Mother of Josh Morgan: We will do everything to get Josh's life back
Clare Simpson, mother of attack victim Josh Morgan, tells of the battle the family faces getting care for her son, and his slow, but steady recovery.
We are going to do everything in our power to get as much of Josh's life back as possible.
We are currently fighting for rehabilitation for Josh, at present what is offered to him is very limited and by no means necessary.
Our fight this year is to get Josh what he needs to have the best recovery possible. We shall not waste our time on anger towards the justice system or the two that did this to him. Our time will be spent on Josh and rebuilding our family.
With that being said we are grateful that the Express & Star and the community of Cannock and other areas have found it in their hearts to fight for justice for us. We will support you in this but if we seem absent in this fight, I hope you can understand that we really do want 'Justice for Josh'.
We most certainly do not believe that the sentences have shown any justice to what Josh has lost, been through or still to go through.
We have always believed that if a boxer uses his fists then that should be intent. If any normal untrained person would have hit Josh then he may have been able to save his fall and prevent the damage that was life-changing to him. A boxer is trained to hurt and knock someone out with their fists. This is surely intent?
Our absence from the campaign is only because Josh needs our time and energy spent on fighting for his other needs to get back the Josh of old.
Josh is a typical 20-year-old, full of life and all the fun that goes with it. He adores his friends and they all mean the world to him. Believe us there are lots of them and they are all like one big family. Most of his friends have known each other since primary school. He had his first lads holiday abroad in 2013 and went to Magaluf.
He was planning lots more holidays with his friends, including one which should have been to Amsterdam in April 2014. But this was not possible because of the attack.
Josh is a typical prankster and loves to have fun, laughing all the time. One of his favourite pranks was to come in from work at night. Of course I would have fallen asleep on the sofa trying to finish work off and waiting for him to come in. He would sneak in and find different ways to wake me up and make me jump. Of course, at the same time filming it all on his phone.
He loves his music. Unfortunately for anyone in the house with him his favourite is grime, which is rapping. But generally he does love all music.
He has taught himself to play guitar and also played the keyboard/piano when he was studying music at school.
Josh was an excellent football player and was both left and right footed whilst having tremendous speed up and down the pitch.
To be a keen athlete and now not be able to move around on his own free will is something none of us could imagine.
He is totally dependent on others moving him around.
His voice, what more can I say? This frustration must be nearly impossible to cope with.
To know what you want to say, to want to join in conversations or to simply just tell someone that your back is itching. With Josh being a keen grime artist, the speed to which you have to rap is so intriguing.
Now to have no voice!
But Josh stays strong and positive. To him there are no boundaries and he will push himself to the limit to try and gain a normal quality of life back. I am in awe of him, his spirits are always high considering he is going through something unimaginable to most of us.
