‘All we ever did was try to help that boy’

Square-jawed, large and imposing, Arty Lockhart is far from happy. The 60-yearold feels his and his family’s reputation has been unfairly sullied by accusations made at the inquest.

“It’s disgusting. We’ve been made to look like we’re murderers by Aaron’s mum,” Mr Lockhart says in a gravelly voice thick with east Kent twang.

“All we ever did was try to help that boy. He was a smashing lad, just a really nice fellow.”

Aaron came to live at Prospect Farm some months before his death. Mr Lockhart says he found him asleep under a blanket in the doorway of a shop in Herne Bay High Street.

He offered him a caravan to live in at Prospect Farm, near the former Share and Coulter pub. The farm is set around a private drive which snakes off Thornden Wood Road.

At its centre is Mr Lockhart’s farmhouse. Around it is 30 other units, comprising caravans and static homes he rents out. There is also a handful of light industrial units.

Aaron was given a unit at the top of the road in exchange for work around the farm. Mr Lockhart employed him to do electrical wiring, including fitting a CCTV system for the farm.

He says he and Leianne are still haunted by Aaron’s death.

“We did what we could for him,” Mr Lockhart said.

“That’s what hurts the most. So how dare people like Aaron’s mum say that we did something wrong that night. She was talking about him being waterboarded. I had never even heard of waterboarding before this.

“The truth is that we were the ones who truly cared about Aaron.”