Robert Sebbage, the British teenager stabbed to death on the Greek island of Zante, pictured with David Beckham in 2007. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Action ImagesThe mother of the young Greek accused of murdering a British holidaymaker on the Ionian island of Zante (Zakynthos) said she was driven by only one desire – to comfort the murdered teenager's mother.
Breaking her silence for the first time since 19-year-old Robert Sebbage was fatally stabbed in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Louise Morfis said her entire family had been thrown into mourning by the "terrible" crime.
"My heart goes out to another mother, please tell her I want to hold her," said the Australian-born English teacher. "No one can judge pain and no one feels it like the mother of a child," she told the Observer after placing a candle beside the spot in the party resort of Laganas where Sebbage, a Reading FC fan, was fatally stabbed.
"We are both going through the same thing. We are both victims. She has lost her son and I have lost mine. For the rest of his life he will suffer for what he has done," Morfis sighed, struggling to hold back tears.
A former England football mascot who walked into Wembley stadium with David Beckham in 2007, Sebbage, from Tadley, Hampshire, died almost instantly after being knifed by 21-year-old taxi driver Stelios Morfis. Four of Sebbage's friends were also stabbed.
Laganas has been shocked by the killing. Late last Friday young holidaymakers could be seen paying their respects at the murder scene in the resort's main, neon-lit strip. A local nightclub placed a floral tribute at the spot, and a white chrysanthemum wreath hanging from a lamp post read: "With our deepest sympathy, Danny and Louise Morfis."
"He was bleeding badly and everybody rushed and took off their T-shirts to try and stop the blood," said an Ethiopian tattoo artist who witnessed the attack. "He stumbled up to my table and then he just fell. Everyone was in shock. The other boys, who were also injured, were crying 'help, help'."
The young Britons were enjoying the last night of their first holiday abroad when the row erupted. According to police accounts of the incident, they began taunting Morfis with laser pens, before the 6ft 3in bodybuilder lashed out at them with a seven-inch penknife his taxi-driver father said he kept in the car for peeling fruit.
"I cannot stop thinking about him [Sebbage]," said Louise Morfis, dressed in black linen. "My family is in mourning. For three nights I haven't slept. I can't sleep, Stevie [Stelios], my son, can't sleep. He keeps saying: 'Sorry, sorry, I never meant it'."
Morfis is no newcomer to trouble – earlier this month he was arrested after another altercation on the Ionian isle. But initial reports that he had tried to escape from Zante in a speedboat were wrong. Police say he fled on foot into the fields outside Laganas, from where he was quickly coaxed by his father into giving himself up. The former presidential guard has been charged with murder. Under Greek law he could spend up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.
Jason Mason, one of the other young Britons who were attacked, suffered a punctured lung in the brawl and remains in serious condition in hospital.
"I totally understand it [the reaction of the British press] because, where there is a loss of life and people don't see the whole picture, there is always anger," said Morfis's mother.
"It should never have happened. They're children and didn't know what they were doing, of that I am certain. If they knew what they were doing, his mother wouldn't be here [collecting her son's body] and nor would I.
"I don't want my countrypeople to think it was Greek against English. We speak English at home. My twin sister is married to an Englishman.
"My son's life will never be the same. My family's life will never be the same again," she lamented, as she turned away, a figure of grief in a tragedy that tourist-dependent Greece is not likely to forget easily.
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