MURDER victim Denis Witney had lost his father following a cancer drugs trial just over a year before his own death, it emerged last night.

Karen Witney, the 39-year-old’s mother, yesterday paid tribute to her son as she revealed the death of her husband Andy in August 2010 had left him devastated and sparked a descent into alcohol addiction.

Denis was found dying by police in St Clement’s Street, East Oxford, last Wednesday and he died in the John Radcliffe Hospital shortly afterwards. Two men have been charged with murdering him.

Mrs Witney told the Oxford Mail of the close bond between father and son and her own devastation at losing both of them in little over a year.

Talking of family holidays spent in Crete and shared Sundays spent on the football pitch, the 57-year-old said: “Denis was so much loved by his family, he was adored.

“Andy was Denis’ hero,” she said. “According to him nobody could play football like his dad could – not even the professionals.

“Like a lot of sons he really looked up to his dad.”

Despite marrying and becoming a semi-pro footballer for Thame United and a qualified electrician, his family were already aware that Denis drank too much. But it was with his dad’s diagnosis that he began to drink more heavily and his marriage fell apart.

Mrs Witney, of Lyndworth Close, Headington, who led calls for better treatment of patients involved in cancer drug trials, said: “I think he found it very hard to be around Andy and see what was happening to all of us. He didn’t come anywhere near us and he just fell more into booze. It was only when Andy was actually dying that he came, just a few days before Andy’s death.”

Despite repeated offers of help from friends and family Denis was living at recovery centre Simon House, Paradise Street, at the time of his death.

The Cheney school pupil had lived with his different family members on and off and repeatedly tried to become sober.

Mrs Witney said: “I want Denis to be seen as the human being he was, without alcohol, before the booze got him.

“He tried so hard to beat it and spent four to five months in rehab without a drink and without any drugs and that’s really hard. I’m proud of him actually.”

But a decision to have counselling “terrified” Denis and his mum wonders if the fear of confronting his darkest thoughts might have led him to seek solace in alcohol.

Speaking of her own grief, she said: “My work keeps me going, my brilliant family keeps me going, my friends keep me going and the fact that before my husband died he made me promise that I wouldn’t let his death ruin my life keeps me going.

“Since then I’m very conscious of the promise that I made and the fact that he would want me to stay strong. I just know that there’s this court case to get through, but I’m determined to remain strong for him and I just pray that there’s justice at the end of it.”