The father of Big Issue seller Ralph Millward says that he can’t forgive his son’s killers.

Speaking after the hearing at Winchester Crown Court yesterday, Ken Millward, 77, from Boscombe said: “I cannot believe what the boys say about being sorry.”

He added: “But I can hope that they will change and become better people now that they have been sentenced to long-term detention.

“I believe that if you take a person’s life then you deserve to die too. I think that if you commit manslaughter or murder, you should be put to the death penalty.

“I really want to say to the boys’ parents, ‘Look you still have your sons and because of them, I have lost mine.’”

“However, this doesn’t change what I think of young people. Most of them are smashing and so helpful. Then there is just the few that let themselves down.”

The way that Ken describes his son is sure to be a description given by hundreds of other people who met Ralph.

He said: “He was such a friendly person to everyone in general.”

He added: “It was no secret that I hadn’t spoken to my son in years.

“But apart from his drink problem, I couldn’t say a bad word about our Ralph.

“For me, I think people only remember what they want to remember.”

Reflecting on when Ralph was younger and the family still lived in Lichfield in Staffordshire, Ken said: “I smile at the time when he was 19 and working in the Dunlop factory after I got him a job there.

“One day, his workmates asked him about his parents and he immediately said ‘I love my mum’ and he paused for a second because he knew that I could hear what he was saying and jokingly said ‘… and yeah, my dad is alright.’”

“I wish he was here so I could tell him how much he meant to me and his mum before she died. I can never have that opportunity again.”