HEARTBREAKING victim impact statements were heard in Perth District Court today prior to the sentencing of four boys convicted of the manslaughter of Mandurah man Tauri Litchfield.
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Mr Litchfield, 28, died after being assaulted and chased by a group of boys on Pinjarra Road on March 17 last year.
On Thursday morning, just hours before three of the boys were sentenced to four and a half years’ detention, and another to five and a half years, the boys were urged by Mr Litchfield’s mother, Kerry Biggs, to make a better future for themselves.
“Tauri was my dear and loving son,” Ms Biggs said.
“He was a giver to his family and friends.”
The grieving mother detailed her son’s plans for the future, which included children with his partner, Lisa Emes, and further travel.
“As a mother I am broken in a way only a mother who has lost a child knows,” she said.
“I will take this pain to my grave.”
Once a keen horserider, Ms Biggs told the court she was now unable to physically and mentally cope with everyday life without counselling and anti-depressants.
"I am drained emotionally, and struggle every day with the fact I will never see [Tauri] again,” she said.
“We can never have him back.”
While Ms Biggs told the convicted boys her son had no future, she reminded them they did.
“You have a future,” she said.
“You can make a difference; make a better future for your families, your communities and your children.”
Ms Biggs detailed her agony and anguish and told the boys they would understand what she had lost when they had children of their own.
“I will carry his heart in my heart forever,” she said.
Also heard in court was Mr Litchfield’s partner’s statement.
Ms Emes wrote that Mr Litchfield’s death had been “completely overwhelming”.
The couple had only relocated to Mandurah three months before the horrific attack which claimed her partner’s life.
“With Tauri by my side I had everything,” Ms Emes wrote.
“I lost the half of me I loved.”
Ms Emes described holding Mr Litchfield’s hand in hospital and “screaming at him to wake up”.
She described an “unbelievable sadness” in her heart, and said she felt she had lost her whole world.
Ms Emes was not in court to hear the boys’ sentence, but members of Mr Litchfield’s family were in attendance.
They made no comment as they left the court precinct.
