28/01/2013 Inside Out London

Retreat in it human beings on a our doorsteps.

Jan Leeming uncovers the mystery of the life and death of a hero of

Battle of Britain. It was an extraordinary story.

This is Rene -- This is Inside Out. Tonight we're at the Battle of

Britain Memorial at Capel-le-Ferne. We are back year later.

Human trafficking is a global crime. It is happening here in the UK. Its

victims walk among us that a living in the shadows of our communities.

We are investigating how traffickers exploit the most

vulnerable people in society. The trade in human misery. Our journey

will take us to meet the traffickers. We will be looking at

how victims are being brought into a region to work as slaves. They

are just going to sell me. This is a safe house. The girls who live

here have been trafficked into the country to be sexually exploited.

It is Flavia's home. She fled her home country desperate to escape

from her uncle who sexually abused But her situation was about to get

worse. She was taken to a house and Flavia joined an underclass of

exploited foreign females living in the UK. Mike Emberson runs a

charity that is helping her to charity that is helping her to

recover. It is a profoundly evil business. You are degrading them.

There are extra levels of horror. There are threats of murder. People

often pay their traffickers to come here in the hope of a better life.

Up when they get here at the reality is different. Individuals

have been promised jobs in the UK, receptionist, cleaners in a hotel,

even apposition as a model to stop -- even as a model. Then if they

find out they are required to work in a brothel. Superintendent David

Miller. They have been moved about the South of England. There at

adverts in the back of the papers. And they are not new girls. The are

the same goals being moved around. -- be seen people being moved

around. Children are being born into slavery in the UK. In this

safe house babies have been born, conceived as a result of rape.

Trafficked women asked to do things that UK sex workers voluntarily

would not do. They fill some unpleasant, and say that the gaps

in the market. They have no say in the matter. This treatment puts

Despite the fact this is happening in the UK some experts say we are

only just beginning to realise the extent of the problem. There are no

targets for this. If we do not do this we do not understand the scope.

We uncovered exploitation been a number of places. This has made us

realise how much is out there. the key to take inspiration from

further afield? This is Romania. This is a country that some say is

ahead of the game in recognising it has a problem and dealing with it.

It has tougher maximum sentences and a dedicated law. This is a

prison on the outskirts of Bucharest where some traffickers

are taken to serve out their sentences. We have been given

special access to speak to some of the prisoners.

This man sold girls to the UK and Europe. Why did he start

TRANSLATION: Became from abroad. People with money. They look for a

typical girls. Where are the beautiful girls? Romania. Do you

think about what happened to them? I knew how things worked. They took

slaves from Romania. They can even kill them. They are bought, taking

it illegally. -- taken illegally. This man is doing time for pimping

trafficked women. TRANSLATION: Many women are not as developed as a

girl of 15. They are told. You cannot tell the age. I was putting

them on the market. I was taking them to where there was a crowd.

asked to he sold the girls too. he paid he could talk, or not talk,

just take her away and straddled her. Do you have the right to buy

or sell people? I have to serve 13 years. Did it could be of? Yes. In

this country we have harsh laws and well deserved. It put me off. When

I come out I will be the best Romania has been cracking down on

traffickers with one of the highest conviction rates in Europe.

Campaigners like Mike Emberson from their The Medaille Trust think they

could learn a lot. I want to know why we only get eight convictions

per year and here they are getting 200 convictions. Is it because

there is more trafficking? A I do not think so. I think it is

legislation. How would you like to see our legislation improve

question mark a single consolidated at would help our prosecution more

than the current legislation. It is four different sets of

legislation. They do not mesh This man is head of the anti-

trafficking agency. He says having a single piece of legislation has

helped bring offenders to justice. With a specific law it is easier to

promote. It is easier to understand. It is hard legislation. What has

targeting the traffickers meant? They have moved their criminal

activity. Credit cards. What ever was not placing and in front of

The Superintendents as we could be getting more convictions than we

think. To convict the right people, it may be rape or sexual offence,

some of the offences do not fall naturally under the umbrella of

human trafficking. It is unlikely that many of the women here it will

ever see justice. This man says the UK needs to do more to make sure it

is not seen as a soft touch by traffickers. At the moment the UK

represents a fairly low-risk environment with a high-return. One

of the reasons why it is a high return is that to put it bluntly if

you have got a human Slava you can use them and we use them. Day after

day week after week to bring you money. Greed. That is what his

feeling it. It is as simple as that. While it is easy to think about

traffic came as something that happens in faraway places like

Romania, it is happening in the south-east in ordinary houses and

streets. It could even be happening Now, back in 2007, former BBC

newsreader Jan Leeming sponsored a name on the Battle of Britain

Memorial. And that was just the beginning of a quest to find out

more about the life of a remarkable I wasn't even born when the Battle

of Britain raged over Kent. I can only imagine the sounds of battle

and the vapour trails of stricken aircraft, criss-crossing the sky as

an ever-shrinking band of young pilots defended this country from

invasion against overwhelming odds. Never in the field of human

conflict was so much been owed by so many to so few.

The closest I've ever come to committing an act of bravery was

back in 2006 in Australia with a bunch of celebrities. It was

terrifying, but I can't claim to know anything of the terror those

pilots must have experienced. On my return from the jungle I sponsored

a name on the Battle of Britain Memorial at Capel-Le-Ferne near

Folkestone. I was intrigued by all the foreign names listed here,

especially the French pilots. There are 13 French names on this wall of

remembrance. Because of my French ancestry I asked to sponsor a

French pilot. And the name I was given was that of Rene Mouchotte.

Rene was a Spitfire ace who was killed in battle at the age of 29

and who left behind plenty of evidence of his short but dramatic

life. And a mystery to solve in death. The man who chose this name

for me was Group Captain Patrick Tootal of the Battle of Britain

Memorial Trust. And he explained that if it hadn't been for my

French connection, he could very easily have chosen an American, or

a New Zealander, or any of a dozen or so other nationalities who made

up Churchill's famous few. There were several nations from occupied

Europe, the Commonwealth. New Zealanders were a large contingent,

Australians, Canadians, Americans who had to become Canadians to

fight or else they would have been arrested back home. They crossed

the border and became Canadians to join the Battle of Britain. And of

course, the free French. Many of them escaped to north Africa and

then came through Gibraltar back to Britain. Rene was one of those Free

French pilots. And I wanted to know more about him, his life before the

war, how he ended up fighting here with the RAF. And how he died. I

wanted to know the whole story. But I had no idea what an extraordinary

story it was and where that story As soon as I started to research

the name Rene Mouchotte I discovered he'd kept diaries which

were published after the war. And I even found him in an old newsreel

from 1943. This was Rene enjoying his own brief taste of celebrity as

one of two pilots who shared the credit for shooting down Biggin

Hill's 1,000th enemy plane. So, the modest Frenchman and the Canadian

share the credit and the sweepstake. The 1,000th shot-down plane was

such a big deal at Biggin Hill that many airmen had refused to take

leave so they could be around to see it. And as Wing Commander Andy

Simpson told me, this bumped up the sweepstake prize money to a tidy

sum for 1943. Apparently, the winner of the sweep stake was going

to get �150 which was not an insubstantial sum at the time. And

the pilot who got the 1,000th was going to get �300. So, of course,

what actually happened was that the two pilots shared it. Rene shared

his portion of the prize money with his crew and they all got a chance

to celebrate at a huge party at the Grosvenor House hotel in London. A

rare opportunity to enjoy some rest and relaxation away from the war.

At the end of evening, a delegation of taxi drivers appeared who

offered their services to those going home any distance and for

nothing. In his three years of action with the RAF, Rene completed

more than 380 sorties. He flew from bases all over the country, but is

best remembered here at Biggin Hill where he became the first Frenchman

to lead an RAF squadron. He even had a local street named after him

where servicemen from all the forces still live today, including

Lieutenant Colonel Sebastian Pollington. We all know of the

significance of Mouchotte and indeed other famous airmen who

roads here at Biggin Hill Patch are named after. But Mouchotte in

particular because it's the biggest road on the patch. And the

significance of him is not lost on the residents here. And there's a

book that goes round the patch and everybody who's read it signs it

and passes it on to the next guy. The book is a collection of Rene's

war diaries. His first-hand account of life as an RAF pilot. Much more

than just a description of missions and sorties. These are personal

notes about fear, fatigue, blackouts in the air, anger at

bureaucracy and what it feels like to see your friends die in battle.

May 10th, 1941. We had been flying for over an hour when I suddenly

saw the fatal white cloud which indicates complete engine-failure.

As we made for the coast I advised him to bail out. My poor old

Charles, if only you had listened to me. Alas, when we were at 50

feet, he straightened his plane out then with a savagely swift movement

the plane lurched to starboard, skimmed the sea, turned over and

vanished in less than a second. is a fantastic series of diaries

and flying logs and it is well worth a read. And the romance

behind these stories of these airmen is fabulous.

What really comes across from the diaries is Rene's determination to

fight to liberate France. At the Battle of Britain, Rene was one of

13 Free French pilots who had escaped to England after France

surrendered to the Nazis. According to historian Professor Mark

Connelly, Rene risked his life just to get here. In 1940, when he

escaped from a surrendered French airfield in Africa, he stole a

plane and flew it to Gibraltar. That was a massive act of bravery

and daring in its own right,because Gibraltar was on red alert. So

anything flying across its airspace, they could have had the whole anti-

aircraft defences opening up on them. And of course, if they'd

strayed into Franco's airspace, they would have found things very

nasty for them. So the very start of their journey was fraught,

almost a mini battle in its own right, even before they got to

Britain. Cheating death was a way of life for pilots like Rene. At

the Battle of Britain, they were outgunned and outnumbered, but it

was a battle they had to win, no matter what. Defeat would have seen

Britain invaded and overcome and left most of Europe under Hitler's

control. It would have opened up the way for the Nazis to dominate

the entire seaboard of the eastern Atlantic and possibly use the

British fleet to put pressure on the Americans. We might have seen

the Second World War pan out in a very different way. It is a moment

where history is shaped and made by the few, as Winston Churchill

called them. Rene survived the Battle of Britain and many other

adventures. But, almost inevitably, his time came on the 27th August,

1943. His death, shortly after this photograph was taken, was shrouded

in confusion and mystery for several years. It would have

unexpected consequences for me as Paris was Rene's home town. I

wanted to know more about his life before the war and to see if any of

his relatives had survived. So I decided to visit the places where

he grew up and the streets he walked. Rene came from a well-to-do

family. He was born here almost a century ago in the summer of 1914.

The Mouchottes ran a successful distillery business and Rene grew

up in this grand Parisian villa. But today it's an apartment

building with no trace of his family here anymore. So my only

option was to leave a note at the Mouchotte tomb at the Pere Lachaise

Cemetery in the hope that someone with a connection to Rene would

find it. Incredibly, four months later, the note was found by Rene's

sister, Jacqueline, who instructed her son-in-law, Hubert De Lisle, to

contact me. My mother-in-law found the letter in late October,

beginning of November, when she naturally every year went to put

flowers on the tomb. She called me and she said, there's this letter

and it's in French and English. Somebody wants to make a recording,

photographs, on the life of Rene Mouchotte. And she was slightly

reticent at first. Until I discovered it was you, Jan Leeming.

On your email, I managed to contact you and that was it. Jacqueline

agreed to see me and we met on her 101st birthday. We looked at photos

of her with Rene when they were children and the news footage of

her brother from the war, footage she'd never seen before. She had

fond memories of him as a boy who was always kind and smiling. With

tears in her eyes she said it was wonderful to see her brother as she

remembered him, 70 years ago when he set off for war. Although Rene

is remembered and honoured in France, I was astonished to

discover that the Mouchotte family had never received his Battle of

Britain medals. I decided to find out why and my search took me north

to Belgium and the stretch of coast where Rene died. On 3rd September,

1943, a body in RAF uniform was found on the beach here at Westende.

The man had been dead for a week. He'd been shot down somewhere over

the English Channel, returning from a raid over the Pas De Calais.

According to the documentation recovered from the body, his name

was Rene Martin and he was a French Canadian. And this is where the

body was laid to rest in the field of honour at Middelkerke Cemetery

in grave number 87. But the body had fake identification. It was, in

fact, Rene Mouchotte. He carried fake ID because he was a Free

French pilot. The wartime Vichy Government had given orders to

execute anyone from France who'd chosen to fight against the Nazis.

So to protect himself and his family in France, Rene kept the

fake ID of a French Canadian. I met up with local archivist Simon Sters

at the Middlekerke Museum to find out how Rene's real identity was

eventually discovered thanks to detailed records made at the time.

They don't only talk about his height, but also his colour hair

and the fact that certain teeth were missing. But in general, his

body was still in a good shape. Rene probably died of exposure

after crashing into the sea and washed up in Belgium a week later.

There's something strange about his wrist watch. It had stopped the day

they had found the body which is a bit strange. You'd expect that the

moment he crashed into the sea, the watch would have stopped. But when

they made the research, they discovered that it had stopped just

shortly after they found the body on the beach. If it's coincidence,

I don't know. Six years later in 1949, the postmortem report was re-

examined and it was discovered that a small piece of clothing on the

body bore the name Rene Mouchotte. So the body was exhumed and

transported to Paris to be reburied with the correct name on the grave.

It was important for the family afterwards to see who was actually

found at Middelkerke. If you didn't do it properly, you would have

troubles when the war would end. This was proven with feet Rene

Mouchotte case. -- with the Rene Mouchotte case. Now I knew the full

story of the confusion over Rene's death and a possible reason as to

why his medals were never presented to his family. But that was

something I could put right. I contacted the Allied Air Forces

Museum in York. With their help, I was able to go back to Paris last

summer and finally present Jacqueline and her family with her

brother's Battle of Britain medals. She was not in good health at the

time but delighted to receive them. She died just three weeks later.

Jacqueline was buried here at Pere Lachaise in the family tomb where

Rene's body was eventually laid to rest six years after his death.

flowers look lovely. Thank you, Jan. It's my pleasure. It was a great

pleasure to meet all of you, but to meet your mother was really very

special. It was a high moment towards the end of her life to meet

you and the medals. We were all thrilled to be there. And to meet

you, such a charming young person. I think she needed her eyes tested!

No, her eyes were much better than all of us. My search for Rene and

his family has taken up much of my life since 2007. But with the help

of a great many people, I've finally been able to complete his

story. So my journey has ended where it began. And after five

years of searching, Rene Mouchotte is no longer just a name engraved