Video by Nottinghamshire Police/SWNS
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00:00 Did he know he was going to die? Was he suffering? How long did it take?
00:05 All those things just torture you forever to know that you couldn't do anything to save your child.
00:12 You spend your whole life protecting them, guiding them, being there for them the minute they needed you the most.
00:20 You just couldn't do anything.
00:24 Danny, when he was doing something he loved, he just wanted to make the most of absolutely everything
00:30 and just lived his life to the full and just enjoyed himself.
00:35 He was just a very happy-go-lucky.
00:38 You know, worked at McDonald's when he was home from university.
00:43 University lad, loved life, loved going out with his friends on the weekend
00:48 and he loved his music festivals so this is why he was always trying to get abroad
00:54 and this was just another one that he was going to in Belgium.
00:57 He was just the most laid-back person that you could ever meet.
01:02 So the first thing we knew it was Wednesday evening, we'd just had dinner and the police arrived at the door
01:09 and started asking lots of questions.
01:13 We got Danny's student union card asking us if that was Danny's card, was he in Amsterdam,
01:19 was this a photograph of his tattoo.
01:22 We said yeah and they just kept asking question after question and I can remember in the end just saying,
01:27 "Is he dead?" and they said, "Yeah, Danny's dead."
01:30 We were told that Danny had been robbed and that's when he spoke to his murderer
01:37 and he was sort of telling him, "Come this way, come this way."
01:40 So we presumed he was taking him, well telling him he was taking him back to his hotel.
01:44 They were walking along, they were laughing, fist-pumping, getting along great.
01:49 Danny tried to leave a few times and he kept beckoning him back and saying,
01:55 "Come this way" and then just walking along and then suddenly just pulled out a knife and started stabbing him.
02:01 There were no crosswords, no fight, no arguments, nothing, just randomly pulled it out of his bag.
02:07 I mean standing where it happened, you can't even imagine that your feet are stood where his feet were,
02:14 where he was being literally murdered, like you just cannot even fathom that.
02:19 I mean looking down the steps where his body was thrown by the murderer, just kicked down some steps,
02:26 it was crisp back, it was rubbish, cigarettes, just thinking that your brother was lying there dead for nearly an hour
02:34 and nobody noticed, he was just there covered in his own blood.
02:39 Somebody that you'd loved for your entire life and spent every day with,
02:44 and that somebody just threw him away like he was completely nothing.
02:48 As a family as well, you just always got that one person missing, it's never ever going to be the same,
02:54 nothing's ever going to feel the same and the tiny little things that you would get to enjoy in life,
03:01 that you should be able to enjoy, it's just a million times worse.
03:05 We haven't just lost a brother, we've lost ourselves as well.
03:09 I think what people don't realise is that your happiest times turn into your worst times
03:14 because we've not celebrated Christmas since, we've not done presents on Christmas morning,
03:20 we've sat in the house by ourselves on Christmas day.
03:23 You dread birthdays, you dread Christmas, you avoid holidays because it's just too painful
03:30 and I think the longer it goes on, it gets harder because people think you're going to be recovering
03:36 and you're going to feel okay and you don't, you just feel worse because reality hits more,
03:43 you realise you're never going to see him again.
03:46 And so I think the longer it goes on, the harder it gets and I think you don't want people to forget him,
03:53 you don't want him to be a memory.
03:56 So I think the harder it gets, the harder the time goes on, whereas people think it will get easier, it doesn't.
04:03 [Music]