CHRIS Cave was killed because he was a good man who lived in the wrong place.

A place described in court as where too many young men binge on drink and drugs, terrorising the good people on the estate, and where young adults trying to make a life for themselves are given flats, only for bored bullies to attempt to turn them into drug dens.

A place where someone thoroughly decent like 17-year-old Chris can be stabbed through the heart, simply for turning away a virtual stranger - a drug-using, drunken stranger - from his friend's door in the small hours of the morning.

The gang that once marauded through The Lakes Estate in Redcar, east Cleveland, are a lot quieter now, according to Chris's mother, Theresa.

That may be because wild, immature, drug and drink binger Sean Matson is no longer among them.

It may also be because of the shame of what happened to Chris.

Even so, three-year-old Thomas, Chris's brother, has told his mother and grandmother, Betty, he does not want to grow up on the estate, because "the man will kill him".

Mrs Cave is trying to leave The Lakes to protect Thomas - but also to start a new life for herself, away from the memory of finding her son dead 20 yards from her home in Burnmoor Close.

She remembers being woken that night in June, rushing outside and finding what she describes as "a circus" on the green in front of the home of Danny Armstrong, Chris's friend.

"I screamed through the line of bobbies, shouting that I was his mother," she says.

"I was expecting to find Chris upstairs with a bandage on his head. But as I started through the door I saw Chris on the stairs staring at me, no shirt on, a wound in his heart. I screamed to the ambulancemen, 'he's dead, he's dead.' I knew straight away. He was looking right at me, as if to say, 'Mam, look'."

She says she hopes the image of her dead son will live with Matson for the rest of his life, as it will with her.

Shortly after Chris's body was taken to Middlesbrough General Hospital, she was led to his hospital room.

At her insistence, a Catholic priest was summoned from nearby Sacred Heart Church to administer the last rites.

She then unzipped her son from his body bag and hugged him, inadvertently feeling the wounds made by the kitchen knife that killed him.

She felt as if she was in a nightmare - a nightmare she is still struggling to wake from.

She is not alone in mourning the loss of Chris, whose girlfriend, Louise Rigby, 18, is carrying his unborn child.

There are local pensioners, who remember him for cooking and serving them a Christmas meal while he was still at school.

Then there's his friends at youth group Connexions, in Stockton, who remember him trying to help the homeless.

His teachers at Sacred Heart RC School remember him as a thoroughly decent young man who was never in any serious trouble.

His bosses at his first job, selling Sky TV aerials, were so impressed with him, they sent £1,000 towards his funeral.

Not that Chris was an angel.

"He was a terror for the girls," his mother laughs. "He had them queuing up! It got him into trouble sometimes."

Mrs Cave has written many poems and words about the tragedy in her life.

Psychiatrist Catherine Crawford hopes to use many of them in a special book to help others deal with grief.

One poem is addressed to God and signed 'A Mother'. It says: "I know he'll be so frightened, so lost and so alone, please could you send an angel, to guide my baby home."