Our shattered lives
Families tell of ‘horrific loss’ after medical students killed in Borneo
THE families of two murdered medical students have spoken of their ‘utterly horrific loss’ after their sons were stabbed to death in Borneo.
Neil Dalton and Aidan Brunger, both 22, were killed as they made their way back from a night out in the city of Kuching, Sarawak.
The coroner was so overcome with emotion yesterday after hearing a statement from Mr Dalton’s parents that he had to take a break from the inquest.
Phillip and Janet Dalton, from Ambergate, Derbyshire, said their lives had been ‘ruined’ and ‘totally shattered’ by the killings in August last year – just days before their son had been due to fly home.
They said they would miss their son’s hugs and family dinners they had shared.
The students had been on a foreign placement as part of their medical degree at Newcastle University when they were stabbed by fishmonger Zulkipli Abdullah, 24.
Zulkipli was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by the Malaysian high court in March.
Derby Coroner’s Court heard that the two men had been laughing and play-fighting as they walked home with friends at 4am.
But they were knifed following an altercation with a local man, minutes after Mr Brunger had ‘cheekily’ asked a group of women for a lift home. Mr Dalton had dreamt of a career as a GP while Mr Brunger had hoped to become an orthopaedic surgeon.
The Daltons’ statement said: ‘We can look at pictures and smell his clothes but we can’t touch him. We are haunted by thoughts of what he went through that night. It’s both tragic and ironic that, had someone else been stabbed, Neil would have been the first to help them.’
Mr Brunger’s father Paul Brunger, of Gillingham, Kent, told the court his son was ‘on the path to become an exceptional doctor’ before his life was ‘cruelly extinguished’.
He said: ‘I was such a proud father and Aidan made it very easy to be so. There are no waking moments at present when Aidan is not on my mind. As a family, our focus now is to protect each other and to try and gain some positive from the evil that entered our lives.
‘I want justice, not revenge, for the murder of my son.’
The grieving father said he still could not accept his son was dead, while the student’s girlfriend Freya had been forced to continue her studies ‘broken’ and without her partner of three years.
Mr Brunger’s mother Susan Hidson told the inquest: ‘I never get to see him graduate as a doctor, get married or have children. This is very hard for a mother to bear.’
Mrs Hidson said she had ‘tortured’ herself over the way her son died on a street more than 6,000 miles away. She said her son had regularly written to his grandmother, with one letter arriving days after his death.
The parents said that, though their sons were unable to graduate, they would be remembered as ‘Dr Neil Dalton and Dr Aidan Brunger’.
The pair had regularly called home during their eight-week stint working in a hospital and both had told of how ‘friendly’ the locals were.
The families said they were touched that more than 500 guests had attended both funerals. Since Mr Brunger’s death, his organs had helped to save a number of lives, his mother told the inquest.
Coroner Robert Hunter concluded both men had died from stab wounds in the unprovoked
‘We wonder what might have been’
attack, and recorded a verdict of unlawful killing. He told the families: ‘There’s nothing that I can say that can ease how you feel about what happened. But the light that they shone for outweighs the darkness that fell on August 6 last year.
‘I know you will miss them terribly but that light will continue to shine in your hearts.’
After the inquest, the families said the loss of their children had been ‘utterly horrific’. The statement said: ‘We will miss Neil and Aidan terribly and wonder what might have been if they were able to pursue their dream of being doctors and helping others.’