Social Work Ignored My Pleas, Says Killer’s Mum

THE mother of the Inverness teenager who murdered 17-year-old Joshua Mitchell by stabbing him in the heart had repeatedly asked social workers to help her son.

Angela Norton claims her pleas fell on deaf ears even though Alan Dewar tried to commit suicide at the age of nine and spent years moving in and out of special schools and young offenders institutions.

“It was not from a lack of saying please get him help, get him psychiatric treatment,” she said.

At the High Court in Glasgow on Wednesday Dewar (17), of Carnarc Crescent, South Kessock, admitted murdering Joshua in a random attack in March. He will be sentenced next month.

Ms Norton stressed she was not defending her son or trying to excuse what he did. “What he has done is wrong and he will have to live with that for the rest of his life,” she said. “He has done something horrendous and no one can ever fix that.”

However, she believes if he had received appropriate medical care Joshua might still be alive and Dewar would not be facing a long prison sentence.

“It is not right. They [social work department] said I was an over-protective mum and he would grow out of it. They kept saying to me ‘it is just a phase, he is just attention seeking’.”

She argues her son should have been taken into a psychiatric hospital instead of being locked up when he began offending.

Dewar was jailed for possession of a knife seven months before the killing and convicted of assault last year. He was released one week before the murder, which took place on Carnarc Crescent yards from Joshua’s home, after being remanded for breaching a curfew.

Ms Norton recalls that he began to go off the rails a decade ago after fracturing his skull in a fall from a roof in MacLennan Crescent. He was operated on twice to remove asbestos slate from his head.

“He was a happy go-lucky boy before the accident,” explained the 39-year-old. “After the fall, he just got so aggressive.”

She claimed that at the age of nine Dewar tried to commit suicide by hanging himself. He has tried on numerous occasions since.

One year later, he lost his baby brother and sister. One of the twins died at birth, the other aged four weeks.

According to his mother, Dewar was always more difficult around the time of the twins’ death in March and had been self-harming in the days leading up to Joshua’s killing.

When he was 12 years old and a student at the Black Isle Education Centre, a school for boys with social, emotional and behaviour needs, Dewar tried to electrocute himself by climbing to the top of a power station with a metal pole.

He also spent time at St Philip’s School in Airdrie, a secure unit for young people, but his mother claims he was sent home because staff could not cope with him.

“They sent him back to me, a single mum,” she said.

As a young teenager Dewar committed various petty crimes and stole cars. He also started experimenting with drink and drugs, both of which he consumed in the hours leading up to Joshua’s murder.

Ms Norton was unable to find anyone to help his drug problem and he moved progressively from cannabis use to ecstasy and cocaine.

When asked what life was like with her son, she said: “It is like living on egg shells.”

Highland Council’s social work department declined to comment until after Dewar’s sentencing.