A new move – but the pain of Aimee's cruel death lives on

THE Wellocks always hoped to leave their Bradford home for leafier surroundings on the edge of York, but the move wasn't supposed to be like this.

For years, parents Alan and Jackie, their son James and daughter Aimee would enjoy weekends and half-term holidays staying at a caravan by the Ouse at Acaster Malbis.

The family's plan was to wait until the children had finished school and buy a house there. But all that changed when Aimee collapsed and died from a heart condition after being attacked by a gang of girls

in 2005.

Mr and Mrs Wellock will move to York in August, after five traumatic years in which they had to deal both with the loss of their 15-year-old daughter and a Court of Appeal decision to quash her attackers' manslaughter convictions.

The final straw came when Mrs Wellock went to her local convenience store in Allerton – and came face to face with one of Aimee's tormentors, standing behind her in the queue for the checkout.

Not long after, it happened again. The pain was too much.

"At first, we weren't completely decided that we were going to move to York," Mrs Wellock said, "but then we decided we really needed to go.

"Aimee's attackers live so close. I don't feel intimidated, but I feel anger and upset and it takes me back to that time. I don't want to go there.

"We've accepted that Aimee's gone. We want to remember Aimee and not the circumstances and the people involved.

"Unfortunately, even going to the larger supermarket down the road, I am reluctant to go with Alan and there is no way I would go on my own."

Mr and Mrs Wellock bought their new home more than two years ago and they have been going there only at weekends, to do renovation work, because their Bradford house is still up for sale.

Some of their possessions have already been taken to the new house, but cherished photographs of Aimee – there are 10 in the living room alone – will remain in Bradford until the very end.

"The worst thing we have had to do was sort out Aimee's room," said Mrs Wellock, who still buys flowers every week to put next to her daughter's pictures.

"We did it together at Easter and it took all weekend. All her things were still there – her coats, her handbags, everything, just as they were almost five years previously. To give them away or to get rid of them was something I couldn't bear to do.

"We've recreated a room for Aimee in the new house because I get a lot of comfort from going into Aimee's room and seeing her things.

"I didn't want to box things up and put them in the loft."

Aimee's room became a place for quiet reflection after she died but it was a hive of activity when she was alive.

Mr Wellock said: "I used to come home and all you could hear was the music blaring from her bedroom and the banging from her jumping up and down.

"Out of all the kids she played with, she was certainly the most energetic and active, and I think that's what caught people out when she died."

Mrs Wellock said: "She had two great loves in her life – one was dancing and the other was shopping.

"She danced four times a week at the local dance studio. How could she do all that dancing and yet something like this happen?

"We attend a support group, Cardiac Risk in the Young, and hear parents' accounts of how their children died from heart problems.

"Some of them died while playing football or doing cross-country, and I thought, 'If Aimee had to die, why couldn't she have died doing something she loved?'

"If she had died while dancing, it would have been awful for her teacher but it would have been something she loved doing.

"Instead, she was almost frightened to death."

Aimee died five years ago last Monday after being attacked at Chellow Dene, a beauty spot which her house overlooked.

Mr and Mrs Wellock had to wait five weeks before they could hold a funeral for their daughter, and they then had to relive the horrifying final moments of her life when the case came to court.

Three girls were convicted of affray and Aimee's manslaughter but the manslaughter convictions were later quashed by a panel of appeal judges.

The ordeal put huge strain on the Wellocks, both at home and at their design agency and printing company, RWL Print Solutions.

Mr Wellock said: "We have another couple of businesses in London and the partners came up to look at how they could support the business in the position we were in.

"It did put some of the major contracts at risk and when you look back at things, you can see that Aimee's death affected everything we had.

"Your daughter has died, which is the worst thing that can happen, and your livelihood is at risk as well.

"Then you go through the court system and you find that your daughter's attackers have effectively got off scot-free."

Mrs Wellock said: "We know for a fact that the girls didn't mean to kill her but they did something they shouldn't have done.

"They had been drinking that evening and Aimee died as a consequence of that.

"They should have been punished for that but instead they served sentences of about three, five and seven months."

The tragedy also deeply affected Aimee's brother, who was studying at Huddersfield University but living in the family home at the time.

"Aimee's death had a big impact on James and I was really conscious that I had to be there for him as his mother," Mrs Wellock said.

"There was a time during his second year when he asked me, 'What's the point?', but then we had a talk about it and he changed his mind and said, 'I'm going to do it for Aimee'.

"He did, and he did really well, getting a first-class honours degree in multimedia and design."

In the living room, next to pictures of Aimee sits a photograph from James's wedding day last year. Had she lived, Aimee would have been

a bridesmaid.

"It was a difficult day, but it was a really happy day," Mrs Wellock said. "We didn't let anything spoil our day."

James, 24, and his wife Nicola, a teacher, are living in the Wellocks' York home while looking for a place of their own.

Mrs Wellock's father lives in an annex on the site, which is five minutes' drive from where the family's caravan was located.

In two months' time, the Wellocks will rent out their Bradford home and join them, leaving behind memories from 17 years of living next to Chellow Dene.

"I will never go in that field," Mrs Wellock said. "It's such a nice place but we've let the trees grow at the back of the garden.

"We don't want to see it anymore."

A summer's night in a local beauty spot which ended in tragedy for a loving and caring family

Aimee Wellock had been out enjoying a warm summer's night with friends when she died on June 7, 2005.

The group went to Chellow Dene, a beauty spot only yards from Aimee's home, where they were picked on by teenage bullies who had been drinking.

The bullies intimidated Aimee and her friends and started attacking them before two youths on motorbikes intervened and told them

to flee.

Aimee collapsed as she ran towards her home. Her parents were at the scene within minutes but there was nothing they could do to help.

Mr Wellock said: "She was on the floor, but there were no physical signs of what had happened.

"When I got there she was making a funny gurgling sound but then the sound stopped and that was when I said to Jackie, 'I think she's stopped breathing'.

"I started doing mouth to mouth, trying to do all the things you think are right, and then the parents of some of Aimee's friends came to

help me.

"It seemed to take an eternity for the paramedics to arrive. They took about 20 minutes, but after five or 10 minutes I knew that she was dead."

Tests showed that Aimee had been suffering from cardiomyopathy, a condition which causes heart muscle to deteriorate.

The teenager had been undergoing treatment for a rare skin condition at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital but her heart defect was not diagnosed.

Aimee's heart condition was the central issue in court when her attackers went on trial in September 2005. Three girls were found guilty of affray and manslaughter but their manslaughter convictions were later quashed by the Court of Appeal.

Lord Justice Dyson, sitting with Mr Justice Tomlinson and Mr Justice Andrew Smith, ruled: "No doubt, but for the affray, Aimee would not have died when she did, but this is not sufficient to make them guilty

of manslaughter."