The son of a woman who was stabbed to death in front of him when he was a toddler has recalled begging her to wake up after the fatal attack.
Rachel Nickell was just 23 when she was who was murdered in front of son Alex on Wimbledon Common in 1992.
Alex said he recalled being violently thrown as his mum was attacked, and even as he pleaded with her to wake up, he realised she was gone.
Alex, now 32, and his father Andre Hanscombe, 58, now share an apartment in Barcelona, and have taken part in a C4 documentary, Death On The Common: My Mother’s Murder, which will be screened next week.
He said he was driven by a desire to find out more about the case that shaped his life.
He told the DailyMail that he recalled a stranger walking up towards him and his mum, and said he was "grabbed and thrown around roughly".
He said: "And I remember my mother being grabbed and thrown around, collapsing on the floor beside me. And I remember the realisation of what happened."
Recalling the traumatic memory, Alex said he repeated 'Wake up mummy', to no avail.
He said: "Even as a three-year-old child, I knew my mother was gone."
Alex, who has worked as a yoga teacher in recent years, said he has items which of his mothers which are close to him.
These include Rachel and Andre’s love letters to each other, a bottle of his mother’s favourite perfume and personal jewellery.
Police quizzed 32 men before charging the wrong man but by then, Rachel’s real killer, psychopathic schizophrenic and serial rapist Robert Napper, had struck again.
Worried about the mental impact on his son, Andre took Alex to the South of France and then later to Barcelona, where for years he worked as a tennis coach.
Robert Napper eventually admitted Rachel’s manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at the Old Bailey in December 2008.
Colin Stagg, who was wrongly arrested for received more than £700,000 in compensation for his ordeal.
Alex and Andre tried unsuccessfully in 2010 to sue the Met for compensation, but the force opposed the action.
In the coming documentary, Alex reunites with child psychologist Dr Jean Harris-Hendriks, who tried coax information out of him about his mum's killer.
He is shown hugging Alex as they come face to face for the first time in nearly 30 years.
"I have never ever forgotten you,’ she tells him, seemingly close to tears. How could she forget the little boy who recreated the actions of his mother’s slaughter by using a pencil in a ‘repetitive stabbing motion’?
Video footage is shown of of Rachel and Alex in bed together cuddling their dog Molly, who was with them when she was killed.
And Alex is clear how important his father has been to him since their ordeal
In the documentary he says: "But what my father and me treasure above anything is the feeling that we will for ever carry with us from all the special moments shared with each other — the feeling of love, of loving and being loved in return."
He adds: "If my mother had not passed away in the way that she had, we probably wouldn’t have the same depth of bond that we have today.
"So even though I know that there is something that we may have missed out on, there are things that we’ve done within this relationship.
‘It’s probably the most important relationship in our lives. This is a 30-year journey we’ve been on together. We feel very blessed we’ve been able to maintain that."
