FOR Ahmed Ali Awan the brutal stabbing of Ross Parker was a way of proving his "superiority" within his gang. 

During the murder trial, Awan (22), of Gladstone Street, was described as a "gangster" who had a "fantasy for knives" and thought of himself as "something special". 

The court heard he was an unofficial police informer who had told officers about hard drug dealing in his area. He also kept a scanner in his house which could be used to pick up police radio frequencies. 

On the night of the killing, it was Awan who decided that he and his co-accused should leave Liquid nightclub. Awan was the "boss" of the group and at other points in the trial was described as a "Mr Big" and "the big man". 

Prosecution witness Adeel Rehman (20), from Dogsthorpe, Peterborough, Mr Rehman said that after the attack, Awan held the murder weapon up to him and said: "Cherish the blood". 

He also told police that Awan owned a collection of Samurai swords, knives and replica guns. The court heard that Awan carried out the stabbing of Ross to "show his superiority as managing director of the gang". 

Just hours later, Awan had the audacity to go into the back garden of his home, which looks out onto the murder scene, and watch the police activity. 

Following the killing, Awan attempted to cover his tracks by concocting a false story with co-accused Sarfraz Ali (25) that they had both been asleep at the time of the attack. 

Like Nazir, Awan had rebelled against the strict Islamic traditions of his parents and had started to drink alcohol and smoke cannabis. 

He was a regular visitor to the garage at the rear of Nazir's home at 122 Cromwell Road where he could smoked and drank alcohol with other young Muslims. 

Awan had lived in Peterborough for 17 years and had previously lived on the Welland estate. At the time of the killing, he was living at 140 Gladstone Street with his older brother Shokat (23), his sister-in-law and their children. His parents lived next door. 

Awan attended the city's former Eastholme School for two-and-a-half years and then spent a similar amount of time at Deacon's School, in Queen's Gardens. 

He went to Peterborough Regional College for about a year. Awan said he got to know Nazir a couple of years before the killing and was best man at his wedding in August, last year. 

However, the court heard that the trial became a "cut throat" between Awan and Nazir, who both claimed the other was telling lies. 

Nazir claimed Awan owned the 18-inch "hunting knife" and used it to kill Ross while Awan claimed Nazir confessed to carrying out the killing while they were being held in city police cells.
 

SARFRAZ Ali was given glowing character references by two city councillors but, like his partners-in-crime, he was said to have a "dark side". 

Up to the night of Ross's murder last year, Ali (25), of Harris Street, had lived a normal life and had never been in trouble with the law. Ali appeared highly respectable. 

He had been married in September 2000 and his father played a major role at a city mosque. 

Ali attended Bretton Woods Community School, in Peterborough, and then worked as a delivery driver for a takeaway owned by his family called Eastern Delight, in Oakham. 

During the trial, deputy mayor of Peterborough, Cllr Raja Akhtar, wrote Ali a character reference in which he described him as "caring and responsible". 

In another statement, Cllr Mohammed Choudhary, who represents Central ward, said: "I have always found Sarfraz to be honest and trustworthy and not a troublemaker." 

But during the trial, the court heard there was a different side to the man they thought they knew. The court was told that Ali's wife had left him in the middle of the trial because she was scared of him and his family. 

The jury was also told that she may have found out about his involvement in the murder of Ross after seeing his bloody clothes in the house. 

After the killing Ali went back to Oakham before going to a police station, when he realised he was wanted by police. 

The court heard that Ali took his bloody clothes round to his sister-in-law Asia Bibi's home, in Harris Street, so she could dispose of them. 

Ali said that out of his three co-accused, he was closest to Awan. But it was also Awan who "wound" him up like a "clock-work mouse" to lie to police for him. 

The pair concocted a false story saying neither of them had been at the scene of the killing. But the jury did not believe their lies. 

UNTIL he became a teenager, Shaied Nazir had followed the strict Muslim traditions of his parents and lived a law-abiding life. 

Nazir (22), known to his friends as Biggy because of his physique, had attended the mosque as a child. He was a pupil at the city's Beeches Primary School, in Beech Avenue. 

But when he reached adolescence Nazir started rebelling against the values he had been taught at home. He started smoking drugs, drinking heavily and staying out late with his friends. 

Nazir attended Bretton Woods Community School, in Bretton, Peterborough, and left at the age of 16 with 11 GCSEs. 

He could have used this to find a worthwhile career, and started courses in information technology and engineering at Stamford College. But he was restless and quit. 

He got a job in a factory and worked there for nine months, getting paid £3.70 an hour. He then worked in a takeaway in King's Lynn for two-and-a-half years with co-accused Ziaraff Mahrad (21) and shared accommodation with him. 

Early last year he got a job doing night shift work for an agency and in mornings and afternoons would get paid to take children to and from school, as his father had done before him. He earned about £500 a week. 

Nazir's father, who came to England in 1965, returned to his homeland of Kashmir in April last year for health reasons and to arrange marriages for Nazir and his brother Wyed (18), a prosecution witness in the trial. 

After his father left the country, the garage at the rear of Nazir's home at 122 Cromwell Road provided a den where he and other young Muslims could smoke and drink undetected. 

Nazir's first brush with the law had been in March, 1999, when he was cautioned at King's Lynn police station for using threatening behaviour. And in April, last year, he was fined £50 for failing to surrender to custody. 

Nazir, the third child of nine, went to Pakistan in the summer of 2001 and got married on August 2, in accordance with his father's wishes. Ahmed Ali Awan was Nazir's best man, although Mahrad had been first choice but couldn't leave England. 

He came back to England on August 30, but left his wife and six-month-old child behind. Nazir told the court he had wanted to save money to buy a house, settle down with his wife and live "a steady life". But that changed on the night of September 20, last year, when he went out with the friends he saw as "brothers". 

He said they had been celebrating his recent marriage with them. When he was having his finger prints taken after being arrested on suspicion of Ross's murder, Nazir told officers: "I wish I had not bothered going out that night, I wished I had gone home. 

You know I never meant for anyone to get hurt." The trial, heard Nazir and his co-accused Ahmed Ali Awan both had a ''sick obsession with knives'' and both had shown an interest in buying the 18-inch hunting knife which inflicted fatal stab wounds on Ross Parker. 

ROSS PARKER - MURDERED BECAUSE HE WAS WHITE!
• THE VICTIM :  Ross Parker Born, August 17, 1984. Murdered, September 21, 2001. 'We often go into Ross' room and just sit ... but in our hearts we know that he'll never be coming home' Ross' family at his funeral	AS Ross Parker walked hand-in-hand with his girlfriend on a late summer night last year he must have been relishing the life that lay before him.  The fun-loving teenager had just left school with a GNVQ in business administration and had ambitions of going into the police force.  But moments later his life was tragically cut short when he was accosted by Shaied Nazir, Sarfraz Ali and Ahmed Ali Awan.  Senselessly, he was stabbed three times with a wicked-looking hunting knife, hit with a hammer and kicked as he lay dying in a pool of blood. He had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Ross, who had turned 17 the month before his death, had been working at the Solstice, in Northminster, Peterborough, as a glass collector and bar support.  It was a job which his sister helped him to get, and where he had met Nicola Foot, then Nicola Toms, of Garton End Road, Peterborough.  On that fateful night, they could not get a lift home when the pub shut and had decided to walk because because it was a nice night. Ross, who had left Jack Hunt School, in Ledbury Road, Peterborough, that July, was enjoying the grown up feeling of having put his school years behind him.	A young Ross Parker Ross at school Ross in his Netherton kit Ross Parker
He was a keen sportsman, but because of his 5ft 5ins height he was nicknamed "half-pint" by his friends. His proud dad, Tony said: "He was very much into his sport and he loved his football and motor racing.  He did talk about going into the forces, but then decided he wanted to join the police force. "He was a fun-loving lad. He could have his moods but generally he was a very good lad. But good or bad, who deserves what he got?"  Ross was educated in the city at Stafford Hall Play School, in Hampton Court, Westwood, then Ravensthorpe Primary School, and finally Jack Hunt School. His first job was at Woodlands Leisure Centre in Castor, near Peterborough.  He had done work experience there while at school, but then started part-time. In the nine months before his death, Ross had worked at the Solstice pub with his sister Leanne. Leanne said: "Working together at the Solstice brought Ross and I so much closer together. I saw him mature into a fine young man, and I was proud to have him as my little brother."  At the time of his death, Ross had recently split up with his long-term girlfriend Polly Capindale. Ross shared a love of Formula One motor racing with his father Tony and they would often go to watch races at Silverstone and Brands Hatch, or just cheer on the Ferrari team in their living room.  At his funeral, on Tuesday, October 23, last year, at Peterborough Crematorium, his Ferrari flag was draped across his coffin. He also loved football and was a popular player at the city's Netherton Grangers Junior Football Club.  On the anniversary of Ross's death earlier this year, pupils and staff at Jack Hunt School, which was also attended by Leanne, gathered for a special assembly. Ross's year group has now left, but many of the 250 Year 12 and 13 pupils at the school in Ledbury Road, Netherton, were his friends too.  Headteacher Chris Hilliard read a poem called Remember Me, by David Harkins, which was read at the Queen Mother's funeral, and also read an excerpt from the I Have A Dream speech by the late American civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King.  A minute's silence was observed in Ross's memory. Mr Hilliard, said: "We have a school of about 1,460 youngsters, but Ross was a pupil I knew. I always found him to be a splendid young man and a real character in his own right.  He was an outgoing lad and someone who had many interests inside and outside school - in particular his motorbike, which he was always telling me about, and his love of Manchester United.  He was very popular in school among students and staff. He had a lovely sense of humour and was always bubbly. "His death hit us very hard. Things have moved on now but, at the time, when we heard the news we were very distressed.  It is an appalling tragedy and we think his family has been amazingly brave." Nick Carter, Ross's best friend since playschool, said: "Ross was a great friend, always having a cheeky smile, being a charmer with an easy-going personality.  "The thing that everyone remembers most about Ross is his cheeky grin. We will remember him, always smiling."  Following Ross's death his distraught family struggled to find meaning in the tragedy and come to terms with their loss. The teenager's room at his home in Bozeat Way, Westwood, was left exactly as he had left it before leaving for work.  The towel, which he had used after getting out of the bath before rushing to work on the night he died, still lay on the floor where he abandoned it in his hurry. His bed was left unmade, his clothes on the floor where he had thrown them as he got ready and his computer and TV were left on standby because his parents couldn't bring themselves to turn them off.  His mother, Davinia, could not even bring herself to wash his dirty clothes or tidy the room. Tony said: "We often go into Ross's room and just sit. It's a place where we all feel close to Ross.  But in our hearts, we know that he'll never be coming home." A rose bush has been planted in the family's back garden in memory of the son they lost.  Tony went back to running his car bodywork repair business, but Davinia was unable to face going back to work as a waitress. After Ross's funeral she took three months off and admitted she had come close to the edge.  Two days after Ross's funeral, Tony turned 50 and in normal circumstances would have gone to the pub for a drink with his son. Instead he took a can of Guinness to the crematorium, drank some of it, and left it half finished with a bunch of flowers next to Ross's commemorative plaque.  Last Christmas, the Parker family put up no decorations at their home and felt too upset to buy presents. The Christmas meal was scampi and chips - Ross's favourite.

Terror as Ross's killers pounced 

Peterborough Evening Telegraph, 6 January 2003

ROSS Parker's girlfriend Nicola Foot has today spoken for the first time about the night the teenager was murdered in a racist attack.

Opening her heart to The Evening Telegraph, 20-year-old Nicola has bravely recounted the terrible events of Friday, September 21, 2001.

Nicola was walking hand in hand with Ross as he was attacked by Ahmed Ali Awan (22), Sarfraz Ali (25), and Shaied Nazir (22) on a cyclepath near Bourges Boulevard.

Speaking for the first time since his killers were jailed, Nicola reveals: 

How Ross had squeezed her hand to reassure her as they were confronted by his murderers.
How she fled to get help and heard him scream out as he was attacked.
How she fought to save Ross's life as he lay in a pool of blood.

Nicola and 17-year-old Ross, of Bozeat Way, Westwood, Peterborough, had become friends after meeting at The Solstice pub, in Northminster Road, where they both worked.

On the fateful night they were both due to finish work at 2am, but the pub closed early because it had been a quiet evening.

They were due to stay with a friend of Nicola, who lives in Bourges Boulevard, and Nicola suggested they walk there to save money.

It was a warm night and the couple who had been going out for just two months spoke about how they were going to watch a video once they got to Nicola's friend's home.

They strolled along Broadway, before taking a right onto Westgate and then cutting across the Brewery Tap pub car park and on to the cyclepath in Bourges Boulevard.

By this time it was 1.15am and just a few minutes later Ross would be dead. As they rounded a corner, Nazir was standing beside the cycle path. He then started walking towards a group of youths in front of the couple. And it was then Nicola heard the chilling words: "Better start running" from someone standing to her right.

She said: "Ross squeezed my hand to reassure me that everything was going to be all right.
"He told me to move out of their way and I kept hold of his hand."

In a quiet voice, Nicola went on: "Just as they got in front of us, one of them sprayed Ross in the face. 
"He put his hand to his eyes and then the person who had sprayed him punched him in the stomach.

"That made him double over and then fall over. He pulled his hand away from mine so he could use it to protect himself. 
"I was scared but I just couldn't comprehend what was going on, so I just stood there in shock."

Powerless to help and rigid with shock, Nicola stood on the path for what she believes was about 30 seconds before deciding to run for help.

She thought Ross would get a beating never in her darkest nightmares did she think he would be murdered.

Nicola ran to the nearby Esso garage, on Bourges Boulevard, where she saw two men filling their car. 
She screamed at them that Ross was getting beaten up by a gang, and one of the men gave her a mobile phone to call police.

She said: "When I was on the phone at the garage I heard Ross cry out a couple of times. It sounded like he was in pain. I knew he had broken his leg twice before and it was quite weak, so I was a bit concerned that he might end up with a broken leg. 
"That was the worst I thought might happen."

By chance, she then spotted a police car being driven along Bourges Boulevard by Pc Kate Brown.
Nicola, now frantic with worry, got into the car and led the officer to where she had left Ross.
 

'It was like a scene from EastEnders'

NICOLA Foot and Pc Kate Brown were faced with an horrific sight when they came across Ross Parker's crumpled body.

Nicola said: "I went running over to him. I was hysterical. You could tell just by looking that he wasn't conscious.

"I checked for a pulse on his neck and couldn't find one, and assumed I was doing it wrong. I leaned over and tried to listen for breathing or feel his breath on my cheek.

"I put my hand on his chest, and that's when I felt the blood on his shirt."

Then, to her horror, she saw Ross had been stabbed in the neck.

Pc Brown tried to drag Nicola away, but she insisted on staying.

She said: "I wanted to stay with him because I still didn't believe completely that he could be dead I hadn't been gone that long."

Nicola finally agreed to leave Ross's side and was led away by police officers, who allowed her to sit down nearby.

She said: "There was a policeman stood with me, and I remember saying to him 'He's dead, isn't he?'. He said he didn't know.

"I was thinking Ross couldn't be dead.

"There were lots of things going through my mind and I was thinking I must tell Leanne (Ross's sister)."

Nicola was taken to Thorpe Wood police station, but she was still hysterical and kept on asking police officers if she could use a telephone to call Leanne Parker.

She said: "Deep down I knew what was happening, but I dealt with it by acting as if it wasn't happening to me. It was like an episode of EastEnders and I was watching it. It was as if it had happened to someone else and not myself."

As detectives arrived, stunned Nicola was taken to Thorpe Wood police station where she was comforted by officers and where several hours later she was told her boyfriend was dead.

IMAGINE IF THIS HAD BEEN THE STORY OF THE GIRLFRIEND OF STEPHEN LAWRENCE THE BLACK YOUTH WHO WAS MURDERED BY WHITES - WE WOULD HAVE SEEN THIS STORY TOLD ON EVERY NATIONAL NEWS BULLETIN AND READ IT ON EVERY MAJOR NEWSPAPER'S FRONT PAGE. NICOLA AND ROSS' PARENTS WOULD HAVE RECEIVED O.B.E.S AND THEY WOULD HAVE BECOME HOUSEHOLD NAMES. WE WOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO FORGET THIS EVIL CRIME!

HARDLY ANYONE HAS HEARD OF ROSS PARKER THOUGH...

BECAUSE HE 
WAS WHITE!

READ THE PRESS REPORTS OF THE TRIAL HERE

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