Reel's mother, Sukhdev, continues to seek justice on the belief that her son was murdered and that police failures have been related to racism.

[7][9] The initial report ruled that Reel's was an accidental death, which had occurred due to him falling into the river while urinating, and the case was closed.

"[3] Detective SuperIntendent Bob Moffat, who led the investigation, said there was "bundles of evidence" that Reel had died from an accidental fall into the river.

[4] When trying to file a missing persons report they claimed an officer told them their son was possibly trying to avoid an arranged marriage or that he was gay.

[12] They stated that it was the family who had had to lead on the missing persons search, with little assistance from the police, including the locating of key CCTV evidence from the area.

Furthermore, an independent pathologist the family hired found Reel's bladder had been full at the time of his death and that a third party was probably involved in his drowning.

The solicitor for the Reel family, Louise Christian, was critical of this response as it did not provide detail of the failures, nor outline missed lines of inquiry and she called it "just a public relations exercise".

[13] It was later revealed that the inquiry confirmed important CCTV footage was destroyed before being viewed and that the coroner had found that pages from the initial report were missing.

[5] In October 1999, following national coverage on crime television series Crimewatch, Local Member of Parliament John McDonnell used parliamentary privilege to make public some parts of the PCA inquiry which had been withheld.

As part of the inquiry, the initial lead investigator, Bob Moffat (who had since retired), was questioned by Michael Mansfield QC and strongly defended his actions, stating there was "no evidence that there was anyone else associated with her son's death".

[17] Moffat stated that his initial line of investigation was into Reel's friends, looking for holes in their story of a racially-motivated attack and said "maybe the boys were engaged in a prank with Ricky in the river".

[11] Detective Chief Inspector Sue Hill, who took over the case after Moffat accepted the findings of the PCA inquiry and that mistakes had been made and apologised.

The group supported her in a campaign for justice for her son, having been involved with similar cases, including the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the death of Blair Peach.

We are angry and hurt that they breached our human rights and invaded our privacy at a time we were asking them to investigate Ricky’s murder.