Parents' call for peace on anniversary of Jimmy Mizen's murder

- Jimmy Mizen, 16, was murdered five years ago in south-east London- Anniversary comes day after what would have been his 21st birthday- Parents have released a book, Jimmy: A Legacy Of Peace- Family are to hold a memorial service at St George's Cathedral, Southwark
1/2
Pa|Wire8 May 2013
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

The parents of murdered schoolboy Jimmy Mizen have repeated their calls to fight against violence in young people as they prepare to mark the fifth anniversary of their son's death.

Jimmy Mizen was killed on May 10 2008 - the day after his 16th birthday - after he was attacked in Lee, south-east London. Jake Fahri is serving a life sentence for the teenager's murder.

Since his death, Jimmy's parents Barry and Margaret Mizen have battled to make young people safer - including creating the Jimmy Mizen Foundation which works to increase young people's awareness of the consequences of violent crime.

To mark the fifth anniversary of their son's death - a day after what would have been his 21st birthday - they have released a book, Jimmy: A Legacy Of Peace, and are planning a memorial service for Friday as well as three weeks of action including sponsored challenges and community initiatives dubbed Jimmy21.

Mrs Mizen, 60, said: "Take me back to May 9 2008 and I was a housewife and a mother, that was my life.

"In a way I feel that was taken away from me when Jimmy's life was taken, but the things we're doing now are things I would never have in a million years thought I would be, meeting people I can't believe I'm meeting.

"But I have to keep my feet on the ground, why are you doing it? Why are you meeting these people? Because you lost your beautiful son, and that keeps my feet very much on the ground.

"Everything we do is tinged with that sadness. I don't think of Jimmy now as the boy he was, I think of him as the man he would have aspired to be and he would have been a really decent young man."

The book came from a need to empty her head of all the thoughts keeping her awake at night, she said.

"I couldn't sleep, my head was like a television that wouldn't turn off, night after night.

"I thought if I was to put what was in my head into words, into a book, then it might give me some rest.

"Also, I wanted to give families hope, I wanted it to be about Jimmy but also about hope that out of something so tragic some good could come.

"The family have planned a memorial service at St George's Cathedral, Southwark, where they have invited family, friends, and some politicians, but on Friday morning they will visit Jimmy's grave to lay flowers and pray.

Mrs Mizen said although they had struggled at times over the past five years, the family has drawn strength from each other and "cried together and laughed together".

Her husband said: "I think there was a determination that we weren't going to be beaten by what happened, it was important that no more damage was inflicted upon the rest of our family, and secondly that something good had to come from this."

But Mrs Mizen said it had not all been "easy going", adding: "If one of the family has been up the others may have been down. There's been tears and there's been pain and it's a constant battle to make sure that we all do cope.

"We sound like this perfect little family but actually there's been so many tears.

"Our son locked himself in a bedroom when he couldn't cope anymore, our grandson one night hit his head against a glass panel where he was just in grief over Jimmy so there's been lots of ups and downs since Jimmy was killed."

Mr Mizen, 61, said they had made a conscious decision not to harbour anger or feelings of revenge against their son's killer and not to be "sucked down into a sewer of hate".

The couple said support for the foundation was still growing, with people supporting their message, and felt lucky to have received the support they had.

"Some people say, 'How can you feel lucky, you lost your beautiful son?'," said Mrs Mizen. "But we can't bring him back. It doesn't matter how angry I feel, how vengeful I want to feel, I can't bring Jimmy back.

"If anything gives me encouragement to go on and help people it's when you see the sadness in other families' eyes.

"We can't go on losing our children or our children killing our children.

"Somewhere along the line we have got to do something to stop it, and that means everyone standing up on this and working together for change."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in