As told to Dave Jarvis 

“I had been on a lovely day out with my mother Margaret, who is now 86 years of age, to Cullercoats near Whitley Bay.

All we had talked about was the barbeque we were going to have when Paul was finally home from Iraq. He had been due back from his tour of duty two weeks earlier but then at the last minute he had been told he and his unit had to stay on another month. He was a corporal in the Royal Military Police based at Colchester – a Redcap – and had been playing his part in rebuilding Iraq after the war. I was so proud of him. Paul had been a quiet, almost timid boy, but the army had made a man of him.

His father Gordon, who I had separated from in 1994, had died of cancer in 2002 and even though Byron, my other son, lives with me, I missed Paul terribly.

Byron, 22, Paul’s sister Maria, 32, and his wife Gemma, 25, were all worried about him going to Iraq, but he knew it was his job and made the most of it.

And he coped with it well. He wrote and e-mailed all the time. He wrote funny letters and he used to call Iraq ‘Bush and Blair Holidays’ and jokingly complain about the accommodation. But deep down I knew he was frightened. He admitted that before going out and I thought it was the sign of real man to admit his fears.

But that day at Cullercoats it felt like most of the worrying was behind us. It had been beautiful and sunny day and I was full of thoughts about how soon he would be home to see me, Maria, Byron, Gemma and Ben, his son who was just 10 months old at the time.

I’d said goodbye to mum and on the bus on the way back to South Shields where I live my mobile went off. It was Gemma. It was odd to hear from her because to be honest we haven’t been the closest mother and daughter-in-law. She asked if anyone had been in touch. There was a funny tone in her voice. Straight away I said: ‘Are you trying to tell me my son is dead?’ I just knew. Something about the way she spoke. I hadn’t seen the news, but I knew. She said she was sorry to tell me that way. I broke down. There was one other lady on the bus and she got the driver to stop. I haven’t got the words to say how I felt but I knew I had to be strong for Byron and Maria and pulled myself together. ‘Keep going,’ I told myself. But it was so hard. The driver dropped me off near my flat and soon after that an army officer arrived to tell me officially what had happened.

Paul and five other Redcaps had been shot by an armed Iraqi mob of 300 in a town in southern Iraq called Al Majar al Kabir. It sounded awful. The Iraqis were armed with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Paul had been helping to train Iraqi police  – they had even been playing football together an hour earlier – but the mob stormed the police station in retaliation for an earlier skirmish with paratroopers which had left four Iraqis dead.

It didn’t make sense. The Redcaps didn’t fire a shot. They had been cornered in the old disused police station in the town by the mob and virtually executed. I found it difficult to take in. Paul was just two weeks away from coming home.

I smoked 40 cigarettes that day – and I didn’t even smoke any more. I had given up six months earlier. But I’m back on them now.

I’m on anti-depressants and I suffer from arthritis and angina and the doctor has told me I still haven’t grieved for Paul properly and it’s three years since he was killed.

I think the main reason for that is that after his death a lot of news stories started coming out asking questions about what had happened that day. A lot of the stories pointed the finger at the military.

It came out that Paul and the others had not been issued with a satellite phone – which they could have used to call for help – and that they had only been issued with 50 rounds of ammunition instead of the regulation 150.

Those failures may have been in breach of the Army Act. If my boy had had a satellite phone – which the army’s rules say he should have – then he may be alive today.

At one point the Paras were just 100 yards away and probably could have saved them if they had been able to make the call.

The relatives of the other men, particularly Tony Hamilton-Jewell, the brother of Sgt Simon Hamilton-Jewell and Reg Keys, Lance Corporal Tom Keys’ dad, who both died alongside Paul, have been brilliant in trying to find out exactly what happened and to get justice for our boys.

At the inquest in Oxford in March, 2006, coroner Nicholas Gardner returned a verdict of unlawful killing into Paul’s death and the other men who died with him – Tony’s brother and Reg’s son and Corporal Russ Aston, Corporal Simon Miller and Lance Corporal Ben Hyde.

The thing that keeps me going more than anything is the fight for justice. They didn’t have to die.

The coroner said he would write to the Defence Secretary John Reid to recommend improvements in equipment and procedure, but that is too late for Paul.

All the families are now seeking action against the officers who failed to follow proper procedure and issue the correct equipment.

We have asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate their failures with a view to seeking prosecutions. It is all about justice for our boys. Nothing else.

And those officers are still in charge of other parents’ boys. We want to make sure the same mistakes aren’t made again.

One of the most upsetting things we heard was that Paul had pleaded with his killers for mercy by showing them a picture of little Ben. He was trying to say he was just an ordinary working man like them with a wife and a son who loved him. That information came from the Iraqis and we will never know if it is true, but Paul did carry a picture of Ben with him. The Iraqi accounts said Paul was one of the last to die. He must have been terrified after watching his friends die before him. I hate to think about it.

Maria still hasn’t come to terms with Paul’s death. It is still very difficult for her because they were very, very close.

The funeral in Colchester was upsetting. It was on July 17^th, 2003, just two days before Paul’s 25^th birthday. Paul had a very good send off but I wanted to look at him one last time in his coffin, but they wouldn’t let me. I am his mother after all and I remember what he looked like when I brought him into this world and I wanted to see what he looked like when he left it. That is not morbid. It was my instinct as a mother. But they wouldn’t let me.

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