THE mother of Anthony Walker drew deeply on her Christian faith yesterday to find forgiveness for the racist killers of her son, who face up to 30 years in jail.

Gee Walker, 49, had listened to every harrowing detail of the ambush by white racist thugs that left her son, a gifted black A-level student, with an ice axe embedded in his skull.

She was composed and dignified in her seat at Liverpool Crown Court, at the end of an emotionally charged two-week trial, to hear the jury find Michael Barton, 17, the brother of Joey Barton, the Premiership footballer, guilty of murder.

Paul Taylor, 20, who admitted swinging the murder weapon, later joined Barton in the dock to hear the judge, Mr Justice Leveson, conduct a “Newton hearing” — a trial within a trial — and conclude that the murder was racially aggravated. The judgment effectively doubled the two men’s possible prison tariff.

As the jury delivered its unanimous verdict after a day and a half’s deliberation, Barton slumped in the dock, burying his head in his hands and gulping for air. Later he wept silently.

Within minutes Mrs Walker, a mother of six, emerged from the court arm in arm with two of her four daughters to offer words of compassion to Taylor and Barton: “Do I forgive them? At the point of death Jesus said, ‘I forgive them because they do not know what they do’. I have got to forgive them. I still forgive them.

“It will be difficult but we have no choice but to live on for Anthony. Each of us will take a piece of him and will carry on his life.”

The contrast between the 18-year-old victim, a devout Christian, committed student and talented basketball player who wanted to become a lawyer, and his white racist killers could not have been more stark.

Mrs Walker, matriarch to the only black family in Tarbock, Huyton, in Merseyside, spoke eloquently about how her evangelical Christian faith demanded that she forgive them. But she faltered and the tears fell as she recalled having to say goodbye to her son as he lay in intensive care with a 3ft ice axe protruding from his head.

“There is just this massive absence in the house,” she said. “And we think, ‘When is this going to end?’ I go in the kitchen and still make his tea. We will never get over this. Someone has taken a piece of my heart. How do you mend a broken heart? You cannot.”

One of the hardest things with which to come to terms, said Mrs Walker, a special-needs teacher, is that her son’s killers grew up in the same community as him. They all knew each other and Taylor even attended the same school as Dominique, 20, Mr Walker’s sister.

“You watched playing in the school playground doing that,” she said. “They played together. They stood in the same dinner queue.”

Mr Walker had spent the evening of Friday, July 29, with his girlfriend, Louise Thompson, 17, babysitting his nephew at home. Shortly after 10.30pm he and Marcus Binns, his cousin, also 17, walked Ms Thompson to the bus stop in St John’s Road, Huyton, which was a quarter of a mile away. As the trio waited for a bus, Barton, his face covered by a ski mask, emerged from the Huyton Park public house to scream racial abuse.

The trio fled to the next bus stop only to miss the approaching bus. As Taylor’s speeding Peugeot flashed past them, they cut through side streets and the darkness of McGoldrick Park in an attempt to reach the safety of Huyton village. Ms Thompson has since described her terror as shadowy figures emerged from the bushes and attacked them. “They just jumped out at him and I just ran,” she said. “I just blanked everything while I was running and screaming.”

Mr Binns, meanwhile, fled to a nearby house on a residential street and begged the householder for help. He returned in a car minutes later to find his cousin, surrounded by frantic passers-by, lying on the ground with an ice axe deeply embedded in his skull.

Taylor had struck the murderous blow with such force that it shattered his victim’s skull and penetrated 7cm (2¾in) into his brain.

Mr Justice Leveson is expected to sentence Taylor and Barton today. Both should get mandatory life sentences.

Three more people will face trial next year in connection with Mr Walker’s murder.

FINDING THE KILLERS

• Friday, July 29, 11pm Anthony Walker is walking his girlfriend Louise Thompson to a bus stop in Huyton, Merseyside, when he is chased and attacked in a local park by Michael Barton and Paul Taylor, who is armed with an ice axe. While their victim lies unconscious on the ground, Barton tries to retrieve the weapon but it is stuck in Mr Walker’s skull. He is taken to Whiston Hospital, then transferred to Walton Neurological Centre

• Saturday, July 30 Mr Walker dies at 5.25am with his family at his bedside. Merseyside Police immediately brand the murder racist and launch a hunt for his killers. Already the names of Barton and Taylor are being whispered in Huyton as the likely culprits

• November 30 Barton is convicted of murder. Both men jailed for life

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Tree stump 'shows image of Virgin Mary'
• BBC drops Strictly judge for younger model
• Trafalgar Square 'reduced to a spectacle'