In David Richardson’s final letter to his mother, he described how much he was looking forward to seeing his two children.

“How my little (beauties) doing. I don’t half miss them...I can’t wait for this Christmas. We’re gonna have a good’en.”

The prisoner and his mother, Maureen, had a plan for Christmas Eve.

“I was getting him a Santa suit,” she says. “He was going to come to my house on Christmas Eve, and then see his children to surprise them with presents.”

But on December 22nd 2016 - just two days before he planned to play Father Christmas to his kids, David was killed.

He met his death on the motorway. He walked up the M602 at Eccles, at night, and then on an unlit stretch of the M60 at Junction 12, Worsley, where he was hit by a car.

His death came after a Spice addiction which he had developed in prison. An addiction he would starve and degrade himself to feed.

But, despite the fact David was caught using Spice two dozen times in jail, he was released early from a four-year sentence, still in the grip of the drug.

The last time David was caught using Spice was in October 2016. But weeks later he was freed - despite having been told - six months earlier - that release would come on condition of him being drug-free.

His inquest heard evidence from the probation service that ‘it was agreed that if he could remain drug free for 2 months...consideration would be given’ to release on licence.

However, David was freed in November - weeks after the last time he was caught. Just over a month after that early release, David was dead.

A year-and-a-half on, Maureen is adamant that her son was too dependent on Spice and other drugs to be released from prison, and cannot understand how the authorities thought he was fit for release.

While a pupil at St John Fisher Primary in Woodhouse Park, and then St Paul’s RC High in Wythenshawe, David got his nickname - ‘Milky’ due to his likeness, as a blond lad with round glasses, to The Milky Bar Kid in the chocolate TV advert.

It was a name which stuck with him for life, until it ended, aged 36. It was even used on the order of service for his funeral.

Maureen is the first to admit that for much of his adult life, her son was no angel.

His transformation from the innocent, well dressed boy, shown in his picture for his confirmation into the Roman Catholic church, to a drug-dependent, disturbed young man was tragically swift.

His drug use began at the age of 16, smoking cannabis. But by his early 20s he was using heroin. To finance his habit he turned to theft, picking up more than 20 convictions.

But it was Spice - the drug notorious for its dramatic effect on vulnerable users - that took him to his lowest ebb.

“I saw him in prison and I was really worried about him as he was so thin,” Maureen says.

“I found out he was selling his dinners in prison and his food to get Spice.

“He had to take ‘slaps’ - which is where he gets beaten up by other prisoners and then the assault gets put on Youtube. Your reward is you get Spice.

“He was receiving threats at one point while in prison. Some drugs were dropped in the exercise yard by a drone. David picked them up and was supposed to be looking after them for somebody in his cell.

“But, being David, it was like putting a kid in a sweet shop. He took all that Spice himself and ended up owing a drug dealer over £1000.”

At his inquest, Maureen learnt that between April 2014 and October 2016, David was caught using Spice 24 times in prison.

“The 24 times were only the times he was caught using it. I think he was using it daily,” Maureen says.

Spice was designed as a synthetic alternative to cannabis. But its effects are much more dramatic than the drug it was designed to mimic.

Leaving users in zombie-like catatonic states and triggering psychotic episodes, users have said it is stronger than heroin and crack cocaine. It gained popularity with vulnerable populations - the homeless and prison inmates - in the last five years, and for a period could be legally bought in shops.

By the time it was outlawed in spring 2016, many were hooked.

For someone like David - who was diagnosed in 2009 with depression, pyschosis, and schizophrenia - being introduced to Spice was disastrous.

He had shown himself to be capable of beating drugs before - but each time would be pulled back in by bad company.

“In his mid twenties I got him to move up to near me in Bolton,” Maureen says. “We got him a little job, because I live near a village and he worked in a pound shop. He loved that job and stopped using hard drugs.

“But then he moved back to Wythenshawe and started taking crack cocaine. I used to see him periodically and didn’t realise how bad he had gone.”

It was that cocaine addiction that led to David committing robbery and being jailed for four years. But in prison he got no chance to get clean, because Spice was readily available.

Following his release from HMP Risley in Warrington, the deterioration in David’s mental health and the extent of his drug problem was apparent.

In the days before his death he was staying at St Joseph’s Approved Premises - a bail hostel in Eccles which has an on-site mental health support unit.

On December 9th, less than two weeks before his death, he tested positive for cocaine, and on December 14th - eight days before his death, he was issued with a formal warning with regard to the failed test, late returns to the hostel, and suspicions he had been under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

On the day before he died, David was seen on the landing of the hostel ‘gesticulating, moving his arms and legs, distracting himself from the voices he could hear in his head’, his mother learnt.

And, on morning of the day he died, David admitted to hostel staff that he had taken diazepam which was not prescribed to him - breaching the conditions of his licence.

Maureen said: “That day, in my opinion, they should have phoned an ambulance with a view to him being sectioned for his own safety. It was known that diazepam had been a trigger for his offending in the past.”

In the early evening of December 22, David left the hostel by climbing along the rear wall.

He was seen on the M602, where cars dodged him. GMP’s helicopter was scrambled to look for him. But at about 7.40pm he was struck by a car.

An inquest was told it was unclear why David was on the motorway. But his mum has her own theory.

“He had lost his phone and was later informed it had been handed in and was with Metrolink in Trafford. David didn’t know Trafford. All he would have thought was Trafford Centre and headed in that direction. That’s why I think he ended up on that part of the motorway,” she says.

“I think he was released from prison far too soon. He was told by his probation officer at the time that he had to be clean before they would even consider releasing him. Yet his last offence for taking Spice while in prison was in the October - yet he was released in the November.”

A jury inquest into David’s death heard that by the afternoon of David’s death, the process to recall him to prison was underway. That knowledge may have affected his decision-making, the jury in his inquest heard - although clearly, it was not enough to save him.

The cocktail of prescribed and non prescribed drugs found in David’s system ‘probably contributed to his death’ but did not cause it, the jury heard.

“It is probable the combination had an effect on his judgement, awareness and perception of danger”, the jury said.

They decided it was impossible to comment on why David was on the motorway, but concluded the accident was ‘unavoidable’, due the the ‘level of darkness..no street lighting due to roadworks, no gantry signs...and Mr Richardson’s dark, non reflective clothing.’

No blame was found against the prison or probation service at the inquest.

Despite this, solictors acting for David’s family looked into the possibility of taking legal action in respect of a claim for damages under the Human Rights Act.

But last month, they were informed that a barrister acting for the family had concluded the claim ‘fell at the first hurdle’ as there was no evidence to suggest there was a real and immediate risk to David’s life.

His mother begs to differ.

“In my opinion the whole system let David down”, she says. “I don’t think the care was put in that should have been. David was definitely no saint, but he was my son.”

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