Watching my dad Stephen boogie around the kitchen, I couldn’t help but smile.
It was my engagement party and despite his poor health, it didn’t stop Dad, 63, from joining in.
‘Come and have a dance with your grandad,’ he said to my daughter SammyJo, 12, who giggled as he twirled her around.
My daughter was the apple of his eye.
‘Mummy, he’s my best friend,’ SammyJo told me.
He hadn’t been the best father, but he was the perfect grandad.
I’d had a tough start in life, running away and going into care after the relationship between Mum and me had broken down.
I’d been eight years old the last time I’d seen Dad, but when I was 13, my foster mum arranged a meeting.
Over the years, we’d rebuilt our relationship.
Both being stubborn, we could clash. But he was my dad and despite our ups and downs, he was my hero.
Dad was a character and well-known in the area.
Most people called him Kersh, after his surname, Kershaw.
Jay, my partner, saw him as a father-figure too, as his own dad had recently passed away.
Dad could see Jay was grieving and took him under his wing.
His kind nature was one of the things I loved about him.
During Covid, I was too anxious to go out, so he’d get on two buses laden with shopping bags for me and my girl.
When he’d been diagnosed with lung cancer the previous year, I was devastated.
'Mummy, he's my best friend'
Still, I visited him every day, even though Covid restrictions meant I could only wave from the window.
Doctors had to remove part of his lung, but he pulled through and when he was discharged, he stayed with me for a while.
However, he still had severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which affected his breathing. He needed medication every day and walked with a stick.
It was hard to see him so vulnerable, and Jay and I noticed he didn’t want to be on his own.
So we would go over most days and stay until it was time
to pick my daughter up from school.
I made sure we spoke on the phone regularly too.
Then, a few months later, my half-brother Ian called me from prison.
He told me he was in for a drugs offence, and that he’d made a mistake.
‘I’d love to see you when I’m released,’ he said.
Ian and I had the same mum and, growing up, we’d been close.
However, when I was fostered, we lost touch.
I’d only seen him a couple of times over the years, but we still had a bond, and we talked while he was in jail.
Dad had offered to let Ian stay with him until he got on his feet.
Ian saw him as his real dad rather than his stepdad.
He didn’t have anyone else, and Dad didn’t want him to be homeless.
On Christmas Eve, Jay and I picked Ian up.
‘It’s great to see you!’ I said, hugging him.
When he and Dad met, it was as if they’d never been apart.
Only, Ian took against Jay for absolutely no reason, and wasn’t happy we were together.
I was sad, but hoped he’d realise what a good guy he was in time.
We had a great Christmas, and Dad was so happy to have all of us together.
A couple of months later, we got a call from a friend saying Jay’s niece, Sarah-Louise, was in a state in town.
Worried, we put a post on Facebook asking if anyone had seen her and, a few hours after, she called us.
Ian, Jay and I rushed over to collect her.
Sarah-Louise had drug problems and after losing her dad, Jay’s brother, he felt responsible for her.
I could tell Ian liked her and he suggested she move in with him and Dad.
It was awkward, and Dad felt pressured into agreeing.
Walking into the kitchen, days later, I saw Ian and Sarah-Louise quickly spring apart, as if they had been kissing.
Soon, it was clear to everyone that they were a couple.
But I could see it was a toxic relationship, marred by furious arguments and drugs.
I wasn’t happy, but felt it wasn’t my business.
Then a couple of weeks later, Ian called.
‘I’ve got some news, Sam and you aren’t going to like it,’ he said. ‘We’re engaged!’
‘But it’s barely been two weeks,’ I said, shocked.
‘Just be happy for me,’ he said.
‘Since he’s met Sarah-Louise, he’s changed,’ I said to Jay later that night.
'Sarah-Louise stole my tablets'
Ian was constantly demanding money and making nasty calls.
He and Sarah-Louise brought out the worst in each other, but
I didn’t know what to do.
Dad started to stay over at the weekends, and was reluctant to go home on Sunday night.
‘Is everything all right, Dad?’
I asked.
‘Sarah-Louise stole my codeine tablets,’ he said.
Shocked, I arranged for his medication to be delivered to my address, and he’d travel every day to mine to collect them.
A few days later, when Dad came over, he had a black eye.
‘What happened?’ I gasped.
‘I hit my head on the bedside cabinet,’ he said.
He was so frail, I was worried about him.
And I didn’t fully trust Ian and Sarah-Louise to look after him.
One day, when I heard her yell at Dad, I confronted Ian.
‘Why are you letting her talk
to Dad like that?’ I said.
‘He’s not my real dad,’ Ian snapped, cruelly.
I couldn’t believe how he’d gone from caring to callous in the space of just a few weeks.
A few months later, Dad came over to stay with me for the weekend as usual.
He seemed to be in good spirits and we had a laugh, but on Sunday he left earlier than usual.
When he arrived back home, he called me before he went to bed.
‘I’ll see you in the morning, Dad,’ I said.
‘You will, love,’ he replied.
But the next afternoon, Dad hadn’t turned up and my foster brother called.
‘Dad’s not answering his phone and I’ve been to the house and all the curtains are shut,’ he said.
My stomach swirling with dread, I rang Ian and then texted him when he didn’t pick up.
Where’s Dad? I asked, repeatedly.
He said that he hadn’t seen Dad all day.
He’s probably gone on his wanders, he wrote.
I kept asking if Dad had come back home, but Ian said he hadn’t.
Frantic, I went to look for him.
I searched his house, going from room to room.
Ian was there and appeared to be very jittery.
‘Something is going on, I’m ringing the police,’ I said to Jay, who was with me.
But when I rang 999, I felt so upset, I could barely get my words out, so Jay took over and told them Dad was missing.
The police came to search the house, and the hours stretched into days as we waited for news.
Finally, three days later, police arrived at our door.
‘I’m so sorry, but we’ve found a body and we think it’s your dad,’ one of the officers said.
His words didn’t sink in, then as soon as the police left, I broke down in tears.
We learnt that Dad’s body had been found in the bedroom, and it was so badly decomposed, he’d had to be identified by his thumb prints. Poor Dad had suffered a catalogue of injuries, including blunt-force trauma to his head.
I realised I’d only been inches from his body, which had been rolled up in a rug and put in an alcove under a mattress and household items.
The police had missed him the first time they’d searched, which was heartbreaking.
Ian and Sarah-Louise were arrested on suspicion of fraud and Dad’s murder.
I didn’t want to believe it. I felt as if I was trapped in a nightmare.
‘How could they do that?’ I said to Jay, shaking with shock and anger.
Over the next few days, we had to tell SammyJo her hero was gone. She was distraught and didn’t leave my side for days.
Afterwards, Dad’s friends told us he’d confided in them that Ian and his fiancée had been bullying him for months and stealing his money.
Dad had hidden it from me, probably because he’d felt embarrassed and didn’t want to worry me.
I was guilt-stricken that I hadn’t realised.
The last time I’d seen him, his happy smile had been a front.
It killed me to think he’d been suffering in silence for so long.
‘If only I’d known what they were doing, I’d have moved him away,’ I cried to Jay.
In time, we held Dad’s funeral.
So many people turned out to pay their respects.
We played Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On as his coffin was carried into church.
I also chose Dance with My Father by Luther Vandross, as it reminded me of how Dad had loved dancing.
In time, Jay, SammyJo
and I arrived at Bradford Crown Court, where Sarah-Louise, 23, and Ian, 35, had both pleaded guilty to murder and fraud.
'I'm so sorry, we've found a body'
Hearing the grisly details in the packed courtroom was traumatic.
Dad had been beaten, possibly with a handrail, and smothered to death.
The court was told that after murdering him, Ian and Sarah-Louise were caught on CCTV in Asda, where they went on a spending spree using Dad’s bank card to buy alcohol, food and clothes.
They’d been bullying him,
and forcing him to hand over money to fund their drink and drug habit.
After the couple were arrested, Sarah-Louise told someone she’d had a one-night stand with, that she was on bail for murdering ‘some old guy with dementia’.
‘I didn’t actually do it. I held his feet down. This guy I was with smothered him with a pillow,’ she supposedly said.
In a police vehicle, she was overhead talking to Ian about suffocation.
‘If you’re gonna do it, that’s the way to do it,’ she said.
His Honour Judge Rose described the pair as ‘parisitic’ and said they preyed on a ‘vulnerable, defenceless and unwell’ man.
He jailed Ian for 23 years
and Sarah-Louise for 19, branding their behaviour ‘despicable’ and ‘callous’.
‘It was not enough that you killed this man,’ he said. ‘You showed no respect for him in death.’
I hate them for what they’ve done.
It’s not human.
We’re devastated by his death and our lives will never be the same.
Due to Dad’s physical vulnerabilities, he was incapable of defending himself, and it’s heart-wrenching to realise the
full extent of the cruelty they inflicted on him.
Dad was such a kind and gentle soul, and was much loved and cared about by his family and friends.
Those two monsters took our lovely dad and grandad away when they should have been protecting him.
Sam Mullaney, 41, Leeds