THE son of murdered model Rachell Nickell has FORGIVEN the killer who butchered his mum in front of him as a baby.

Alex Hanscombe, just a month short of his third birthday, had been walking with his mum moments before she was stabbed 49 times and sexually assaulted on Wimbledon Common, South West London, in 1992.

Serial sex offender Robert Napper had lurched from the bushes and attacked Rachel, 23, before strolling off and leaving the toddler pleading for her to get up.

Unsurprisingly, Alex has been left with traumatic flashbacks ever since.

However, the 29-year-old has revealed that both he and his dad Andre, have since learnt to forgive his Rachel’s warped killer.

He told the Mirror: “Forgiveness for us is that if you don't forgive the person who caused you harm, then you become that person in time.”

Andre added: “'There is forgiveness of course.

“He [Napper] was a poor mistreated child at some time, he was in care and foster homes, and some people respond one way, and others respond in another way. That allows you to feel some kind of compassion.”

The family added that they were sick of feeling like “victims” and that forgiving the killer was a way of coming to terms with Rachel’s death.

In two exclusive interviews with The Sun last year, Alex revealed how he fought the trauma of his mum’s death throughout his childhood.

He said: “My flashbacks to the attack were being triggered at the most random times, manifesting themselves in ways the adults around me struggled to understand.

“I would remember things often.

“There was this one time we went to a swimming pool.

“I was swimming confidently, something I used to do often with my mother.

“I was playing with my father in the water when suddenly, for no apparent reason, I became deeply distressed and clamped down on him like I couldn’t hold myself up.

“My dad looked around the pool and it seems the lifeguard bore an extremely strong resemblance to the killer.

“He had the same fox-like face and same fair hair.

“Just the similarity was enough to trigger that response.”

Alex also revealed that, on the first day without his mother, he burst into tears while watching a cartoon in which a group of rhinoceroses waged war on a group of elephants.

He added: “One time I went for a walk on Hampstead Heath with my father and a friend of his.

“We were playing around and having a great time when once again, for no reason, I became deeply distressed.

“We were basically on our own.

“There was nobody around us.

“My father and his friend looked down the hill.

“More than 200 metres away, there was a stranger walking his Alsatian dog with a particular loping walk.

“My father couldn’t understand what triggered a reaction in me.

“Later it was verified by the police that witnesses who had been followed by the assailant, minutes before the attack on my mother, had described this distinctive loping walk.

“These were the kind of ways memories were being triggered.”

As he marks the release of his new book, Alex said he and Andre are closer than ever despite the rifts and obstacles they faced, which at one point caused Alex to lose respect for his dad, now 54.

He said: “My mother’s killing forced me to mature beyond my years.

“As a young child, you look up at your father as the protector of the family, a hero.

“The fact he had not been able to stop the killer that morning led to an underlying loss of respect in him as a father figure, which along with all the other tensions, reached boiling point in my teenage years.”

Alex revealed he and former tennis player Andre gradually came to terms with Rachel’s death and he was protected from the recurring reminders of that July day.

It was not until 2008, 16 years after the attack, that Napper, then 42, admitted stabbing Rachel.

The conviction for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility destroyed any continuing, misguided belief that Colin Stagg — formerly the chief and only suspect — had anything to do with the crime.

Napper, a schizophrenic, is being held for life in Broadmoor Hospital.

But police missed a series of chances to catch him before his six-year spree of sex and rape attacks was brought to a close.

Yesterday in The Sun on Sunday, Alex spoke about the harrowing moment he saw Rachel killed in front of him as they walked their family dog on the common.

Hours after losing his mum, Andre rushed from work on his motorbike to the South London hospital Alex had been taken to.

Andre defiantly said to him: “We’re going on together.

“Daddy’s here for you now.”

But that night Alex’s bad dreams started.

He said: “In the early hours the nightmares began, their unwelcome arrival marking the beginning of a repetitive pattern in our daily life together over the years to come.

“In the past, whenever I awoke, it was always my mother that I called for.”

Alex revealed his dad, who was already contemplating suicide, said: “Everyone dies some time.
“Hardly anyone dies young like Mummy.

“This was just a terrible accident.

“One day our dog Molly will be too old to run around and will just want to sleep.

“And one day she just won’t wake up any more.”

Days later, Alex said Andre picked a “dark, red rose” and put it on his grandmother’s dining table.

He told Alex they were going to place it at the spot where his mother died.

Alex said: “Taking me aside, he gently began to explain: ‘The rose’s petals will fade and fall into the earth.
“They will feed next year’s flowers in turn, and in time those new flowers will blossom.’”

Telling how he helped identify the location of his mother’s killing to his dad, Alex said: “We laid the rose on the ground together.

“We stood silently and, dry-eyed, I watched my father crying.

“Moments later he lifted me into his arms again. ‘It’s all right,’ he said reassuringly.”

With a killer on the loose and their life under the spotlight, Alex and his dad fled London for France and then Spain.

While in his teens Alex, then a yoga teacher living with his dad in Barcelona, got into trouble with the police and fell in with the wrong crowd at school.

He said: “While my father once again struggled to deal with suicidal thoughts, tensions between us had reached boiling point and the slightest spark was enough to start the fire.

“At the time I didn’t always appreciate the trials my father was going through or how difficult it had been for him, as a single parent, to raise me.”

In recent years Alex and Andre have studied yoga together and for a time lived in India.

He said: “During our roller coaster ride we have remained very close and talk about everything.”

Last year, Alex returned to the spot where his mother died, something his father has decided not to do for years.

He said neither of them wanted to visit the place where her ashes were scattered in Devon.
“My mother’s spirit and the love she gave to me is always with me.”