Father whose wife was killed ‘ by a homeless man’ wakes from surgery to learn his son died too
‘We’ve only got each other now’
A BUSINESSMAN whose wife was killed in an attack at their home only learned his son had also died when he came round from life-saving surgery.
Peter Wilkinson, 47, suffered six stab wounds in the savage onslaught, allegedly by a homeless man, that left his wife Tracey, 50, and 13-yearold son Pierce dead.
He fought for life in hospital while his daughter Lydia, 18, waited to find out if she had lost her entire family.
Speaking yesterday for the first time since the attack two- and- a- half weeks ago, Mr Wilkinson described how his ‘ happy family bubble’ had been destroyed.
Fighting back tears, he said: ‘We were such a tight unit as a family ... we laughed a lot, joked a lot, loved each other and our dog.
‘Our lives revolved around each other – that’s gone now, and it’s devastating.
‘Our lives have just been shattered, we’re a family that’s been wrecked.’
As he was being taken to hospital he was aware he had lost his wife, but it was not until he came round from surgery that he was told his son had died as well.
‘I’d been semi- conscious until I went into theatre, and I knew that we’d lost Tracey,’ said Mr Wilkinson.
‘But it wasn’t until I woke up from the anaesthetic that I realised we’d lost Pierce too – it was the first question I asked. I was so drugged up, it just didn’t hit home for a long time. Even now we’re still in shock – we still expect to see them.’
Mr Wilkinson said the man accused of carrying out the stabbings was known to the family, as his wife met him while he was homeless. He said the family had cared for the man on and off over the past 12 months but that he never lived with them. Aaron Barley, 23, of no fixed address, has been charged with two counts of murder and one of attempted murder. He is due to stand trial on October 3.
Mr Wilkinson spent six days in intensive care after suffering stab wounds, lacerations to his face and nerve damage in the attack. He needed 97 stitches. Speaking at his parents’ house near the family home in Stourbridge, West Midlands, where the attack took place, he said: ‘We can’t believe we’re never going to see them again.
‘We’ve not just lost two of our nearest and dearest, we’ve also lost our home – we don’t feel like we can go back there now.’
Mr Wilkinson’s daughter, who was in her Bristol Univer- sity halls of residence at the time of the attack, yesterday described how she thought she had ‘lost everybody’.
She said: ‘Initially I found out what had happened on social media and online – at first I just saw that there had been three stabbings and I didn’t know much more.
‘Soon after, I heard from the police. It was horrendous, just awful – I was on my own, but my friends rallied round me and my boyfriend’s parents came to pick me up from Bristol. [They] drove me straight back to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, by which time Dad had just come out of theatre.’
She added: ‘They told me he was going to be OK – I just felt a massive sense of relief, I’d lost two family members and really thought I was going to lose Dad too.
‘It was so sudden and unexpected which makes it hurt even more. For a good few hours, I thought I had no one.’ She described her final memories of seeing her mother and brother when she returned home for a surprise visit days before the attack – prompting Mrs Wilkinson to say it was ‘the best Mother’s Day ever’.
Mr Wilkinson, whose company makes safety barriers, paid tribute to his wife. ‘She was a very charitable person, she never shouted or lost her temper,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t walk past anybody – she’d see homeless people on the streets and she’d come home to make them sandwiches.’
He added: ‘Pierce was such a normal, happy boy.
‘He was just emerging as a teenager and finding his feet in the world. He loved his mum so much – he loved all of us, but I think they had a special bond.’
Miss Wilkinson said she and her father had to stay strong as ‘we’ve only got each other now’. ‘I can hear Mum’s voice in my head all the time, telling me to hold my head up high,’ she added. ‘We need to keep going and live for them, to make them proud – that’s what they’d want.’