Mickey’s savage killing has torn our family apart

Killer sent a boasting text message to a girl saying: “Stabbed Angel 12 times. Love you loads. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.”

Stricken with grief, Dorothy Graham looks wistfully out to sea in the vain hope that her beloved son walks along the promenade.

But only floral tributes mark the spot where he was knifed 12 times in the back by a vicious thug seeking pathetic revenge.

Evil Macaulay Jenkinson was just 16 when he launched the sickening and fatal attack on young dad Mickey “Angel” Graham, who was once his pal.

Minutes after the attack on Scarborough seafront, remorseless Jenkinson was sending a boasting text message to a girl saying: “Stabbed Angel 12 times. Love you loads. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.”

He was caged for life for the stabbing.

Now, in her first interview since Mickey was so savagely murdered, Dorothy Graham told The Sunday Post how the killing has torn her family apart.

Dorothy, 37, said: “Our families’ lives will never be the same again because of this needless murder. I want a change in the law to raise the age of people who can buy knives to prevent this ever happening again.”

Mickey, who was 19 and had a three-year-old son, Maxy, had been friends with Jenkinson. But the pair fell out after Jenkinson started a relationship with a 14-year-old girl.

Jenkinson’s trial at Teeside Crown Court heard Mickey had mocked Jenkinson about the age gap. The younger teen got hold of a knife warning there would be a “showdown” and that Mickey “deserved to die.”

On the night of his murder on April 13, a gang surrounded Mickey and one attacked him. As he fought back, Jenkinson repeatedly plunged the knife into Mickey’s back. He collapsed and was left for dead as the gang fled the murder scene.

Jenkinson later texted friends to say he had stabbed his ex-pal a shocking 12 times.

The killer, who was convicted last month of murder and wounding, must spend at least 16 years in custody before being considered for release. Dorothy, of Scarborough, discovered her son had died three hours later when police came to her door.

She said: “When they said what had happened, I didn’t take it in. I thought, ‘You must have made a mistake. It must be someone else. Mickey must be fine.’

“I even texted him to say what I’d been told. I asked him to text back and tell me it was all a lie, but it wasn’t.”

She said his death had devastated the family but had been particularly difficult for his grandmother, Joy Graham, whose middle name “Angel” Mickey adopted as his own nickname, and his brother Alix Timmins, now 15.

Some of his closest friends had also suffered “break downs” after the murder, Dorothy said.

The mum-of-four, who has two daughters, Kayleigh, 18 and Rebecca, nine, has founded the Michael “Angel” Graham Foundation.

It was launched via Facebook and will support families and friends of other murder victims.

Dorothy was also involved in a knife amnesty run by Scarborough MP Robert Goodwill and held in Mickey’s name, earlier this year.

But she is also calling for a sweeping overhaul of the laws governing buying and selling knives, including raising the age anyone can buy one from 18 to 25.

Dorothy said: “All knives, even kitchen knives, can be deadly, so the law needs to be toughened up so that only over-25s can buy them.

“We hope we can prevent anything like this happening again.”

Dorothy is looking for sponsorship for an event on Scarborough beach to raise money for the foundation.

For more about the Michael “Angel” Graham Foundation, visit their Facebook page.