Murderer on the streets

I live in fear of bumping into the man who killed my dad

- SASKIA MURPHY, JESS GRIEVESON-SMITH

Holding out my palm, I giggled as the horse gobbled up a sugar cube. Then my dad Chris, then 26, scooped me up and put me on the horse’s back.

It was 1998 and, aged 7, I loved nothing more than weekends with my daddy.

He’d split from my mum Paula, then 25, when I was 2.

But I adored every minute we spent together, playing video games, horse riding, watching films.

Dad taught me a lot. If I ever fell out with friends, he’d tell me not to get into fights.

‘Violence is never the answer,’ he said, telling me to walk away.

But, like all teens, I could be a handful.

In May 2009, when I was 17, Dad said he wanted me to apply to uni.

‘I’m too thick,’ I fumed, storming off. I thought he was trying to lecture me, and we fell out.

We’ll make up eventually, I thought.

But days later, on 31 May 2009, I was eating dinner when there was a knock at my front door.

It was two police officers. ‘Are you Christopher Folkes’ daughter?’ one asked. ‘What’s happened?’

I asked, panicked.

‘I’m sorry to inform you, your dad died in the early hours,’ the officer said.

The room began to spin as the police explained that Dad had been attacked in a park in Blackburn.

He’d died at Royal Blackburn Hospital just a few hours later.

I collapsed – my dad had always taught me to walk away from violence, and now he’d been violently murdered, at just 36 years old. It didn’t make sense. I was racked with guilt. The last time I’d spoken to Dad, we’d argued, and now he was gone.