A Coggeshall couple have finally won their seven-year campaign for justice after their mentally-ill son was killed in a Chelmsford prison cell.

In a landmark judgement, complaints by Paul and Audrey Edwards that police, prison chiefs and doctors all failed in their duty to protect the life of their son, Christopher, were upheld in the European Court of Human Rights.

Christopher was kicked and stamped to death by his schizophrenic cellmate in 1994.

The court today ruled 30-year-old Christopher had been denied his right to life, a proper investigation into his death had not been held, and his parents were denied a right of redress through the legal system.

The European Court of Human Rights awarded his parents £20,000 for their personal pain and suffering and £20,000 costs.

Now Mr and Mrs Edwards, of Coggeshall, have called on the Government to take steps to prevent similar tragedies happening in the future.

Christopher, described as a harmless, gentle, academic who developed a mental health problem, was arrested for a breach of the peace in November 1994.

He was placed in a remand cell at Chelmsford Prison with Richard Linford, a man suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, who killed him.

Inquiry reports highlighted multiple failings within the system but there were no prosecutions for these failings and no civil remedy open to the family.

Civil rights group Liberty took the Edwards family's case to the European Court.

Linford was sent to Rampton special hospital after admitting the manslaughter of Mr Edwards by reason of diminished responsibility

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Published Thursday, March 14, 2002