“I met Albie in 2014 when we started working together. We got on so well from the start and we had loads in common – we both had a similar upbringing – single parent family, we both played football and liked going to the gym. We both moved out and got our own flats at the same time and we’d meet up once a month, even when we weren’t working together anymore and we’d speak all the time.
“Just before Christmas last year and we had arranged to meet up. He was coming round to mine first and he hadn’t been answering his phone all day but I just assumed he was busy. So it got to the evening, I got ready, and he just never showed up. It got to New Year and I still hadn’t heard from him. I tried to ring his girlfriend but she wasn’t answering either. Neither of us had social media – another thing we had in common that’s quite unusual for people our age – so I couldn’t just check on there. I even tried emailing him but I didn’t get any reply. I went to his flat a few weeks later and no one was in. It got to March and I decided to google him and see if I could find a Facebook account or something I could contact him on. And that’s when I found out online in a newspaper article that he’d been stabbed on 16th December. It was one of the worst ways ever to find out and I had missed his funeral and everything.
“I wanted to do something to raise money for anyone going through something similar – I still see Albie’s Mum and I can see how much they are suffering still. That’s when I decided to do the sky dive and raise money for Victim Support. My target was £500 and I manged to raise £530 so far. The sky dive was amazing – the best thing I’ve ever done – especially for such a good cause!”
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