Robert Hands and his wife, Margaret, had just returned home from celebrating his 66th birthday at a local steak restaurant when their front doorbell rang.
They had only been in the house for about a minute and had not yet sat down. When they opened the door they saw two police uniforms, and the hands of officers showing their ID badges.
Margaret, a 64-year-old healthcare worker, immediately thought of Eddie, the second oldest of her four children.
Eddie with his mother. He was found unresponsive in his cell at HMP Bedford
SIMON JACOBS FOR THE TIMES
“I thought, something bad has happened,” she says. “They were telling me to sit down and I said, ‘I don’t want to sit down, what’s happened?’ They said, ‘You do need to sit down.’”
The police liaison officers sat Robert and Margaret down on their living room sofa
