'My heart has been broken' says mother of 21-year-old stabbed to death

Those are the heartbreaking words of the mother of 21-year-old Shane Mayer who was killed outside a bar in the Black Country.

Mr Mayer, from Wolverhampton, was stabbed multiple times outside Gabba's Bar in Forge Road, Darlaston, on July 24, 2019.

Ramani Sanderson, 20, of Walsham Road near Peckham, was locked up at Coventry Crown Court for life with at least 24 years on Friday.

Co-defendants Kamron Reid, 20, of Herberts Park Road in Bloxwich, was sentenced to five years in a Young Offenders Institution (YOI) for manslaughter. Co-defendant Joseph Till, 21, of Summer Street, Willenhall, was jailed for five years for the same offence. All three men were found guilty after a trial last month.

Dawn Bennett, whose statement was read out by prosecutor Michael Burrows QC, said her son was her "absolute world" and "my everything".

She explained you could "hear Shane before you saw him" and his laughter and love would "fill the house" and how he was always smiling and never a sad or unhappy person, a court heard.

Mr Burrows QC, reading the statement, told the court on Ms Bennett's behalf: "It is because of how special Shane was to me that his loss felt so deeply. Shane, who loved life so much, was beginning to become a man but he didn’t get the chance to fulfil all of the dreams and hopes he had.

"He had so much life that he should have had left to live, so many journeys to experience and places to visit but all that has been taken from him. Someone has taken from us the chance of seeing our boy be successful, of getting his own place, of getting married and having children of his own, the sort of things every parent would want for their child.

"My heart has been broken by the loss of Shane and my heart will always be broken until I see him again in heaven."

The court heard how Ms Bennett would "never be able to forget" the memory of seeing her son in hospital, nor the phone call that night that "turned my life upside down".

She said: "The last words my son said to me were “safe mom” and I told him “in a bit Shane”. I never thought that day that I would never hear my son’s voice again, that the next time I would see him would be in that hospital bed. Shane was only 21 years old and now I have to talk to him at a cemetery. It’s life destroying and devastating.

"We miss Shane immensely as a family. It has changed us all in different ways, not just our immediate family but Shane’s friends as well. We miss his happy spark for life, the way he would light up the room when he walked in. Shane would never have done this harm to anyone, he would have helped anyone in trouble and did nothing to deserve what was done to him.

"Losing a child has been the worse pain of my life. I will always love my son, the best friend in my life, all we can do now is look at photos of him from when he was happy and loving his life. I wouldn’t want another mother to go through what I am going through because of the loss of Shane.

"I want people to understand the effect losing Shane has had on me, how torturous it is living without him. No parent should lose their child in the manner Shane was taken from us. I want people to realise the effect that carrying a knife has, walking around with a knife no matter what the reason isn’t clever when you realise the pain it causes, the pain that was caused to our entire family because a person chose to walk around with a knife and ended Shane’s life."