ON Mother's Day in March 2014, Julie Finch was asked to identify her murdered son.

James Attfield, 33, was stabbed to death by a 15-year-old James Fairweather near to Lower Castle Park, in Colchester early on the previous morning.

He had been stabbed 102 times.

Mr Attfield, of East Bay, Colchester, was known as Jim to friends and family.

The dad-of-five lived in Grays before moving to north Essex to recover from a life-changing accident.

He worked at the Old Shant pub, in London Road, Grays, until he was hit by a car outside the pub in April 2010.

The accident left Mr Attfield with speech problems and a weakness on his left side, which affected his balance.

He was found at about 5.30am on Saturday, March 29, 2014 by a female cyclist on her way into work and he died a short time later.

Fairweather, now 17, of Thorpe Walk, in Greenstead, was detained for a minimum of 27 years for Jim's murder and that of 31-year-old Saudi student Nahid Almanea, who died after being stabbed 16 times on the Salary Brook Trail three months after Jim.

Now his grieving family face the task of re-building their lives knowing justice has been done.

Miss Finch, 52, said: "In a perfect world we absolutely wanted 'life' and to throw away the key.

"But knowing the system, it was as good as we could have asked for especially because we knew at one point it could have been a minimum of 12 years.

"We were worried about him just getting the minimum, but the judge really took him to task and we're thankful for that."

Mum-of-six Miss Finch was joined by her children for every minute of Fairweather's two-week trial at Guildford Crown Court.

She said: "For me, I tended to zone out. It's something I learnt to do in drama groups and that was my way of coping.

"It's like we've been in acting in a soap opera.

"Seeing him [James Fairweather] did make it more real but honestly I didn't have any feelings towards him at all - there was no anger or rage. It was like he didn't exist."

But seeing Fairweather's mum, Anita, react, was "difficult".

She added: "There were one or two occasions when she got upset and I did think 'oh, my heart bleeds for you'.

"She can still see her son. Yes, he's in prison but she can hug him and talk to him.

"We've lost that forever. We've lost our Jim."

The carer added: "I can't understand any parent not knowing what their son's doing, watching and researching, especially the things he was researching."

During the two-week trial, Miss Finch observed the "puny" Fairweather and said she saw "no emotion" from him.

She added: "He was almost revelling in it all. He was loving it.

"He has no feelings for anybody.

"I actually think he doesn't realise what he has done. I think he thinks it was a game.

"But his time in jail will teach him that and as he gets older he will realise everything he has lost."

The mum also revealed although the trial contained many distressing details, she was heartened after hearing there had been no altercation between the two before Fairweather's attack began.

She said: "At the beginning when they were talking about a possible motive, we were always adamant Jim would not have got involved in an argument.

"He'd never do that. We called him Gentleman Jim.

"He [Fairweather] targeted Jim because he was vulnerable. I don't think he would have attacked just anyone who was by that bench."

Miss Finch, who lives in Coggeshall, also admitted she is yet to come to terms with her son's brutal death: "All the things you think you would feel, I don't.

"I thought I would be mad, angry and not able to get up in the morning.

"Now none of what's happened scares me. It's the future which scares me now.

"Now that it's over, where do we go?

"We can't 'get back to normal', Jim was our 'normal'. Now this is our 'normal'".

Miss Finch, a former housekeeper at the White Hart Hotel, in her hometown, relived the afternoon police officers arrived at her door to tell her Jim had been brutally murdered.

She said: "We had heard about what happened but it never even entered my head that it could be Jim.

"But at lunchtime on Saturday there was knock at my door and, I can't even describe it, it was just awful.

"Pretty much since then, everything has been a blur."

Tragically, Miss Finch was asked to identify Jim's body the next day, on Sunday, March 30 - Mother's Day.

She said: "They were doing the post-mortem [examination] in Colchester Hospital on the Sunday and we were waiting for the call to say we could come and see Jim.

"It was Mother's Day and I was walking through the corridors to see Jim.

"I was dreading it but he just looked like he was sleeping and I gave him a kiss and in a way - and I don't expect people to understand this - it was nice that it was Mother's Day.

"It was the last time I saw him and it was on Mother's Day. I keep hold of that."

The family had to wait three months until Jim's body was released before planning his funeral.

Before his burial the dad-of-five's casket was filled with mementos from the family, including drawings from his children and a poem from his eldest.

Miss Finch added: "At the moment Jim has just got a wooden cross at his grave.

"I didn't want to get a headstone until justice was done.

"Now he has had justice, he can rest in peace."