DAD’S EMOTIONAL FIRST INTERVIEW
WEARING a navy jacket with red and white spots, seven-year-old Emily Jones was a blur as she zipped up and down on her scooter on a gloriously sunny afternoon i n Queen’s Park in Bolton. Her father Mark encouraged her to go faster along Promenade Terrace, a wide path that runs along the top of a large grassy slope, as he scanned the park for Emily’s mother Sarah.
It was Mother’s Day, the day before Britain was plunged into its first coronavirus lockdown, and Emily had given her mum a card earlier that morning. Sarah was going for a run in the park in the afternoon and Mark and Emily were planning to watch her jogging before buying an ice cream.
‘I can remember saying to Emily “Go on, you can do your fastest lap” because I used to time her from one end to another,’ Mark said in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday. ‘And then I said, “Right, we are going to see mummy and then once we’ve seen mummy we will go for an ice cream.” And she was like, “Yes, brilliant.” And that was it.’
What happened next transformed the quiet Victorian park into a scene of almost unimaginable horror and shattered Mark and his family’s lives forever.
Emily spotted Sarah, 42, running along the bottom of the hill and excitedly said: ‘Daddy, daddy. I want to go to Mum.’ Mark, 49, replied ‘Of course’ and she shot off down a path that snakes its way down the hill.
But as Emily sped towards Sarah – calling out ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!’ to attract her attention – a lone figure sitting on a bench jumped up and grabbed her, put her in a headlock and cut her throat with a craft knife.
Sarah, who was wearing headphones, had not seen or heard Emily and kept running, oblivious to the appalling scene happening nearby. Mark, who was 200 yards away, initially thought his daughter had fallen off her scooter and that the figure holding Emily was helping pick her up, until a woman nearby shouted: ‘She’s been stabbed.’
HE SPRINTED t o his grievously wounded daughter but her psychotic attacker had already thrown Emily to the ground and run off. Mark cradled Emily from behind and shouted for help. ‘I ran for Emily,’ he said, leaning forward and speaking quietly. ‘I was absolutely terrified. I just knew it was so bad. You don’t survive these things.
‘I just thought, “Oh my God, I’m going to lose her, I’m going to lose her.” I was shouting, “Just stay with me Emily, stay with me. Don’t leave me.”
‘She was just trying to breathe. It was just horrific. I wouldn’t wish anybody to see that happen to their own daughter. On occasions I will go back there. I try not to. But I can just remember her trying to breathe. Just to see your child in that way. I thought, “This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening to Emily.” ’
He frantically phoned Sarah who was still running and unaware of the attack. ‘I called and said “Come back, come back we’ve just seen you. Emily’s been stabbed”,’ Mark recalled. By then, a passer-by had passed him a T-shirt to try to stem the bleeding, while a nurse who had been in the park had taken over first aid.
Emily was flown by air ambulance to Salford Royal Hospital but she died half an hour after her arrival. Last week, her killer Eltiona Skana, a paranoid schizophrenic, was convicted of manslaughter with diminished responsibility. Prosecutors dropped a murder charge on the seventh day of a trial at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester.
Mark blames a string of failures by mental health staff for leaving a dangerously psychotic woman free to kill his daughter. He is shocked that more effort was not made to check that she was taking her antipsychotic medication and that she was assessed only once in the three months leading up to Emily’s death.
‘ They knew she didn’t comply with oral medication but they allowed her to take it on her own volition. That is a ridiculous thing to do,’ he said. ‘She was a ticking time bomb.’
He is also furious that a review from the local NHS mental health trust came to the astonishing conclusion that Emily’s death could not have been predicted or prevented.
‘You can’t possibly write all these failings and then sum it up at the bottom with “we think the incident was not preventable”. It is absolute nonsense. They are just trying to relinquish all responsibility – and she was their responsibility.
‘I want the horrible story of what happened to my daughter to be told. It was Mother’s Day, of all days, when Mum and Dad were in the park with her. It’s not that I want people to feel sorry for us, but it needs to be told because it’s an absolute public outrage.’
Mark, a credit manager for a law firm, and Sarah, a solicitor, separated when Emily was three but they remain good friends and live five minutes from each other on the outskirts of Bolton. Emily was the centre of their world. Sarah looked after their daughter four days a week and Mark would care for her the rest of the time, including on Sundays. ‘I have such admiration for Sarah and what a brilliant job she did looking after Emily and making her such a polite little girl,’ Mark says. ‘She used to dress her so beautifully all the time and was such a brilliant mum.’
‘People always gush about their children but I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better young person than Emily. ‘She was just an amazing soul – so warm, full-of-life, l oved everything, never complained, loved going to school. She had a great sense of humour and was really funny and was always telling me off when I was being daft. She was just a brilliant character, a big character for such a little girl.’
Both parents ensured that Emily’s short life was packed with thrilling experiences. Sarah took her horse riding, swimming and indoor climbing, while Mark took her for skiing lessons at an indoor slope in nearby
Manchester and bodyboarding in Wales. Sarah had taken Emily on holiday to Portugal and Spain and Mark was planning to take her away for a break to France.
When she was younger, Emily attended Bolton School Nursery. They were long days for Emily, as both Mark and Sarah juggled their demanding jobs with child care, but she thrived and her bubbly personality grew.
‘Every time I went there, Emily would be on the floor covered in muck or she would have paint all over her. She loved it.’
Later, she attended Markland Hill Primary School, which has raised more than £14,000 for a memorial garden in her name. In an online tribute, teachers described a creative little girl who loved to write and draw and who ‘would joke that she had finished before the others had even written the date’.
‘She had a loyal band of young
I don’t want people to feel sorry for us, but to know this is a public outrage
girls who were her friends,’ Mark said. ‘They did say in school, “She knows who her friends are and she is fiercely loyal to them.” ’
Emily was close to both sets of her grandparents, her uncles, aunties and cousin Eva. To Mark’s enduring pride, some of the personality of his charismatic father Graham, a former professional footballer, appeared to have influenced her own character. ‘My Dad’s got a big personality and it was definitely rubbing off on her,’ he said. ‘When we went to parents’ evenings at school they always used to say “Emily knows what she wants and can be a bit abrupt with other people.” I’m thinking, “Go for it girl” because my Dad’s always had that – cheeky but polite.’
Sarah’s parents, meanwhile, live in the Lake District and nurtured Emily’s love of the great outdoors through walks on the fells. ‘ Ian [Emily’s grandad] loves his walking and misses his walking partner,’ Mark said. Mark remembers one outing near Grasmere when Emily befriended a lone rambler and insisted on keeping him company.
‘This guy was walking by himself and Emily said, “Can I walk up with him, he’s by himself”. She was about ten yards in front and they were having such a laugh. He told me afterwards that it was one of the best walks he’d had.’
Mark, a passionate music lover, calls Emily ‘my beautiful little soul mate’. Some of his most cherished memories involve their three visits together to Festival Number 6, a boutique arts and music festival in Portmeirion, North Wales.
He recalls one summer afternoon there especially fondly when Emily was four years old. ‘It was such a good afternoon,’ he said. ‘She was with me in the dance tent when the Rolling Stones came on.
‘She had her wellies and glasses on, like a proper festival goer, and she was dancing away, having a great time. That was what she was like. She loved to dance.
‘ She was really active. She would have been such an asset to the community and it’s just such a shame.’
Speaking seven months after Emily’s brutal death, Mark remains haunted by t he senseless, random nature of the violence. ‘It was such a lovely sunny Sunday. We were just going to have an ice cream and Sarah was really pleased with her card.
‘From that to the absolute horror of me having to phone my mum and telling her Emily had gone. Her crying on the phone. Sarah having to phone her parents. Us all around Sarah’s house at night. It was just horrific. Those days… how we got through them, I really don’t know, to be honest.’
The loss of his only child has left a gaping chasm in his life.
‘We had these responsibilities and this brilliant life of having fun with Emily and her friends. And now everything is just serious. I don’t have that interaction with children any more. That’s pretty difficult.’
He has had to reassure his own friends that seeing their children will not worsen his own feelings of grief. ‘I used to interact with my friend’s children but they are sometimes a bit wary because it might bring back bad memories. I’ve said, “No, I still want to see your children. It doesn’t mean it will make me sad because Emily’s not around any more”.’
Mark is full of praise for the heroism of a passer-by Tony Canty, who was walking in the park with his wife and baby on the fateful day.
After witnessing Skana attack Emily, he chased after her and overpowered her. The court heard how Mr Canty barged her over, then sat on top of her until police arrived. ‘ He was amazing to chase after her,’ Mark said. ‘I will thank him in due course.’
Some things, however, remain too painful to contemplate. Queen’s Park is often on his route home but he takes a detour to avoid it. He struggles looking back at past pictures of his daughter and is kept awake at night by the appalling scenes he witnessed.
‘I have got to live with it for the rest of my life but I feel I can cope with it – even though it’s absolutely horrific. I feel I’ve got brilliant friends and family around me and Emily’s an inspiration.
‘ I’ve got to be strong. I’m still strong for her. I’ve got to get justice for her and do everything I can so that it doesn’t happen again. I want something good to come out of it. That’s keeping me going.’
I’ve got to be strong and cope with this for Emily. She’s an inspiration