A GRIEVING Herefordshire mother - devastated at being unable to say a last goodbye to her murdered son - is determined other families are spared her anguish.

When Yvonne Hart's eldest son Richard Collins, was stabbed in the southern Thai town of Krabi on March 8 last year, her instant reaction was that he must come home.

"I knew that his body would have to be embalmed, I expected that, but I believed I would see him and know that he was dead," she says.

What Yvonne could not have imagined was that she would never get that chance.

"I was told I couldn't see him because his body had decomposed," she explains. "How could that have happened?

"It was as bad as knowing he was dead, not being able to see him," she says.

How it could have happened is a question that Yvonne and her second son Anthony have continued to ask for the past year, though it's one to which she recognises she will never receive a satisfactory answer.

Hereford MP Paul Keetch has added his support,asking questions in the House of Commons and as a member of the foreign affairs select committee about Foreign Office policy regarding the deaths of British nationals overseas.

"What happened to Yvonne's son's body should not happen to anyone else," said Mr Keetch. "I called for standard procedures to be put in place, which they now have been.

"But there is only so much we can do. The simple truth is that the British government can only suggest and encourage a foreign government. There is no way we can influence their judicial system. We have both hands tied behind our backs

"I have no power to do anything other than put pressure on and ensure consular officials are keeping a much closer eye on what is going on than they might otherwise have done."

When Yvonne read of the speed with which the body of Katherine Horton, who was raped and murdered in Koh Samui on New Year's Day, was repatriated and the trial expedited, she was moved to write yet again to the Foreign Office to ask if FO policy had been changed following the distress she and her family had experienced when Richard was murdered.

"Lessons were undoubtedly learned," says Paul Keetch.

While not admitting that mistakes were made following Richard Collins' murder, the Foreign Office has written to Yvonne saying: "Although we are not aware of any need to change our general policy following Richard's murder, we have set up a working group on aftercare issues, which will continually review the way we deal with deaths overseas".

Yvonne was given the news of Richard's death on March 8, two days after she last spoke to him, by one of his friends

"The phone rang just after I got in from work and a voice asked if I was Mrs Collins.

"I knew what was coming just as I had when the police knocked on my door to tell me Richard's father had died in May, 1971.

Yvonne knows it is unlikely she will ever be sure exactly how Rich met his death, but she does know the kind of man her son was.

Uthain Duangnoi, the taxi driver who stabbed Richard has admitted the offence, but claims he was acting in self-defence.

"Rich was a talker, not aggressive at all. He was a very quietly spoken, gentle person," she says.

"He was a great reader, reading almost as widely as he travelled. He was always telling me I should read books to expand my mind. Henry Thoreau was a great favourite of his, and wherever he was you'd see him with his copy of The Times tucked under his arm.

"Nobody who knew him can believe he would have attacked anyone. Some of his friends called him the whispering Welshman, which was a joke really as he was an Englishman."

The last time Yvonne spoke to Richard was on Mother's Day last year when he rang unexpectedly after someone from England told him what day it was.

"I still can't believe it was the last time I would ever speak to him," she says.

The trial is not scheduled to start until December this year, 20 months after Richard's death.

The family has had to appoint a Thai lawyer to represent them as co-plaintiffs at the trial. Without legal representation they would have no access to the proceedings and no opportunity to ask the questions they have about the circumstances of Richard's death.

Ironically, it is Rich's money that has enabled Yvonne to pay for this.

Closure is a word that Yvonne dislikes. "There is no closure," she says. "I will never get over his death. I know that in years to come I will get along because I have to. Rich would be angry with me if I gave up.

"The only thing I can do now for Richard is to get the Foreign Office to see that they must have compassion. I would hate anybody else to go through what we have."

"As a parent you always believe you should be able to save your children from death. When you can't, it diminishes you as a person."