Interview: In memory of Tyrone – a mother's fight for justice

Standing in a Leeds cemetery at the graveside of her son Tyrone Clarke, who was only 16 when he was beaten and stabbed to death, she fought back tears and made a solemn pledge to him.

She decided that she would never rest until every person responsible for the murder was found and brought to justice – and that life would mean life.

Keeping this promise has taken Miss Fraser, 45, on a journey, from Leeds Crown Court, where four of the men who killed Tyrone were sentenced, to a Downing Street meeting with the Prime Minister.

She has been on marches with other grieving mothers, given talks to schoolchildren about the dangers of carrying weapons and supported a Government scheme to tackle knife crime.

The campaigning will continue, as she told David Cameron last week, until police have found a key suspect in the case and the law is tightened to prevent Tyrone's killers appealing for early release.

"I vowed that every person who took part in his killing would be punished," she said.

"Very few people know what it's like to lose a child because of someone else's doing. You live with it day in, day out. Every minute. Every second. I'll never forgive those who took my son's life because a mother isn't supposed to bury her child."

Now Miss Fraser's campaign could be nearing a breakthrough. Mr Cameron promised to look at jail tariff limits after she told him how one of Tyrone's murderers, Liaquat Ali, was appealing for his minimum prison term to be cut from nine years to five.

He also agreed to speak to the High Commissioner of Pakistan after Miss Fraser told him that one of Tyrone's suspected killers was understood to have fled there.

"The meeting went well," she said. "He was very friendly, easy to talk to, and he took on board everything I had to say.

"People talk about how taxpayers' money is being used to keep these perpetrators behind bars, but think about the money that is used to allow these appeals.

"The Human Rights Act needs looking at. Everything is for perpetrators and nothing is for victim's families.

"We've got a new Government now and I'm waiting to see what they're going to do, but if we don't get what we want, we'll have to resort to a Plan B. You always need a Plan B when you're fighting for something."

After Tyrone's death at the hands of a mob in the Beeston area of Leeds in April 2004, Miss Fraser was supported by Pat Regan, another mother from the city who knew the pain of mourning a murdered son.

Ms Regan, a leading member of the campaign group Mothers Against Violence until she herself was stabbed to death by her grandson in 2008, encouraged Miss Fraser to use her grief as a force for change.

"She told me that you can either lie down with this or you can fight it and fight for what's right," Miss Fraser recalled.

"'You can be a voice', Pat said, 'so let's take the message out there.' We decided we weren't going to stand for this.

"As a mother, Pat understood me and what I was going through, and I felt comfortable with her because we shared something through the loss of our kids.

"I now know that what I'm doing achieves changes in people and that thought gives me a bit of comfort."

Miss Fraser has been interviewed about her experiences for a DVD to support the Government's knife crime prevention programme, which is aimed at tackling blade-carrying among young people.

She also works with young offenders and probation officers, and has founded "Tyrone's Memorial Project" to arrange talks and presentations in her son's memory.

The campaign work has become a full-time job – unpaid – and Miss Fraser has had to convert a room in her home into an office to manage all her engagements.

"I work with kids that are going down the wrong path," she said, "and I hope that I can stop one person going down that path so that Tyrone hasn't died in vain. I talk to them about my family life. I don't paint a pretty picture. I say it as it is.

"The former policing minister David Hanson came to Leeds to meet kids who had been through the knife crime prevention programme and they told him that, unless they'd heard my story, they might have carried on doing what they were doing.

"I have worked with probation officers, who've told me that they've never seen kids listen like they do when they hear my story. I never asked for this, but this is now my path in life. I have been given this role and I must pursue it."

Miss Fraser does not have to exaggerate her story to get her point across – Tyrone was beaten with baseball bats, poles and lengths of wood and stabbed three times.

The attack was the culmination of a feud which had been simmering in Beeston between Tyrone and his friends and another group of youths.

But whenever Miss Fraser asked him about the trouble, Tyrone would evade the questioning. "He just said it was boys' stuff," Miss Fraser said, "because boys don't want to worry their mothers. Had I been aware of what was going on, I would have phoned the police immediately, but Tyrone didn't give me that choice."

Tyrone's death was one of four tragedies to befall the family in less than a decade. Miss Fraser lost her father to cancer 18 months before the murder and, cruelly, both her sisters also had to experience the anguish of burying young sons.

One of Miss Fraser's nephews, Gary Vasey, was killed in a road

collision when Tyrone was 11 and another, Zak Fraser, died in a motorbike accident in 2007.

Zak's crash happened while Miss Fraser was speaking to hundreds of people at a rally in London in memory of another teenager beaten and stabbed to death.

"Tyrone's death affected Zak really badly," she says, "They were like brothers and they are buried side by side at the cemetery. When Zak died, you just couldn't believe it could happen. It tore my family apart. Three sisters. Three sons."

It is a grim statistic that would challenge the faith of many people, but Miss Fraser is not the sort to dwell. There is campaigning to do, and a promise to keep.

"You must never lose hope," she says, "God is good, and I believe he will keep me on the earth for long enough to see this through to the end."

'I found my son laid out on the floor with blood everywhere'

Tyrone Clarke was 6ft 4in but only 16 years old when he was beaten and stabbed to death on April 22, 2004.

At 5.10pm, his mother Lorraine Fraser took a phone call from the landlady of a local pub, who said he had been stabbed in Brett Gardens, only two minutes' walk from her Beeston home in Leeds.

Miss Fraser said: "I went outside and all I could hear was a helicopter. There were police. Hundreds of people, many of them crying.

"I went in the direction of where everybody was and that's where I found my son laid out on the floor with blood everywhere.

"I screamed and tried to get to him, but I was held back by police and then I collapsed."

Tyrone was taken to Leeds General Infirmary. Medics tried open heart surgery to save him, but he was pronounced dead at 6.20pm.

In 2005, Islamur Rahman, Anjum Amin, Kamer Akram and Liaquat Ali, all of Beeston, were jailed for life for Tyrone's murder.

A judge at Leeds Crown Court said he believed they were swept along in a pack mentality "doing things none of you would have done

individually".

The court heard that the attack had stemmed from a desire to teach Tyrone and his friend Raffael Lovick a lesson after past confrontations.

Ali, now 22, is appealing for his minimum jail term to be reduced from nine years and 47 days to five years.

A fifth man sought for the crime is believed to have fled to Pakistan.