Victim Jack dedicated life to helping the underdog
JACK MERRITT was a ‘champion for underdogs everywhere’, his grief-stricken father, David, said yesterday as he described his 25year-old son as a ‘beautiful spirit’.
But in the cruellest of ironies, it was the young Cambridge University criminologist’s determination to assist the disadvantaged that cost him his life – cut down by a convicted terrorist he was helping to rehabilitate.
Unknown to Jack, Usman Khan had feigned redemption and falsely claimed he had been ‘deradicalised’ to get out of prison early and launch his murderous rampage.
No one saw it coming, least of all Jack who always saw the best in
‘The warmest heart with time for anyone’
people. He relished his job as the course co-ordinator of a Cambridge University criminology department initiative called Learning Together, in which students in universities and prisons ‘learn degree-level material alongside one another in the prison environment’.
By all accounts it was successful and Jack was heartened that he was making a difference. Whether he had worked closely with Khan is unclear, but their paths are thought to have crossed more than once.
Along with others at the university, Jack believed 28-year-old Khan’s story represented a powerful case study of how a life could be changed for the better.
Friends recalled that from an early age Jack possessed a strong sense of social justice. ‘He was always sticking up for the little guy,’ said one. In time, through school, university and beyond, this crystalised into a mission, a deeply held belief in the transformative powers of education.
Jack’s godfather Paul Brooker described his death as ‘a sickening waste of a young, hugely talented life’, adding he was ‘smart, funny and loved his work’.
Lecturers recalled him being ‘destined for great things’.
Colleague Serena Wright described him as ‘the sweetest, most caring and selfless individual I’ve ever met’, adding on Twitter: ‘I loved him to pieces.’
Jack is survived by is his mother Anne, father David, and younger brother Joe, as well as his girlfriend Leanne O’Brien, who was said yesterday to be ‘beside herself over his death’.