A GRIEVING mother who lost her son in a drink drive accident has warned motorists not to take to the road this Christmas and New Year if they have been drinking.

Debbie Orchard has bravely spoken out this week just six months after 24-year-old Richard Blair died when his motorcycle crashed into a parked car. He was two-and-a-half times the limit.

She said her son’s death had devastated the family and is calling on others to think of their loved ones before they consider drink driving.

Speaking from her home in Carey Road, Wareham, Debbie said: “Every morning there is a few seconds that I forget and then I remember he’s not coming home anymore. It’s just awful.

“I don’t know what he was thinking. I think he probably thought he felt all right. He had walked home to his friend’s house and it must have been an hour and a half until he got on the motorbike.

“If Richard knew what we were going through he would never have got on that bike.”

Supporting Dorset Police’s annual drink drive campaign, Debbie urged parents to hide their children’s keys if they suspected they might be tempted to get behind the wheel.

And to drivers, she added: “Please just think about the pain you might cause. Please think about those who are going to be left behind.”

Richard had only passed his preliminary motorbike test a week before he died and did not have his helmet fastened.

He had spent the night with friends and was making his way home when the accident happened on Sandford Road in Wareham in the early hours of June 25.

Speaking of that day, Debbie recalled the police banging on the door.

“It was a policeman and a police lady. They said Richard had been in an accident and he was very, very poorly and we had to go right then.”

Debbie was driven to Poole Hospital with Michael. She said: “When we arrived the policeman wouldn’t let us out because he said Richard couldn’t wait for us. He had gone.

“He was on his motorbike, he didn’t have his helmet done up and we now know he had been drinking.

“When you have a child you do everything you can to protect them and to know my son was just down the road dying without me...”

Richard, who helped to move the Clavell Tower at Kimmeridge for two years, had worked his way up to yard manager at a stone and gravel firm in Hamworthy. “He was dyslexic and was quite proud he at worked himself up to manager by himself,” said Debbie.

“He was loud, always happy. He would do anything for anyone.

“His main interest was on the farm. He would still go down there and see his cow called Marge. He used to ride her.”

Debbie said Richard, who was uncle to Lucas, died four weeks before the arrival of his second nephew Jacob.

His brothers and sisters – Clairelouise, 26, Jessica, 18, Michael, 17, and 14-year-old Alice – miss him terribly. A memorial has been created in the family’s garden where they can remember Richard.