Mum’s plea for justice nine years after son left for dead by Dagenham road
This woman, who wished to remain anonymous, is appealing for information over her son's attack (pic: Isabel Infantes) - Credit: Archant
Nine years after her son was savagely beaten and dumped by the side of a road, a mum-of-three is appealing for help to finally bring the perpetrators to justice.
No one was ever caught for the attack, which left the 18-year-old with a broken back, ankle and wrist and head injuries so severe that he was in a coma for a week, barely recognisable to his own family.
To this day he is being treated for the psychiatric effects of the attack and cannot recall the events of September 6, 2005, when he was left for dead at the side of the A13 Ripple Road in Dagenham.
The Post has decided not to name either son or mother. Both have said an ongoing fear of reprisals stopped them speaking out earlier.
But nine years on, a burning desire to do right by her son has led the former nurse to call on anyone who might have witnessed the attack to come forward and shed some light on what happened.
She first suspected something wasn’t right when, a few days before, her son stumbled in through the door of her home with a black eye, slurring: “Mum, someone’s trying to kill me.”
A short while later he left to buy a drink from the local shop. The next time the former Barking & Dagenham College student would see his family would be in hospital.
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Recalling the moment detectives came knocking at her door, his mum said: “I thought they were going to show me a body. I thought: ‘They have killed him’.”
She was taken to the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, but at first she couldn’t recognise her son, such was the extent of his injuries.
“His head was so beaten, lying on the pillow,” she told the Post. “It was so swollen and his nose was so flat.
“I said: ‘Please, allow me to really have a good look’. “I went closer and looked at him, and I remembered the hair he had just had done a few days ago, and I said: ‘Oh my God, this is my son’.”
The events of that day have had a lasting effect, leaving both mother and son gripped by fear and paranoia. He, now 27, has been unable to find work, and she has had to forego her career as a nurse.
“I don’t want him to go on like this forever,” she said. “He woke up lost and he has been that way ever since.
“If anyone can jog their memories and tell me what happened on that day, it would help us both.”
•Anyone with information should call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
