houses and
:13:20. > :13:22.
:13:22. > :13:25.streets. It could even be happening Now, back in 2007, former BBC
:13:25. > :13:29.newsreader Jan Leeming sponsored a name on the Battle of Britain
:13:29. > :13:39.Memorial. And that was just the beginning of a quest to find out
:13:39. > :13:49.
:13:49. > :13:53.more about the life of a remarkable I wasn't even born when the Battle
:13:53. > :13:55.of Britain raged over Kent. I can only imagine the sounds of battle
:13:55. > :13:58.and the vapour trails of stricken aircraft, criss-crossing the sky as
:13:58. > :14:07.an ever-shrinking band of young pilots defended this country from
:14:07. > :14:13.invasion against overwhelming odds. Never in the field of human
:14:14. > :14:17.conflict was so much been owed by so many to so few.
:14:17. > :14:22.The closest I've ever come to committing an act of bravery was
:14:22. > :14:25.back in 2006 in Australia with a bunch of celebrities. It was
:14:25. > :14:35.terrifying, but I can't claim to know anything of the terror those
:14:35. > :14:36.
:14:36. > :14:39.pilots must have experienced. On my return from the jungle I sponsored
:14:39. > :14:42.a name on the Battle of Britain Memorial at Capel-Le-Ferne near
:14:42. > :14:45.Folkestone. I was intrigued by all the foreign names listed here,
:14:45. > :14:48.especially the French pilots. There are 13 French names on this wall of
:14:48. > :14:56.remembrance. Because of my French ancestry I asked to sponsor a
:14:56. > :14:59.French pilot. And the name I was given was that of Rene Mouchotte.
:14:59. > :15:02.Rene was a Spitfire ace who was killed in battle at the age of 29
:15:02. > :15:08.and who left behind plenty of evidence of his short but dramatic
:15:08. > :15:11.life. And a mystery to solve in death. The man who chose this name
:15:11. > :15:16.for me was Group Captain Patrick Tootal of the Battle of Britain
:15:16. > :15:19.Memorial Trust. And he explained that if it hadn't been for my
:15:19. > :15:22.French connection, he could very easily have chosen an American, or
:15:22. > :15:27.a New Zealander, or any of a dozen or so other nationalities who made
:15:27. > :15:32.up Churchill's famous few. There were several nations from occupied
:15:32. > :15:34.Europe, the Commonwealth. New Zealanders were a large contingent,
:15:34. > :15:41.Australians, Canadians, Americans who had to become Canadians to
:15:41. > :15:45.fight or else they would have been arrested back home. They crossed
:15:45. > :15:48.the border and became Canadians to join the Battle of Britain. And of
:15:48. > :15:54.course, the free French. Many of them escaped to north Africa and
:15:54. > :15:58.then came through Gibraltar back to Britain. Rene was one of those Free
:15:58. > :16:02.French pilots. And I wanted to know more about him, his life before the
:16:02. > :16:06.war, how he ended up fighting here with the RAF. And how he died. I
:16:06. > :16:16.wanted to know the whole story. But I had no idea what an extraordinary
:16:16. > :16:18.
:16:18. > :16:20.story it was and where that story As soon as I started to research
:16:20. > :16:24.the name Rene Mouchotte I discovered he'd kept diaries which
:16:24. > :16:32.were published after the war. And I even found him in an old newsreel
:16:33. > :16:35.from 1943. This was Rene enjoying his own brief taste of celebrity as
:16:36. > :16:42.one of two pilots who shared the credit for shooting down Biggin
:16:42. > :16:44.Hill's 1,000th enemy plane. So, the modest Frenchman and the Canadian
:16:44. > :16:48.share the credit and the sweepstake. The 1,000th shot-down plane was
:16:48. > :16:51.such a big deal at Biggin Hill that many airmen had refused to take
:16:51. > :16:55.leave so they could be around to see it. And as Wing Commander Andy
:16:55. > :16:59.Simpson told me, this bumped up the sweepstake prize money to a tidy
:16:59. > :17:02.sum for 1943. Apparently, the winner of the sweep stake was going
:17:02. > :17:06.to get �150 which was not an insubstantial sum at the time. And
:17:06. > :17:15.the pilot who got the 1,000th was going to get �300. So, of course,
:17:15. > :17:18.what actually happened was that the two pilots shared it. Rene shared
:17:18. > :17:24.his portion of the prize money with his crew and they all got a chance
:17:24. > :17:30.to celebrate at a huge party at the Grosvenor House hotel in London. A
:17:30. > :17:35.rare opportunity to enjoy some rest and relaxation away from the war.
:17:35. > :17:41.At the end of evening, a delegation of taxi drivers appeared who
:17:41. > :17:49.offered their services to those going home any distance and for
:17:49. > :17:55.nothing. In his three years of action with the RAF, Rene completed
:17:55. > :17:58.more than 380 sorties. He flew from bases all over the country, but is
:17:58. > :18:05.best remembered here at Biggin Hill where he became the first Frenchman
:18:05. > :18:07.to lead an RAF squadron. He even had a local street named after him
:18:07. > :18:13.where servicemen from all the forces still live today, including
:18:13. > :18:15.Lieutenant Colonel Sebastian Pollington. We all know of the
:18:15. > :18:20.significance of Mouchotte and indeed other famous airmen who
:18:20. > :18:24.roads here at Biggin Hill Patch are named after. But Mouchotte in
:18:24. > :18:28.particular because it's the biggest road on the patch. And the
:18:28. > :18:31.significance of him is not lost on the residents here. And there's a
:18:31. > :18:37.book that goes round the patch and everybody who's read it signs it
:18:37. > :18:41.and passes it on to the next guy. The book is a collection of Rene's
:18:41. > :18:47.war diaries. His first-hand account of life as an RAF pilot. Much more
:18:47. > :18:49.than just a description of missions and sorties. These are personal
:18:49. > :18:57.notes about fear, fatigue, blackouts in the air, anger at
:18:57. > :19:01.bureaucracy and what it feels like to see your friends die in battle.
:19:01. > :19:04.May 10th, 1941. We had been flying for over an hour when I suddenly
:19:04. > :19:08.saw the fatal white cloud which indicates complete engine-failure.
:19:08. > :19:11.As we made for the coast I advised him to bail out. My poor old
:19:11. > :19:14.Charles, if only you had listened to me. Alas, when we were at 50
:19:14. > :19:17.feet, he straightened his plane out then with a savagely swift movement
:19:17. > :19:24.the plane lurched to starboard, skimmed the sea, turned over and
:19:24. > :19:30.vanished in less than a second. is a fantastic series of diaries
:19:30. > :19:35.and flying logs and it is well worth a read. And the romance
:19:35. > :19:38.behind these stories of these airmen is fabulous.
:19:38. > :19:42.What really comes across from the diaries is Rene's determination to
:19:42. > :19:45.fight to liberate France. At the Battle of Britain, Rene was one of
:19:45. > :19:50.13 Free French pilots who had escaped to England after France
:19:50. > :19:57.surrendered to the Nazis. According to historian Professor Mark
:19:57. > :20:00.Connelly, Rene risked his life just to get here. In 1940, when he
:20:00. > :20:03.escaped from a surrendered French airfield in Africa, he stole a
:20:03. > :20:08.plane and flew it to Gibraltar. That was a massive act of bravery
:20:08. > :20:11.and daring in its own right,because Gibraltar was on red alert. So
:20:11. > :20:15.anything flying across its airspace, they could have had the whole anti-
:20:15. > :20:17.aircraft defences opening up on them. And of course, if they'd
:20:17. > :20:25.strayed into Franco's airspace, they would have found things very
:20:25. > :20:30.nasty for them. So the very start of their journey was fraught,
:20:30. > :20:35.almost a mini battle in its own right, even before they got to
:20:35. > :20:38.Britain. Cheating death was a way of life for pilots like Rene. At
:20:38. > :20:41.the Battle of Britain, they were outgunned and outnumbered, but it
:20:41. > :20:44.was a battle they had to win, no matter what. Defeat would have seen
:20:44. > :20:49.Britain invaded and overcome and left most of Europe under Hitler's
:20:49. > :20:53.control. It would have opened up the way for the Nazis to dominate
:20:53. > :20:57.the entire seaboard of the eastern Atlantic and possibly use the
:20:57. > :21:01.British fleet to put pressure on the Americans. We might have seen
:21:01. > :21:04.the Second World War pan out in a very different way. It is a moment
:21:04. > :21:08.where history is shaped and made by the few, as Winston Churchill
:21:08. > :21:12.called them. Rene survived the Battle of Britain and many other
:21:12. > :21:17.adventures. But, almost inevitably, his time came on the 27th August,
:21:17. > :21:22.1943. His death, shortly after this photograph was taken, was shrouded
:21:22. > :21:32.in confusion and mystery for several years. It would have
:21:32. > :21:37.
:21:37. > :21:41.unexpected consequences for me as Paris was Rene's home town. I
:21:41. > :21:44.wanted to know more about his life before the war and to see if any of
:21:44. > :21:47.his relatives had survived. So I decided to visit the places where
:21:47. > :21:52.he grew up and the streets he walked. Rene came from a well-to-do
:21:52. > :21:55.family. He was born here almost a century ago in the summer of 1914.
:21:55. > :22:01.The Mouchottes ran a successful distillery business and Rene grew
:22:02. > :22:06.up in this grand Parisian villa. But today it's an apartment
:22:06. > :22:09.building with no trace of his family here anymore. So my only
:22:09. > :22:12.option was to leave a note at the Mouchotte tomb at the Pere Lachaise
:22:12. > :22:19.Cemetery in the hope that someone with a connection to Rene would
:22:19. > :22:22.find it. Incredibly, four months later, the note was found by Rene's
:22:22. > :22:30.sister, Jacqueline, who instructed her son-in-law, Hubert De Lisle, to
:22:30. > :22:32.contact me. My mother-in-law found the letter in late October,
:22:32. > :22:39.beginning of November, when she naturally every year went to put
:22:39. > :22:43.flowers on the tomb. She called me and she said, there's this letter
:22:43. > :22:48.and it's in French and English. Somebody wants to make a recording,
:22:48. > :22:58.photographs, on the life of Rene Mouchotte. And she was slightly
:22:58. > :23:02.reticent at first. Until I discovered it was you, Jan Leeming.
:23:02. > :23:05.On your email, I managed to contact you and that was it. Jacqueline
:23:05. > :23:09.agreed to see me and we met on her 101st birthday. We looked at photos
:23:09. > :23:12.of her with Rene when they were children and the news footage of
:23:12. > :23:22.her brother from the war, footage she'd never seen before. She had
:23:22. > :23:28.
:23:28. > :23:31.fond memories of him as a boy who was always kind and smiling. With
:23:31. > :23:37.tears in her eyes she said it was wonderful to see her brother as she
:23:37. > :23:39.remembered him, 70 years ago when he set off for war. Although Rene
:23:39. > :23:42.is remembered and honoured in France, I was astonished to
:23:42. > :23:45.discover that the Mouchotte family had never received his Battle of
:23:45. > :23:52.Britain medals. I decided to find out why and my search took me north
:23:52. > :23:58.to Belgium and the stretch of coast where Rene died. On 3rd September,
:23:58. > :24:03.1943, a body in RAF uniform was found on the beach here at Westende.
:24:03. > :24:07.The man had been dead for a week. He'd been shot down somewhere over
:24:07. > :24:09.the English Channel, returning from a raid over the Pas De Calais.
:24:09. > :24:16.According to the documentation recovered from the body, his name
:24:16. > :24:19.was Rene Martin and he was a French Canadian. And this is where the
:24:19. > :24:27.body was laid to rest in the field of honour at Middelkerke Cemetery
:24:27. > :24:31.in grave number 87. But the body had fake identification. It was, in
:24:31. > :24:35.fact, Rene Mouchotte. He carried fake ID because he was a Free
:24:35. > :24:38.French pilot. The wartime Vichy Government had given orders to
:24:38. > :24:41.execute anyone from France who'd chosen to fight against the Nazis.
:24:41. > :24:49.So to protect himself and his family in France, Rene kept the
:24:49. > :24:52.fake ID of a French Canadian. I met up with local archivist Simon Sters
:24:52. > :24:59.at the Middlekerke Museum to find out how Rene's real identity was
:24:59. > :25:02.eventually discovered thanks to detailed records made at the time.
:25:02. > :25:07.They don't only talk about his height, but also his colour hair
:25:07. > :25:13.and the fact that certain teeth were missing. But in general, his
:25:13. > :25:20.body was still in a good shape. Rene probably died of exposure
:25:20. > :25:23.after crashing into the sea and washed up in Belgium a week later.
:25:23. > :25:26.There's something strange about his wrist watch. It had stopped the day
:25:26. > :25:29.they had found the body which is a bit strange. You'd expect that the
:25:29. > :25:32.moment he crashed into the sea, the watch would have stopped. But when
:25:32. > :25:38.they made the research, they discovered that it had stopped just
:25:38. > :25:45.shortly after they found the body on the beach. If it's coincidence,
:25:45. > :25:48.I don't know. Six years later in 1949, the postmortem report was re-
:25:48. > :25:52.examined and it was discovered that a small piece of clothing on the
:25:52. > :25:59.body bore the name Rene Mouchotte. So the body was exhumed and
:25:59. > :26:02.transported to Paris to be reburied with the correct name on the grave.
:26:02. > :26:08.It was important for the family afterwards to see who was actually
:26:08. > :26:14.found at Middelkerke. If you didn't do it properly, you would have
:26:14. > :26:24.troubles when the war would end. This was proven with feet Rene
:26:24. > :26:28.
:26:28. > :26:31.Mouchotte case. -- with the Rene Mouchotte case. Now I knew the full
:26:31. > :26:34.story of the confusion over Rene's death and a possible reason as to
:26:34. > :26:37.why his medals were never presented to his family. But that was
:26:37. > :26:40.something I could put right. I contacted the Allied Air Forces
:26:41. > :26:43.Museum in York. With their help, I was able to go back to Paris last
:26:43. > :26:46.summer and finally present Jacqueline and her family with her
:26:46. > :26:52.brother's Battle of Britain medals. She was not in good health at the
:26:52. > :26:56.time but delighted to receive them. She died just three weeks later.
:26:56. > :27:03.Jacqueline was buried here at Pere Lachaise in the family tomb where
:27:03. > :27:07.Rene's body was eventually laid to rest six years after his death.
:27:07. > :27:11.flowers look lovely. Thank you, Jan. It's my pleasure. It was a great
:27:11. > :27:15.pleasure to meet all of you, but to meet your mother was really very
:27:15. > :27:25.special. It was a high moment towards the end of her life to meet
:27:25. > :27:29.
:27:29. > :27:37.you and the medals. We were all thrilled to be there. And to meet
:27:37. > :27:42.you, such a charming young person. I think she needed her eyes tested!
:27:42. > :27:46.No, her eyes were much better than all of us. My search for Rene and
:27:46. > :27:49.his family has taken up much of my life since 2007. But with the help
:27:49. > :27:57.of a great many people, I've finally been able to complete his
:27:57. > :28:00.story. So my journey has ended where it began. And after five
:28:00. > :28:10.years of searching, Rene Mouchotte is no longer just a name engraved
:28:10. > :28:26.