About A Son: A Murder And A Father’s Search For Truth

David Whitehouse

Morgan Hehir had his whole life ahead of him when he was brutally murdered in a senseless attack.

In October 2015, while out for the evening in his hometown of Nuneaton in Warwickshire, he and his friends were set upon by a group of strangers. Morgan was stabbed and tragically died a few hours later in hospital. He was just 20 years old.

The day after his death, his father Colin started writing a diary to try to make sense of what had happened and to ensure that nothing was forgotten in the intense haze of his grief.

It is this diary that inspired writer David Whitehouse. It’s a heartbreaking account of a family’s loss and a father’s determination to uncover the truth of what happened to his beloved boy.

Losing a child is every parent’s worst nightmare and you walk with Colin every step of the way through the immediate aftermath, the trial and the search for justice.

The family soon come up against the unfeeling bureaucracy of the police and legal system. After Morgan dies, a nurse takes Colin to see him – but their way is blocked by a detective.

“He is a crime scene now,” says the policeman, who threatens the grieving father with arrest if he tries to proceed. The callousness is breathtaking.

But worse is to come. Three men are arrested in connection with the attack and it transpires that the one who stabbed Morgan had only been out of prison for four months, after spending four-and-a-half years inside for manslaughter. Horrified, Colin embarks on a tireless mission to find out why this man was free to kill again.

But as much as this is a story of grief, it is also one of love – of a family’s love for their brother and son, and this son’s love for the life that was so cruelly taken from him.

“There are two lives now,” says Colin. “The one lived and the one not, what has been and what could have been. [We exist]... in the void between them.”

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