Darren Galsworthy - The Evil Within - Murdered by her stepbrother – the crime that shocked a nation. The heartbreaking story of Becky Watts by her father

‘That’s what happens if you don’t listen to your old man,’ I told him, making things ten times worse.

Nathan had a few cars after that. His pride and joy was a black Vauxhall Astra, which cost him £6,000. He was completely in love with it. He would spend hours polishing and tinkering with it in front of our house. And then, one blazing hot day, when he had only had it for two months, I accidentally did something I’m not proud of.

The pollen count was unusually high so my hayfever was really bad. I was driving home after doing some errands when I was suddenly blinded by a strong burst of sunshine and had a sneezing fit, both at the same time. I tried to pull onto my driveway, but instead of hitting the brake, I slammed my foot on the accelerator and smashed straight into the front of Nathan’s new car. I was mortified.

Nathan managed to get it fixed thanks to his insurance, but I wasn’t his favourite person for a while after that, and I can’t say I blamed him.

Working on cars ultimately proved a bonding experience for us, though. Nathan had been completely obsessed with them from the very first moment he got behind the wheel. I knew quite a lot about motorbike engines so I was able to get to grips with a car engine pretty quickly, and we spent a lot of time tinkering with our respective cars on Sundays. It wasn’t uncommon for us to be working on a car all day long, while Anjie brought out drinks and snacks for us. It’s those Sundays that I really cherished with Nathan. As he approached eighteen we got a lot closer. In many ways I had more in common with him than I did with Danny. Danny was such an easy kid that you never knew he was there, but he preferred hanging out with his friends to his dad. As he matured, Nathan still remained pals with Danny, and he started to make more of an effort with Becky. When I watched him, I often thought that Anjie, his nan and I had all done a good job of raising him. I looked forward to seeing what he would make of his life.

The day he turned eighteen, I knocked on his bedroom door in the morning to give him a card.

‘Happy birthday, son. I’m taking you out for a pint tonight,’ I told him.

Nathan had never drunk or done drugs as a teenager – none of our kids did, as we wouldn’t tolerate that sort of behaviour – so he looked genuinely excited to go out for his first pint.

Our first stop was The Pied Horse, my regular haunt, and as soon as we got there I ordered a pint and put it in front of him.

‘Big moment, this – your first legal drink.’ I winked at him while he took a sip. ‘Happy birthday, boy.’

We spent the next few hours playing darts and pool, just him and me. I took him to three more local pubs before we went home and he enjoyed himself immensely, but he proved to be a bit out of his depth. After about eight pints, he was completely hammered and staggering as we headed home together. We tried to keep quiet as we got in, but we almost woke the whole house as we crashed through the front door.

When I got into bed, Anjie sat up and whispered, ‘What have you done to my son, Darren?’

I laughed. ‘He did it to himself, Anj. He’ll be suffering in the morning.’

And, sure enough, I was right. I woke up bright and early and started cooking the family a fry-up, when a bleary-eyed Nathan walked down the stairs.

‘All right, boy?’ I asked him, chuckling. ‘Bit worse for wear, are we?’

‘I’m dying, Dar,’ he croaked as he slumped on the sofa.

‘I’ve got just the thing for you. This will sort you right out,’ I said, handing him a plate loaded with food.

Nathan took one look at the greasy fry-up in front of him and turned green. He looked at me in alarm, handed back the plate and bolted up the stairs to be sick. I was laughing so hard I almost dropped his breakfast on the floor. It took him three days to recover fully, and it was something I brought up during our banter for years after. I hadn’t set out to make him ill, but as far as I was concerned it was a valuable lesson for him to learn.

Even though he was officially an adult, Nathan still occasionally needed his old man to help get him out of scrapes. A few months after his eighteenth, I was driving over to pick him up in Warmley when I spotted him standing outside one of the shops, waiting for me. I was just about to toot my horn to get his attention when I saw a six-foot-tall guy suddenly grab him by the throat and push him against a nearby wall. I didn’t have to think twice: I swerved the car into the kerb and turned off the engine before sprinting across the road.

There was a girl standing nearby, screaming, ‘That’s not him! Get off him!’

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing to my son?’ I bellowed, before using all my strength to yank the guy off him and punch him hard in the jaw. He dropped to the ground and I turned to Nathan.

‘Get in the car,’ I yelled, and we legged it. The guy was bigger than both of us put together, and I didn’t want to risk finding out what he might do when he got back up again.

Once I had driven away, I turned my attention to Nathan. He was visibly shaken.

‘You all right, son?’ I asked. ‘What was all that about?’

‘No idea,’ he replied. ‘I don’t even know the guy.’

I was fuming that anyone would dare touch him when all he was doing was standing innocently in the street. As we drove back, Nathan turned to me.

‘Thanks, Dar,’ he mumbled.

‘You don’t have to thank me,’ I answered. ‘I was only defending my boy.’

That’s exactly what Nathan was to me – my boy. To him, I was the only father figure he had ever known. We’d had our ups and downs, but on the whole I thought we had a good father–son relationship. Our blended family showed time and time again that DNA meant nothing. We supported and looked out for each other no matter what.

Although we generally got on well during Nathan’s teenage years, we also locked horns sometimes. All teenagers tend to behave appallingly from time to time, and Nathan was no exception. One of these incidents occurred when his nan Margaret and granddad Christopher went away for a few days. Unbeknown to us, Nathan decided to have a huge party in their house, inviting all his friends.

Anjie received a frantic phone call from him the next day.

‘Don’t be mad, Mum, but I had a party last night and it got out of hand,’ he blurted out. ‘You have to help me put it right.’

Anjie hung up the phone and looked at me, shaking her head in despair. ‘We’re going over to my mum’s house,’ she said. ‘Grab some bin bags.’

When we got there, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was a complete bombsite. The inside doors were completely ripped off their hinges, the sofas were slashed, there were picture frames smashed on the floor and fag butts stomped into the carpet. There was the telltale stink of spilled alcohol and pools of vomit everywhere. I felt sick just looking at it. The worst thing was, Nathan’s nan was due to get home that evening.

‘We haven’t got enough time to clean all this up!’ I shouted. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

‘Please,’ he pleaded in desperation. ‘I have to fix it. Please help me.’

It was obvious that Nathan was completely bricking it, so I started to feel sorry for him and we agreed to help. Luckily, I had my toolkit in the car, so I managed to fix a few of the doors while Anjie and Nathan got to work cleaning up. We spent a whopping nine hours in that house trying to sort it all out. I smuggled away dozens of bags of damaged items and rubbish in the boot of my car. We did a pretty good job, but Nathan still had to face the music when his grandparents got home. There were too many broken items to pretend it never happened.