Olly Stephens' parents recall 'horror' of day he was murdered

The three teenagers who killed Olly Stephens over a social media row have been detained for 13, 12 and 3 years. Eight months on from his shocking death, his parents say they remain broken.

"Don't worry mum, I've got my locator on… love you."

Those were 13-year-old Olly's last words to his mum before he left for the park on a Sunday afternoon in January.

Bugs Bottom, where he was heading, was just a few hundred yards from his home.

A friend later described him as bright and smiling, with no idea he was walking into an ambush.

Just 15 minutes after Olly left, there was a knock at the door. His mum, Amanda Stephens, answered.

"Olly's been stabbed", said the boy stood in front of her.

Three words that would change everything.

Mrs Stephens remembers running back towards the stairs shouting up to Olly's dad, Stuart Stephens, who came screaming down.

Without shoes on, he ran out of the house and made his way to the field. He remembers seeing the horror on people's faces as he approached.

"Everybody that was on that field that day knew Olly. They'd seen him grow up," he says.

"They'd seen him do his wheelies up and down the street time and time again.

"Friends lived round the corner. The parents of the friends, they all knew him and to see what they were seeing was just horrific."

When he saw his son, Mr Stephens fell to his knees. "My boy, my boy, no" he screamed.

Olly's mum was there too. She remembers looking over at their son. He looked, she says, "completely lifeless".

She recalls: "His feet were sort of slightly at odd angles and one slider had fallen off and there was somebody trying to do CPR."

But it was the colouring of his skin, and the fact he just wasn't moving at all, which immediately made his parents realise their son had gone.

They watched on as paramedics tried to save Olly, but there was no response as his dad knelt down to hold his hand

"He was cold and he was lifeless", Mr Stephens recalls.

After 30 minutes Olly was moved to an ambulance where a consultant carried out emergency surgery.

But it was not successful and the teenager was declared dead at the scene.

His mum remembers telling a friend at the time "this can't be happening, this can't be happening".

It is now eight months since Olly was killed and his parents have spoken publicly for the first time about the impact of that day.

"We are broken", Olly's mum says. "You know you've got to keep going and you do keep going, but the joy's gone."

Their house is "very quiet" now.

Olly had a sister. Their parents say she is finding it "very difficult".

"She's lost her brother, she was very protective of him," Mr Stephens says.

Olly's parents beam when they talk about their son.

They speak about his "big heart", how he was "very generous, very loving, very caring" and always standing up for "the defenceless, the underdog".

"I loved his laugh", Olly's dad says, and his "amazing" wit.

Bikes were the last thing their son was into before he died.

His mum says Olly used to get them to film him practising wheelies up and down the road until he got them "absolutely perfect".

He was, his dad says, a "great entertainer" and had a "brain way beyond his years".

As well as missing their son, Olly's parents say they are sad for the man he could have grown up to be.

They use words like "horrifying", "cold" and "shocking" when they talk about the young teenagers who took his life.

The prosecution told the jury the two stab wounds to Olly's chest and back were "inflicted quite deliberately".

"That a child can be that detached from reality and not understand the consequences of what they're doing, and for them to be so young, and the way it was planned and the speed of the attack," Mr Stephens says.

"It was cold. It was absolutely cold."

But Olly's parents say it is the happy memories of their son they will hold onto.

In February, hundreds of people, many of them children, lined the streets as his funeral cortege made its way to the crematorium in Caversham.

In Bugs Bottom a tree, grown from an acorn in the family's back garden, has now been planted as a permanent memorial to the teenager.

At his funeral, Mr Stephens said: "Olly left the house with a spring in his step, laughter in his heart and a 'love you' to his mum.

"We will remember him this way."