“When I first met Andrew my parents wouldn’t recognise our relationship because we were from different cultures. It took five years for them to realise what a good man he was and accept that he was good enough for their daughter and on that day my world changed and I was so excited. We were to be together forever and I couldn’t have been happier. I knew him for 19 years, he was my life.
“When the police officer came to my door on 25th May, she told me that Andrew had been killed and I couldn’t believe it. I thought maybe he had just gone to hospital, after all, this had happened to him before. I kept thinking, why have they hit him on the head, why the head?
“When my first son Rhitik was born we became a family. Andrew just wanted us all to be together, to be a unit, and I remember him even sending my Papa away just so we could be a new family and savour the moment together.
“In the last seven years I have been disabled by a crippling illness which took away my mobility so Andrew gradually became my carer. I told my parents that an Indian boy would have left me by now and I knew how lucky I was to have Andrew to now love me and care for me.
“Andrew would get the children up and wash and dress them when they were little and then get them to school. He always brought me home a coffee after the school run and we would sit together, just the two of us. Andrew worked hard and because I can only stand for a few minutes, he always did the shopping and cooked the evening meal for us. He coped with the finances and the bills and the to-ing and fro-ing with the children. Now there is no one to do it. I have to manage with carers for everything.
“My children Aryan, 10, and Rhitik, 14, miss all the things that their daddy did, like being picked up by him from school or being taken to the café. For them too life has changed. Rhitik is autistic and his world is completely upside down. Since his dad died he questions why someone would do this. He has become frightened of going outside and he doesn’t want to leave the flat and struggles to cross the road or even catch a bus. He thinks someone will hurt him if he goes outside.
“I’ve watched his world get smaller and smaller in the last few months, he feels so unsafe in the world now. Andrew hoped that Rhitik would go to university but at the moment he can’t even cross the road. That goal now seems a very long way off.
“Little Aryan puts on a brave face for me and I don’t see him cry in front of me. Andrew hoped he would get into a grammar school but now I’m not sure he’s going to make it. He’s tried very hard but somehow its not been as easy without his dad pushing him. Aryan has somehow become the older brother and the carrier of all responsibilities of the family. He’s only 10 years old but he fetches everything for me now and can even go to Sainsbury’s to pick up things that I need.
“For me the greatest fear is what will happen to the children if something happens to me and I end up in hospital, there is no one left to look after them. My father died just before Andrew and I feel the combination has affected me so badly.
“I don’t know if I’ve moved forward at all since Andrew went, it’s as if I make a little progress one day and then the next I fall back again. Every step is so difficult and what happened to Andrew is never far from my thoughts. I try to take the children to see movies and for the brief time we’re in the cinema I have time away from my thoughts but the minute we come out I’m back in the circle and I constantly think about Andrew. Every aspect of my life has been affected because everything I have and do is affected by the loss of Andrew. I worry about this man getting out and that he might find my family, I know it’s irrational but I can’t help it.”