‘What was point of dialling 999?’ Christopher Kapessa’s mother describes her pain and anger

‘If the tables were turned, if all those children were black and Christopher was a white child, I wouldn’t be sat here talking to you,’ says Alina Joseph, the mother of Christopher Kapessa. Photograph: Dimitris Legakis/Athena Pictures

This January should have been a time of celebration for Christopher Kapessa and his family. He would have turned 18 and, as a bright and ambitious young person, may have been preparing for university or an interesting career. He should have had a long and happy life to look forward to.

Instead, his relatives have listened in a coroner’s court in south Wales as the circumstances of the black boy’s harrowing death at the age of 13 in the River Cynon, after he was allegedly pushed into the deep water by a 14-year-old white boy, have been examined in painful detail.