His mummy has gone forever…and Danny can’t understand why

Tragedy of a little lad robbed of his mother.

 

15th August 1997

 

JUST like any other five-year-old little Danny Grainger is full of excitement about starting school next month.

But his mum won’t be there to hold his hand and wish him luck on his first day in Class One at Parson Cross’s Meynell School, Sheffield.

For Pat Grainge is dead – sexually assaulted, stabbed and strangled.

Her body was dumped in a brook near the home she shared with her son, mum Harmina and step-dad Roy wright, in Buchanan Road, Parson Cross.

And for Danny a bright-eye cheeky youngster, his mothers death is something he probably will not understand for years to come.

Like any five-year old Danny loves to talk about the Spice Girls and American Wrestling. He runs around the house, hiding and then dishing out sweeties to everyone he sees.

He is a lovable livewire who can understand little of the tragedy that has hit his family.

But he cannot fail to pick up on the sadness in his home, and he will soon start to miss his child-like mum, who had a mental age of ten.

Happy

Playing with a box of mint chocolates Danny acts out the role of a waiter, placing the sweeties on a plate and offering them around the room.

He then hides them in his drawer in the sideboard it is something he has become accustomed to doing during his short life – hiding them from the child-mum he adored. Little Danny still doesn’t understand that his mummy will not be able to pinch his sweets again.

Twenty-five-year-old Pat’s stepfather Roy said: “He’ll probably start asking questions later. “He has asked where she is a few times, but it is something that will probably take a long time for him to understand”

Mum harmina said: “Pat loved to play in the garden or draw quietly indoors.”

Roy said: “She used to do exactly what i did. We used to sit out the front of the house. Many a time we would sit there having a natter.

“She would sit out there for hours and talk to people as they passed by she was well-liked and she was quite a happy girl, although sometimes she had her moods like anybody else.”

Roy, who fears the killer could strike again, is now urging anyone with information to call the police.

He added: “If this man isnt found soon he is going to do it again.

“if he thinks he’s got away with it once he will murder someone else and that next person he murders could be someone even younger than Pat, someone perhaps 13-years-old.”

View Original

His mummy has gone forever…and Danny can’t understand why