‘I won’t forgive my son for killing precious Gemma’
THE father of tragic EastEnders star Gemma McCluskie has given up trying to forgive his son for her murder.
Anthony McCluskie spent two years attempting to build bridges with his son Tony for the 2012 killing.
Tony battered Gemma to death before beheading her and dumping her body in a canal.
In his first interview for years, Anthony has vowed he will never contact his son again.
He said: “I said right at the start I would stand by him and I really did mean that. I said ‘he’s my flesh and blood…I’ve got to stand by him’.”
After being sentenced to life with a minimum of 20 years in 2013, Tony sent his dad a series of letters from High Down prison in Surrey.
Anthony added: “Every letter was the same. He’s not showing any remorse, not an ounce of remorse. He doesn’t mention her name. I’m trying to support and look after him but he’s not showing any remorse.
“And that was it. In the end I went, ‘I’ve had enough, Tony’. On that last visit I said, ‘I’ve had enough of you’. I said, ‘I’m gone… I’m out of your life now’.
“Don’t get me wrong…I still do think about him. But I haven’t had no contact with him now for over two years. And I won’t contact him again.
“I’ve lost two children, haven’t I? I’ve lost Gemma, the love of my life, and my eldest son, Tony, my first-born. I miss my Gemma, I really do. It breaks my heart. That poor girl’s laid in a grave…
29-years-old and dead. What a waste of a life. What a waste. A good person, she was. And an evil person’s killed her.”
Anthony opens up about the tragedy in a new series for the Crime + Investigation network.
His life was turned upside down in March 2012 when Gemma went missing from the east London flat she shared with Tony.
Days later a dismembered torso found in a London waterway was identified as her body.
During the trial it was reported that Tony was a heavy cannabis user and that the siblings had frequently argued.
While investigating Gemma’s disappearance, police showed Anthony a video of a man dragging a suitcase. He knew straightaway it was Tony.
To this day, Anthony is still shocked by his son’s cold killing.
He said: “He went out on the Friday morning and went and bought bin bags and holdalls and got himself a newspaper and a packet of fags.
“And when you see the video, he doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. How callous is that, you know what I mean?”
Anthony added: “I can’t make no sense of it. I said to Tony, ‘When you done that to Gemma, why didn’t you just phone me? Phone me and tell me and I’d have come straight over.”
For the full interview watch
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Crimes That Shook Britain tonight at 10pm on Crime + Investigation — Sky channel 553.