Unseen footage of Angel Lynn with friends before being paralysed
Heartbreaking unseen footage shows Angel Lynn dancing and laughing with friends and family – as parents reveal paralysed teen wanted to join the police before meeting jobless car thief boyfriend who kidnapped her when she dumped him
- Angel Lynn was full of ambition before she met ex Chay Bowskill, her parents say
Heartbreaking unseen footage shows bubbly Angel Lynn singing, dancing and laughing with friends – before she met her controlling boyfriend who kidnapped her and changed her life forever.
Chay Bowskill, then 20, bundled then 19-year-old Angel into a van in Rothley, Leicestershire in September 2020. She suffered catastrophic brain injuries when she fell out of the moving van head-first at 60mph on the A6 near Loughborough.
A new Channel 4 documentary describes how before the incident ‘she was just a crazy young girl, full of life, feared nothing, if anybody could hold their own, Angel could’.
But her parents reveal how it went downhill when she met jobless Bowskill who took away her independence.
‘Angel always wanted to be a forensic scientist and work for the police, she was very ambitious,’ her father Paddy told. ‘But when she met Chay all ambitions went down the drain.’
Previously unseen footage shows clips of Angel with friends having fun, smiling and laughing
The footage shows her dancing with friends as she’s described as ‘bubbly’
But when Angel met Chay, her life changed, her parents have told the Channel 4 documentary
Angel’s mum described how she was always going everywhere with Chay
In the documentary ‘The Kidnap of Angel Lynn,’ Angel’s mother Nikki and cousin Fahren describe an ‘amazing’ former relationship Angel had, but when that ended Angel slipped away from the friendship group.
When she started to get ‘back out there’ was when she met Chay, Nikki said, ‘which changed her life’.
‘I didn’t really like Chay from the beginning. He didn’t have a job, Angel’s always had a job,’ Paddy, Angel’s father, said.
‘Angel always made out she wasn’t going out with him, they were just friends.
‘With her first boyfriend she never used to hide anything from us, we knew where she was. But everything changed when she met Chay, she used to tell fibs so she must have been ashamed of him, probably because he wasn’t a good boy.
‘It broke my heart because me and Angel were always close. As soon as we found out we were having a girl I said let’s call her Angel – and she’s always been my angel. She was always daddy’s girl.’
Paddy described how Angel was always ‘fun’ and ‘adventurous’.
But Nikki said she was told her daughter’s boyfriend ‘was a bad one and that he used to steal cars and motorbikes.’
Angel’s mother Nikki said she was told her daughter’s boyfriend ‘was a bad one’
Angel ‘was just a crazy young girl, full of life, feared nothing’ the documentary says
Angel loved having fun with friends before her injuries – here she is seen singing and dancing
‘Angel always wanted to be a forensic scientist and work for the police,’ her parents said
Nikki tells the documentary that Angel always seemed to be running around after Bowskill
Nikki revealed Angel was doing a public services college course and had got a competitive place on a trip away – but had turned down the opportunity to stay with Bowskill.
‘Wherever Chay went, Angel went,’ Nikki said, adding that they used to go from ‘hotel to hotel’.
Angel’s mother revealed she had got a tattoo on her ankle which said Chay’s name.
‘She wanted both excitement and love, and that’s probably what she thought she was getting at the start,’ Nikki said.
But she revealed she was told Bowskill ‘used to steal cars – and he finally got caught’.
Her father hoped she would ‘see sense’ when Bowskill was sent to prison, but it didn’t work out that way.
Nikki tells the documentary that Angel always seemed to be running around after Bowskill, sending him money, and that she would make sure she was home for 6pm to speak to him. He would phone her on the house phone to ensure she was at home, she claimed.
‘I do think she did love him, so it was abit easier then for him to control her,’ Nikki said.
Friend and work colleague Sheryl told of an occasion where it was her daughter’s birthday and she’d asked Angel to take her to Leicester.
But on the drive Angel noticed Bowskill behind them in another vehicle.
Sheryl said the phone calls and messages didn’t stop along the way.
‘He called her a s**g and a t***p because he had gone into my daughter’s house – where there were boys, it was quite distressing, it was alarming.
‘I told her ‘are you sure you’re OK’ but she told me she was fine.’
Angel after she suffered catastrophic brain injuries when she fell out of the moving van head-first at 60mph on the A6 near Loughborough
Angel got a tattoo which said Chay’s name on her ankle
Angel Lynn’s mother insists her paralysed and brain-damaged daughter was pushed from a van during a kidnapping by her ex-boyfriend.
Bowskill claimed Angel had fallen or jumped from the vehicle, but her mother Nikki Lynn, 48, believes her daughter was pushed despite Bowskill being cleared of grievous bodily harm.
‘I do think she was pushed because of the injuries she suffered, the force with which she hit the ground,’ Nikki has claimed.
The mother also revealed yesterday that Angel, now 22, has ‘no memories’ of the attack or of Bowskill, who is serving a 12-year prison sentence for kidnapping, coercive and controlling behaviour, and perverting the course of justice.
Angel Lynn has ‘blocked out’ memories of her abusive kidnapper ex-boyfriend, her mother has claimed. She is pictured with her mother, Nikki Lynn
Angel, then 19, was kidnapped by Chay Bowskill , then 20, in September 2020. He bundled her into a van in Rothley, Leicestershire, and drove away with her. CCTV footage shows the moment she was kidnapped
The young woman’s family thought she was ‘having some flashbacks’ but know now Angel (pictured on left before the attack) does not remember the incident or Chay Bowskill (right)
‘I’ve asked her if she remembers Chay and she puts her thumb down. There may be a lot of blocking it out,’ Nikki told LBC.
She shared how they had thought Angel was ‘having some flashbacks’ but know now she does not remember the incident.
Nikki said: ‘I have asked her if she remembers and she doesn’t. I gave her some options like “was your accident a bike, a van or a car?” And she said a bike.’
CT scans suggest Angel was left with two fractures – one across the top of her skull and down the left side of her face and another across her forehead and into her eye socket. Another scan showed how her nose, eye socket and cheeks were injured from the fall.
The injuries left her paralysed and unable to eat, walk or talk by herself. But Nikki claims that her daughter has had an ‘unbelievable’ recovery that has seen her ‘improve so much’ and ‘do everything they said she wouldn’t’.
She told LBC how the 22-year-old can ‘write things down’ and ‘choose her own clothes’. Angel is ‘standing with a little bit of support’, moving to a ‘less supported’ wheelchair and, with the help of her medical team, trying to walk again. She has also gone swimming and ‘walks perfect in the pool’.
Nikki said that although Angel ‘gets a bit down sometimes’, she keeps ‘fighting back’ and will soon be able to move from a rehabilitation centre to her family home.
The mother, who when Angel was placed in rehab ‘couldn’t see any future with her getting better’, said that she hopes one day her daughter’s speech improves enough that she can speak about her kidnapping.
‘I know it won’t change things but I’m hoping one day she will speak and tell me what happened,’ Nikki added.
Shocking scans (pictured) have revealed devastating damage to the young woman’s skull after she fell from the van
The scans suggest she was left with two fractures – one across the top of her skull and down the left side of her face and another across her forehead and into her eye socket
Another scan (pictured) showed how Angel’s nose, eye socket and cheeks were injured from the head-first fall
She suffered catastrophic brain injuries that almost killed her when she fell out of the moving van head-first at 60mph on the A6 near Loughborough. Pictured: Angel awake in Hospital in Nottingham
In footage from Channel 4’s The Kidnap of Angel Lynn, consultant neurosurgeon Stuart Smith said it was clear Angel suffered ‘very severe’ injuries during the incident.
Pointing at the huge crack in her skull, he said: ‘This area here is fractured, it’s been split open from the force of the impact.
‘To fracture the skull to that degree takes an incredible degree of force.
‘Her injury was so devastating and so severe, there was a very real chance that Angel wouldn’t survive.’
During the programme, viewers were also shown dozens of abusive texts messages from her controlling ex-boyfriend in which he called her a ‘stupid c***’ ‘b****’, and a ‘divvy little s**g’.
Angel’s ex-boyfriend Chay Bowskill was cleared of causing grievous bodily harm after it became unclear how she had left the van
The bubbly college student from Loughborough (pictured with her mother Nikki) had wanted to become a forensic scientist for the police
Angel’s father Patrick, 53, said Angel had initially denied she was dating Bowskill, of Syston, Leicestershire.
He said: ‘She must’ve been ashamed of him because he wasn’t a good boy. She was my angel. She’s just daddy’s girl.’
Nikki added: ‘He would message all the time. Message, message, message – all the time her phone was lit up.
‘Wherever he went she went with him. At that age you can’t say, ”you can’t do this.” She had her own car, you can’t ground her. I felt helpless.’
In tears, Nikki said the hardest part of learning about how abusive the relationship was ‘knowing that he hurt her’.
Talking about the kidnapping that left her daughter paralysed, she added: ‘They said she was rolling down the road like a football. I think he pushed her out the van.’
Bowskill was cleared of causing grievous bodily harm after it became unclear how Angel had left the van.
Angel Lynn, now 22, suffered catastrophic brain injuries when she fell out of a moving van head-first at 60mph
However, in January 2022, he was handed a seven-and-a-half-year sentence after being found guilty of kidnap, coercive and controlling behaviour, and perverting the course of justice, following a trial at Leicester Crown Court.
His sentence was then nearly doubled after senior judges at the Court of Appeal concluded his original term for the kidnap was not long enough and handed him four-and-a-half more years.
Bowkill’s sentence was increased to 12 years.
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