Sikh mum still hasn’t found out how son died 25 years after body was found in Thames following racist attack – My London
A Sikh mum has been campaigning for justice for 25 years following the death of her son. Ricky Reel’s body was found in the River Thames after he and his three Asian friends escaped from a racist attack – his mum, Sukhdev Reel says she spent days searching for him before she was told his body was found.
Following the tragic death, Sukhdev from West London, says she did not feel supported by the police and claims she was spied on and left to piece the puzzle together herself. Since then she has been campaigning for a proper investigation into what happened to her son, which she says was not a simple accident.
In 1997, Ricky was just 20-years-old and studying Computer Science at Brunel University. One evening on October 14, Ricky and a group of friends decided to go clubbing for a friend’s birthday, his mum says she was happy for him to go out as he rarely did. He had told his mum he would be home at 1am and Sukhdev says he was alway perfect with his timing.
READ MORE: ‘My friend was stabbed to death in racist attack at 18 – I heard about it on TV’
Speaking to MyLondon, Sukhdev spoke about that night and how it all unfolded, she said: “He didn’t come home at 1am and his mobile was dead. It was a mother’s instinct – I knew something was wrong, because of the bond between mother and child. I kept ringing throughout the night and I was ringing hospitals in case a road traffic accident was reported. I contacted the police stations too but was not getting anywhere.
“At 8am when I called the local police station they said they were not interested as he’s over the age of 18 so doesn’t require imminent search. I told them about Ricky and after ages a police officer finally arrived, claiming he had been given the wrong address.
“I had also phoned Brunel University and a security officer said there was a gig there. I asked about Ricky’s friends at university and if I could have their number but was told this was against their policy. One friend who wasn’t with Ricky contacted me to give me numbers of people who he was with.
“His friends said they had parked the car on Downhall Road, Kingston, and were debating how to get to the nightclub. When walking towards the club Ricky had said he wanted to go home as it was nearing 1am, but friends kept saying no we are here for a night out. As they were walking towards the town centre two White men started shouting ‘P*kis go home’. An altercation broke out and Ricky’s group was attacked and punched. Ricky and the boys ran in different directions to escape.
“They all regrouped later but Ricky was missing, he had been saying there is a bus stop so he could get a bus home so they thought he probably got on the bus and got home. They didn’t realise he was missing and his jacket and mobile were in the friend’s car.
“My husband and brother went to Kingston police station and reported Ricky missing as our local one didn’t seem interested. But here the officer said ‘your son may not be found as you Asian families do arranged marriages so he might be running away’ or ‘your son may be gay and too frightened to come home’ – he was talking about a person he had never met based on assumptions due to our race and colour.”
Following this, Sukhdev says at that moment she knew they were doomed, she had asked the police to search the river and they said they had. She began to look for Ricky herself with family and friends, placing leaflets outside and going to Kingston to look for him, looking for witnesses and even searching in bins. She did this for seven days and found CCTV footage to give to the police, she said: “For that whole week I used to leave my young kids at home, get up in the morning, go to Kingston to search, come home at 1 or 2am. I didn’t sleep, I would get out of bed with a wet pillow from crying.
“On the seventh day , October 21, I went to The Monitoring Group in Southall to meet with Suresh Grover, the director of monitoring and continue the campaign. Suresh and John McDonnell, my MP have been supporting Justice for Ricky Reel Campaign for the last 25 years. Before we could begin, Suresh had a phone call from the police with some information.
“Suresh told them I was in his office where they came to tell us that Ricky’s body was found in River Thames in Kingston. But before that I received a call from my daughter saying that the police were outside the house, and if she could let them in. I said yes as they were coming to collect a receipt for Ricky’s shirt.
“Then police came to see me and told me my son’s body had been recovered from the river. I collapsed, I had to be pulled up from under the table. All the way home we tried to think how did he end up in the river? Who killed him? I was trying to figure out how to break the news to my kids, the kids I used to leave at home with the promise of bringing Ricky home.”
When Sukhdev arrived home the atmosphere was dark. “They weren’t my kids,” she said. “My daughter was standing in a corner and my youngest was like a statue.
“I couldn’t touch him as he flinched and my other daughter was on the stairs. You could see something was wrong. The police knew I was not home but they told my kids without us present. I found myself in that situation – they had no right to break that news to them without the parents present. My children lost their childhood that day.”
Police ruled Ricky’s death as an accident, and an inquest in 1999 returned an open verdict, but Ricky’s family have always believed that the student was murdered and they have criticised the subsequent Met police investigations. A report by the then Police Complaints Authority (PCA) concluded that there had been “weaknesses and flaws” in the initial investigation – in the same report, three officers were criticised for neglect of duty, reported The Guardian.
Although officers concluded Ricky must had accidentally fallen in while urinating, the Reel family commissioned a post-mortem report which indicated that Ricky had fallen into the river backwards, which meant he could not have been urinating, his shirt was torn and he also had blunt-impact bruising on his back.
Ricky’s family is campaigning for a new police investigation, they said: “Ricky had everything to live for. He was on a work placement in Central London, doing a Computer Science Course at Brunel; he had good friends and a loving family. He loved life and had his future mapped out. His life was cut short cruelly, and senselessly.
“All these police failings mean that no individuals have ever been brought to justice for Ricky’s death. We believe the police should be proactively working to solve this case. Over the last two decades we have witnessed huge improvements in technology and forensic science and this provides them with a new opportunity to examine all the evidence afresh and thoroughly.
Sukhdev’s book will be launching on July 3 where she explicitly talks about Ricky, what he was like and his childhood. It also discusses the funeral, campaign, inquest and reflects on the investigation as well as the road ahead. She says: “Dear friends. Please read my story. Tears falling from my eyes as I write my book. Blood used instead of ink to pen those words. I introduce my son to you all in this story of mine. Please read it and let our fight for justice be heard.”
You can preorder the book here and you can find out more about the launch here.
A Spokesperson for the Met Police said: “The investigation into death of Ricky Reel in Kingston in October 1997 remains open. The Met’s inquiry has been extensive – since Ricky’s disappearance and the discovery of his body in the River Thames on 21 October 1997, there have been numerous investigations and reviews. Officers have taken hundreds of statements from witnesses and people with information.
“There have been many media appeals and local leaflet appeals as part of our extensive efforts to piece together the circumstances around Ricky’s death. The inquest in 1999 into Ricky’s death returned an open verdict. In 2012, new information was reported to police by a member of the public – which led to a man being interviewed by officers however he was subsequently eliminated from the inquiry.
“No arrests have been made, or charges brought in connection with Ricky’s death.
“Currently, Ricky’s there are no active lines of inquiry into the death of Ricky and the case remains open. We would urge anyone with information about Ricky’s death to contact police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. Any new information will be assessed and followed up as appropriate.”