The Sunday Times Magazine • 13building or the White House. It made
Haines think that, like the passengers on
that plane, his brother probably knew he
was doomed: the British and US
governments had made clear they were
not going to pay ransom to terrorists.
Yet even in the most desperate situations,
there is still hope. “As an ex-forces person,
David would have known that the SAS were
trying to get him out,” Haines says. “He
would have known there was a chance of
being rescued.” A mission was eventually
mounted by American special forces but
Isis had moved the hostages and it failed.
Hopes that David might be freed were
further dashed when James Foley and
Steven Sotloff, American journalists
captured by Isis, were executed in August
and September 2014. In the video of
Sotloff ’s beheading, David, who was the
next western hostage to die, can be seen
in the background watching in horror.
“That’s the face I see in the dark hours,”
Haines says, “when sleep will not come.”
His brother had grown up often getting
into scrapes. On camping trips when
they were young, their parents would
sometimes attach David to a pole with a
leash. “Otherwise, he would just wander
off,” Haines recalls.
When they were a bit older, the boys got
into trouble for shoplifting. The “local
bobby” was summoned to the sweet shop,
Haines recalls. “It was, like, ‘You two are in
deep trouble. Come with me.’ He shut us
in the cells and left us there. It was only
15 minutes or so but it felt like years. He
taught us a brilliant lesson ... I never
shoplifted again and I know David didn’t.”
They enjoyed sport and music. But
whereas Haines had to put in hours of
practice at cricket and the guitar, David
did it all with the nonchalant ease of the
naturally gifted. “He could have done
anything he wanted,” Haines says. He was
also more successful with the girls.
The brothers followed their father into
the RAF, but David found that he was more
interested in humanitarian work. He got a
job with Acted, a non-governmental French
aid agency. “His objective was to help people
in need. He’s a true hero,” Haines says.
Haines also left the RAF and became a
psychiatric nurse. One day he was attacked
by one of his patients, causing a severe injury
to his leg that has required several operations
and still causes him considerable pain,
forcing him to walk with a stick.
By that time he had separated from the
mother of his two children and met
Vanessa, now 50, a logistics supply manager.
After the leg injury “Vanessa said, ‘Why
don’t you stay at mine? You’ll only have one
flight of stairs,’ ” he recalls. Then came
David’s kidnapping. A police protection
unit moved into the flat with them in case
Haines was contacted by the kidnappers.
“At first they were getting carry-outs and
I’d say, ‘That’s crap, let me cook for you.’ ”Other European hostages were freed,
apparently after their governments paid
millions in ransom money. But the
Haines brothers agreed with the British
government’s policy of not paying
terrorists. Before David went to Syria they
had discussed in detail all the things that
could go wrong over a bottle of brandy.
Kidnapping was high on the list. David told
Mike, “If you ever pay even one pound in
ransom, you’ll never see me again” —
meaning he would be so angry he would
not talk to his brother.
“I still agree with the government policy,”
Haines says. “Do I think other countries
are wrong to get their people out and paymoney? Tough one. It’s a decision for
countries and their leaders and not for me.”
The death of “Jihadi John” brought little
relief to Haines. But he hopes seeing Kotey
in the dock might bring him some peace.
“My biggest fear is that I’ll feel hate for
him,” he says, as we wait for our Uber back
to the hotel.J
udge Thomas Ellis offers a
remarkably cheerful greeting to
the bearded man in a green prison
jumpsuit in a courtroom the next
morning. “Good morning, Mr
Kotey,” he says. Haines peers
through thick spectacles at the accused.
“That’s my first glimpse of him. I’m glad
it’s in front of a judge,” he tells me.
We are sitting on benches that, bizarrely,
resemble church pews. In the row in front
of us are other members of the Haines clan
— David’s two daughters, Bethany, 24, and
Athea, 11. Athea’s mother, Dragana
Prodanovic Haines, David’s second wife,
is already in tears. Haines leans forward to
comfort her. “This is the day we shut the
jail doors on them and they stop being in
our lives,” he whispers.
Kotey, 38, originally from Paddington,
London, has admitted five charges of
hostage-taking and three terrorist
conspiracy charges. He sits yards away,
massaging his bushy black beard. He is
being tried in the US because four of those
killed by “the Beatles” were American.
Another of the kidnap gang, El Shafee
Elsheikh, 33, also radicalised in London, sits
nearby: he has been found guilty of lethal
hostage-taking and conspiracy to commit
murder, and is to be sentenced separately in
August. He has been summoned to listen to
the “impact statements” by victims’ family
members so they do not have to return to
deliver them again in August.
The man suspected of being the fourth
Beatle, Aine Davis, is absent: he was
arrested in Turkey, convicted there of being
a senior member of a terrorist organisation
and sentenced in 2017 to seven and a half
years in jail.
The families’ impact statements are
painful to hear. “It has affected my life in
so many ways,” says Athea, who was only
four when her father was killed. She bursts
into tears. Her mother, standing next to
her, wraps her in her arms. “I only have a
few memories of my dad,” Athea sobs into
the microphone. “Sometimes I get sad
when I see my friends laughing and playing
with their dads. That’s something I’ll never
have a chance to do again.”
Bethany, the elder daughter, describes
how her life has been ruined. She suffers
from PTSD and depression. Her father,
she says, was “dumped like a bag of rubbish”
in a mass grave near Raqqa.
Mike Haines sits down to make his
statement — his leg has been playing up
after the long flight from London. “MyThe jihadists
nicknamed “the
Beatles” by their
captives, from
top: Mohammed
Emwazi, known
as “Jihadi John”,
Alexanda Kotey
and El Shafee
Elsheikh. Aine
Davis, bottom,
is suspected to
be the fourth
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