A heartbroken mum's last words to her son before he was found dead were "stay safe and enjoy yourself" - and she's still fighting for justice 25 years later.
Ricky Reel, from West London, was just 20 when he told his mum Sukhdev Reel that he was going out with friends on October 14, 1997.
Ricky and his friends were subjected to a racist attack before his body was found at the bottom of the River Thames seven days later.
No one has ever been arrested or charged in connection with Ricky's death. Today is the 25th anniversary of Ricky going missing and Mrs Reel told The Mirror she demands a meeting with the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.
His distraught mum told the Mirror: "I curse myself now but I was glad he was going out because he was the sort of person who would stay home.
"At the time, I thought he deserved the break and I wish I had the hindsight to stop him, but instead, I was encouraging him to go out and have some fun.
"The last thing I said to him was 'be safe and enjoy yourself'."
She added: “The new Met Police commissioner is saying he’s very hot on dealing with racism and that he has new technology that he can use.
“We are asking for a meeting to discuss this. We have sent three letters and have not even been offered a meeting with him, which is disappointing.
“We have been offered a meeting with other people, but if he’s serious about dealing with racism he needs to meet with the families that are victims of this.
“Our request is to meet him as soon as possible.”
When Sir Rowley took over the force from Dame Cressida Dick he said he would "root out the racism" that still existed in the force.
Ricky went out with three pals and they planned to go to an event at Brunel University in Uxbridge, West London, but changed their minds to go to a nightclub in Kingston, South West London.
The friends, who are all South Asian, later told police they were attacked by two white men, who police described being aged between 18 and 30, who reportedly shouted at them "P***s go home" before throwing punches at them.
In the chaos, all four of them split up and ran in different directions to safety. When the three friends regrouped they couldn't find Ricky. The police say Ricky did not get involved and walked away, which is when he disappeared.
Ricky's body was found seven days later.
Ricky, who had been described by family, friends, teachers and employers as a "responsible young man", promised his mum he would return home by 1am.
When he didn't come home, Mrs Reel says she immediately knew something was wrong.
She said she started calling hospitals in case there had been an accident. When she phoned the police she was told that because of his age they would have to wait 24 hours to classify Ricky as a missing person.
Mrs Reel managed to track down Ricky's friends who he had been with, which is when she learned about the racial attack.
His friends had also said they assumed Ricky decided to go home as before the attack he said he would go home by bus after promising to be home by 1am.
His friends along with Ricky's uncle and father went down to the police station to make a statement and report the attack.
Mrs Reel has maintained that police did not take the case seriously and failed to gather crucial evidence because of Ricky's race.
She said: "The police refused to take a statement from them. They then said 'you never know he may not want to come home. He may have decided to run away maybe he's gay and he's too frightened to come home.'
"'You never know you Asian people try to arrange your children's marriages'.
"They said this knowing there was a racial attack. This told us the police were not interested in looking for Ricky.
"We are Asian and they thought an Asian life is not worth it. The victims were attacked, Asian boys were attacked and my son is missing after this racial attack."
She continued: "They (police) didn't prioritise it from day one. They didn't believe us.
"They belittled us simply because of the colour of my skin. Had I been white the treatment would have been very different.
"They never believed the racial attack happened. They never connected it."
In 1998, a Police Complaints Authority (PCA) report (now the Independent Office for Police Conduct) - which has never been made public - found there were "weaknesses" within the organisation that led to the "neglect" from the investigating officers.
John McDonnell, Mrs Reel's Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, used his parliamentary privilege to reveal the contents of the report in the House of Commons in 1998.
A campaign led by Mrs Reel fought for a jury inquest and in 1999, they ruled an "open verdict" after sitting through a week of evidence from police, pathologists, witnesses, Ricky's family and friends.
The Justice for Ricky Reel Campaign continue to fight for a new investigation into what happened and for the PCA report to be made public.
The determined mum has spent the last 25 years fighting to find out what happened to her son that night and says she has been met with hurdle after hurdle by police.
Mrs Reel said: "The campaign was born out of desperation and to raise our voice and ask for justice."
Today the Metropolitan Police put out a renewed appeal in hopes someone comes forward.
Mr McDonnell told The Mirror: "We want two things. One, full openness and transparency from the Metropolitan Police about the Ricky Reel case from day one. That's it. So that everything is out there that we can understand.
"Therefore how the police have dealt with it and learned the lessons from it.
"And the second thing is even this distance on from the loss of Ricky, anyone who's got any information that comes forward, we're still hopeful that memories will continue to be jogged and despite the length of time, no matter how small that information or people might think, it's not relevant.
"Anyone who's out there that's got any information whatsoever to come forward, we will find the truth about what happened to Ricky, and we will get justice."
He added: "It's a classic failure of policing, but it was based upon that fundamental lack of respect for the families, views and their understanding of their own child.
"It was extremely worrying from the very beginning about the attitudes towards the family."
Mrs Reel first sought help from Suresh Grover, a legal activist and Co-Director of the Monitoring Group (formerly the Southall Monitoring Group).
Mr Grover, who was a coordinator of the Stephen Lawrence Campaign, contacted Mr McDonnell.
Mr Grover told The Mirror: "I was in a meeting with senior officers and John McDonnell and Mr and Mrs Reel and they kept repeating that he [Ricky] was an adult and could look after himself."
He added: "They found his body within seven minutes. It doesn't require a huge amount of police skill or investigation to work out Ricky Reel's last moments.
"The police's biggest failure was the total absence of police presence in the first week and not taking the family seriously."
In the days after Ricky went missing, Mrs Reel spent each day in Kingston trying to retrace her son's steps.
They printed leaflets off Ricky's personal computer, spoke to potential witnesses, took bus routes at the time he would have last been seen, walked through abandoned buildings and tracked down CCTV from the area.
Mrs Reel said: "We were out there from morning until night and we didn't see any police officers."
All the information they gathered during this time they passed onto police to investigate, Mrs Reel said.
On the seventh day that Ricky had been missing, police searched the River Thames near where the attack had happened and found his body within minutes.
Mrs Reel was about to speak at the Southall Monitoring Group when she was told Ricky had been found and as she rushed home to be with her other children she learned police had already broken the news to them without her.
She said: "The trauma and the damage that has done to my kids I still live with - she [the officer] had no right to do that. She knew I was coming home."
The police at the time concluded there and then that Ricky had fallen in accidentally while trying to urinate and must have drowned.
It was later heard at the inquest that police did not collect any forensic evidence from the scene or from Ricky's clothes.
Police assumed he fell in while urinating because the buttons on his jeans were open, however, the inquest heard from family and experts that Ricky had a phobia of open water and that it was common for clothes to open and loosen in water.
The inquest heard that police did not collect vital CCTV in time or speak to potential witnesses until months after Ricky's death - meaning any chance of finding crucial clues was missed.
Mrs Reel had lodged a complaint about how the police handled the case and it was investigated by the PCA. The report was finished in 1998, but it has never been made public.
What we do know of the report is from Mr McDonnell when spoke in the House of Commons in 1999.
In 2014, Mrs Reel and the campaign were notified that they had been under surveillance as part of "collateral intrusion".
Mr McDonnell said: "I've never heard the expression before and when they met with Suresh and Sukhdev and me again it was just it developed elements of farce, you know, and what farce that then led to me getting very angry.
"The very fact that the whole thrust of our campaign was to get a proper investigation underway, properly resourced and here you had people, undercover police officers sitting at our meetings, surveillance that is just staggering, really, you know.
"And then they must have been witnessing Sukhdev going through the distress she had and just trying to get a proper investigation underway.
"And I think that that's that scandalous."
Mr Grover said: "It shows the depth of total unaccountable nature of the police.
"It's not their failures of asking questions it's how the Met has treated the family."
The Inquiry into Undercover Policing is ongoing and Mrs Reel's section of the inquiry isn't for a few years.
Mrs Reel, her family and the campaign have been fighting for a quarter of a century to find the truth about what happened to Ricky.
They are demanding to meet with the new Met Commissioner to ask for a new investigation saying that advancements in technology will be able to enhance images to share with the public in hopes someone comes forward and to interview potential witnesses who may have come forward years later.
They are also demanding that the PCA report on Ricky's case be made public.
Mr McDonnell told the Mirror: "We have to break through it. We have to break through.
"We, if nothing else, that this death has demonstrated, is we're not going away. We're not giving up and they might wanna delay.
"They might want to obfuscate, and they might want to try and prevent us continuing on this campaign, but we've demonstrated we've we're not going away.
"I think we're going to eventually secure the truth hopefully we'll then secure justice.
"The determination that Sukhdev has shown but also I can't praise enough Suresh Grover and the work that he's done and the whole team."
Mr Grover said: "First, I sent a letter to the Met Police Commissioner about a month ago saying they should take statements from someone who has come forward to us.
"Secondly, the technology over the last 25 years has improved and the images can be enhanced.
"People also always - in my experience - get involved in cases during anniversaries and we should do another cold case review."
Mr Grover added: "The only way that this death can be solved is by public and political pressure on the Metropolitan Police.
"If people feel something about the case then they should make sure their voices are heard so police know how serious it is.
"If we don't break this case now it will never be solved."
Commander Catherine Roper, Specialist Crime, said today: “It has been 25 years since Ricky died. My thoughts are with Ricky’s family and the pain they must still feel today.
"I hope that this appeal will encourage people to come forward with any piece of information they may have, however small they think it is, to help us piece together what happened that night in Kingston.
"We remain hopeful that we can provide answers for the family, and we need the help of the public to achieve this."
Police urge anyone with information to contact them on 101 or the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Mrs Reel's book Rick Reel: Silence Is Not An Option can be bought here.
