Emotional Appeal From Mother of Murdered Acton Teenager

Vanessa Hyman pleads for help to find Anton Hyman's killers 13 years on

The mother of a teenager from Acton, shot, beaten and stabbed to death in Ealing 13 years ago, has made an emotional plea for his killers to be finally brought to justice.

Anton Hyman, who was 17 at the time, was discovered in the River Brent, at around 11am on 21 March 2004 – Mother’s Day. He was last seen between Greenford Avenue and Brent Valley Park in Hanwell. Several arrests were made at the time, but to date no one has been charged with Anton’s murder.

Detectives have launched a fresh appeal for new information, with a £20,000 reward on offer.

Vanessa Hyman, of Acton, made a new appeal for help this Wednesday (5 April), “I am hoping for fresh leads, fresh answers – I want the perpetrators to be brought to justice.”

On the morning of the 20 March, Vanessa said Anton was his ‘normal self’ and she believed he had intended to buy a Mother’s Day card for her, from him and his sister. She added: “He left the house and I felt funny. There was something within me…something came over me. I jumped out of bed and watched him walk down the road, and that was the last time I saw him.” Before he left, Anton came into his mother’s bedroom and asked if she was okay, to which she said ‘yes’. He said: “cool cool,” and left.

Mrs Hyman said people had reported to her they had seen him in Ealing that afternoon, and he had indeed bought a Mother’s Day card. Anton’s last movements were captured on CCTV at about 10am on Saturday 20 March 2004, and detectives believed he was killed that evening. Someone answered a call from Anton’s phone at a time when officers think he would have already been dead, and efforts to trace that person have been unsuccessful.

Mrs Hyman described Anton as a ‘happy child, very funny and well-liked by girls - a Jack the Lad type of boy’. He loved music, basketball, his moped, and was reported by pensioners and his mother as a helpful person. He was also into platting and cutting hair. Vanessa went on to say: “But at the same time he could ‘stick up for himself’, he didn’t take a lot of stick from people. He had both sides of the coin.” Anton’s mother said he belonged to various social groups at the time, called “Sunday School” and “Garage”, which she later learned were clubs.

She said Anton had at one time been in trouble for ‘riding on mopeds’, but in January 2003 her home was raided by police who found Class A drugs, for which Anton served some jail time. At the time, Anton maintained he was ‘holding them for someone’, according to his mother. He was released from prison on Christmas Eve 2003, and died three months later. Prior to his death, Anton had attended Acton High School and been accepted into a local college to study Music Engineering.

On why she felt no one had yet been brought to justice, she said: “I think there is a fear factor. His death was brutal and there won’t be many who would want to put their hands up to that, or to even knowing about it.”

The impact of Anton’s murder left ‘a void’ in his family, his mother said: “We have had to move on, but it is always with me. He was my firstborn child. He’s my son and he’s not there anymore.” She believes the murder left the community scared even speak to her: “You’d see them whisper and I’d have to say ‘hello, I’m still here’.” She said despite the support of the community and the demonstrations, she ‘just doesn’t know if any of those people know anything’.

DI David Bolton of the Met’s Homicide & Major Crime Command said: “Any case that is unsolved is reviewed periodically. We felt renewing the reward might be a trigger for people who didn’t initially come forward, to review their position.” DI Bolton said there are however no fresh suspects at this point and no weapons were recovered from the scene at the time. He went on to say: “It’s the witness testimony that can be fresh for us. There will be witness and people involved, we know he interacted with certain people who were unwilling to talk to us at the time, but 13 years on they may have a different outlook on life.”

DI Bolton suggested it is entirely possible there may be more than one perpetrator in this ‘frenzied attack’, adding: “We would treat anyone who wanted to come forward confidentially and support those who wish to give statements. This is an opportunity for us to find out what happened and get closure for his family.”

Anyone with information should contact the Incident Room on 020 8785 8244 or, if you do not wish to give your name, Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111

Rory Thomas

6 April 2017