Father whose son was stabbed says the ordeal destroyed the family beyond repair

James Brindley, 26, was walking home from a night out with friends in 2017 when he was attacked and fatally stabbed, from which his family never recovered

A father whose son was stabbed in a random attack while walking home says his family was “devastated in moments” after the murder.

James Brindley was on the phone with his girlfriend on his way home from the pub after spending the evening with friends in June 2017.

The popular 26-year-old was approached by his killer, who suddenly attacked, leading to a scuffle which ultimately resulted in James being stabbed.

He managed to move on and collapsed 400 meters from his home, where paramedics were performing open-heart surgery while his family – father Mark, mother Beverley and sister Charlotte – watched.

Five years after his son’s death, Mark said Birmingham Live : “The moment we knew something had happened was when Charlotte burst through our bedroom door around quarter to midnight, screaming that James had been stabbed.

“She literally flew outside, got in her car and drove to the site and we followed her. And the top of the High Street in Aldridge was just a sea of ​​blue lights.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, even on highway calls when there’s been terrible accidents – I’ve never seen more ambulances and police cars.

“We saw James having roadside open heart surgery, which no family member should ever witness and live with, let alone have to live their life without their son or brother.

“And the horrible wait while they operated on him. They’ve been trying to bring him back for an hour and it’s obviously not a success.”

Teenage killer Ammar Kahrod, then 17, was jailed a few months later for the murder of the former Aldridge School student.

He claimed he acted in self-defense, but the jury dismissed this. His co-accused was acquitted.

Mark added: “I think it certainly could have been anyone.

“James happened to be walking down the street minding his own business while on the phone with his girlfriend.

“We racked our brains as to what the motivation might have been because it was completely unprovoked and while James was talking to his girlfriend there was a 34 second delay where the call got disconnected.

“And 34 seconds later, when James picked up the phone and his girlfriend called him back, he said, ‘I have to go, I was stabbed’.”

“Families like us who have experienced this; I can’t think of anything worse for them to live with – they will all understand the need for truth and the need for perpetrators to repent, and we have neither, so there’s no way we’re moving on.

“We can never come to terms with the way our son died and we can never forgive the perpetrator’s unrepentance.”

“Not only were we deprived of James, we were deprived of knowing his partner and if he had children, we were deprived of knowing our grandchildren.

“James loved children so we are absolutely certain he would have had children, possibly by now, so that was taken from us.

“It’s another element of what I can only call desperation.”