Liam Hendry's parents pay tribute to kind, popular son who was murdered near Celtic Park

From his Celtic posters to a clock made by his paternal grandpa that proudly hangs on the wall, to the holes made in a dartboard and the photos of friends on the wall.

The room is now a memorial to the 18-year-old and a place where his parents, William and Margaret, can go to seek comfort.

After Liam's senseless murder in September 2019, friends began visiting the house bringing gifts and photographs and the room is now full of these, a testament to what a popular young man he was.

William and Margaret sat through every day of the trial of Liam's two alleged killers, praised by the judge for their "quiet dignity".

Now they want to talk about their boy - and there is a lot to say.

When the proud parents open up about Liam the stories coming flooding out, and it is obvious that this was a very special young man.

"He got on with everybody," his dad says.

"He was funny - you could get a laugh with him. He kept me young.

"He would come in from work and even if he had had a crap day he would have a big smile on his face, so you never knew if he'd had a crap day or not."

Margaret and William have shared with the Glasgow Times the very last photograph of Liam taken on the night before he died.

In it, he is roaring with laughter as a smile creases his face.

Liam on the night he died

As Margaret, 53, talks about her youngest boy, she plays a video of him as a child performing in St Anne's Primary School choir.

Singing was only one of Liam's talents.

Liam, from Barrowfield, near Celtic Park, was big hearted with his friends but also generous with his time in other ways.

At St Mungo's Secondary he was an Anne Frank Ambassador, a scheme training young people to spread the Holocaust victim's story and share a message of social justice.

A promising young goalkeeper, he played football with Albion Rovers and at the Jimmy Johnstone Academy.

He also took part in his school's sport leadership programme, helping young people with disabilities.

Liam winning a trophy

While he might have given up formal singing, he was the life and soul of the party.

Margaret said she thought he had stopped singing and dancing altogether but after her son's death friends sent video clips of Liam dancing at parties and lighting up the room.

In fifth year of school he took on a part time job in the Sauchiehall Street branch of McDonald's.

When that was closed due to the fire at the Glasgow School of Art, Liam moved to the restaurant at The Forge.

He had lots of female friends and was renowned for supporting them through hard times and heart break.

One of his close friends had a baby boy last year and gave him the middle name Liam. A photograph of his namesake hangs above the little one's cot.

His parents say Liam was naturally drawn to helping people from a young age.

When he was little he earned the nickname Rocky after trying to defend a woman he saw in an argument with a man in the street.

Outraged, he jumped on the man's back and told him to leave the woman alone.

His big heartedness sometimes landed him in big trouble.

When Liam was in first year at St Mungo's Academy - where younger pupils were not allowed out of the playground - his little cousin was in P1. One day she came home from school and announced she had seen Liam that day.

To her aunt Margaret's confusion, she said: "He gave me a chip." The family couldn't work out what was going on... until they learned Liam had scaled the fence and escaped to the chippie.

On his return to school he had made a detour to share his chips.

Liam at school

William, 58, and Margaret got together in 1998. Margaret was mum to Paul and William to Marc.

Margaret said: "Liam was our only child together. So we had him to bond those two and bring them closer together.

"I think that kills them too, the two boys."

The couple was together for 10 years before they married and their three boys were all best men at the wedding.

Of course, Liam stole the show in his kilt and was allowed to 'sign the register'. He had everyone in stitches when he asked the registrar for a rubber because he'd made a mistake.

Liam at his parent's wedding

When Margaret was in her 39th week of pregnancy with her younger son she developed a blood clot on her lung.

Doctors wanted to carry out an emergency Caesarian section but they were worried the procedure would cause more clots.

Against the odds, both Margaret and Liam survived the ordeal and once her son was safely delivered, a doctor shook the new mum's hand to congratulate her on making it through.

She said: "I fought and fought to keep him alive.

"The doctor shook my hand after it and said, 'You are one lucky woman to be sitting there.'

"I've also had E-coli and encephalitis.

"I haven't had an easy time and then this happens to my son. I should have been on the other side waiting on him, not this way round."

Liam as a wee boy

Liam's two older brothers absolutely doted on him. Marc and Paul, both 33, were teenagers when Liam was born and adored their baby brother.

William said: "The two boys spoiled him.

"Liam was just getting to the age that they could have gone out for a pint together.

"And that really kills them, that they never got this bit."

Liam had left school and started an apprenticeship with Enigma Services eight months before he died.

The weekend of his murder he had plans to go and buy a set of tools, looking forward to a future in the job that was never to come.

On the morning of the killing, around 6am, Margaret and William were woken by their niece.

William said: "I knew by her voice. The way she was screaming.

"She said there's a fight so I thought Liam had been set about with something. So I said to myself, 'Get him up the hospital, get him fixed up and he'll be alright.

"But as soon as I got to him, the first amount of blood I seen, I knew."

While William's instinct was to run to Liam, Margaret held back.

She said: "I hesitated. There was something in me that knew this is bad.

"We've got three boys and we've never had anybody saying they've been hurt.

"We've never had the police at the door and that's unusual for three boys."

After Dean Wright struck Liam with the van and tried to flee the scene, he was attacked by outraged onlookers.

As Margaret ran past Wright lying on the pavement, Robert Farrell asked her to phone an ambulance for her son's killer.

She said: "On the corner there, that's where Dean Wright was lying and I looked down and that Robert Farrell asked me to get an ambulance.

"Little did I know he had just murdered my son."

Margaret said she knew immediately that her beloved boy was dead.

Liam had just started work

"By the time I got there and looked at Liam I knew he was away. I could tell by his eyes.

"Even though they were working on him I knew he was away."

William said: "People say if you see your son lying there you'd be screaming, but my mind just went.

"I didn't know what to do. I couldn't believe what I was looking at.

"I had said to him the night before, 'Watch yourself'. I said that to him every night when he went out.

"'Nae bother da,' he would say.

"His eyes were wide open. I tried CPR but I was looking at him and I touched his eye and there was not a flicker. I knew he was away."

The couple said that neighbours were coming out of their houses and people were shouting to them the names of those involved.

But when police spoke to the family, they said few people were coming forward.

Margaret knew that she would have to help get justice for her son. She knew one of the women who had witnessed Liam's murder and went to plead with her, mother to mother.

She said: "It just kills me that hardly anybody came forward.

"I knew that if this had happened to his friend, Liam Hendry would have been right out the door and away to the police station.

"He would have said, 'No way is this happening to my friend and I'm not saying anything.'

"For the kind of boy I had, and them not to come forward..."

Margaret added: "CID told me that night Liam saved a lot of lives because he walked round and they hit him instead.

"That sickens me towards the people who didn't come forward."

Liam at his home

Friends, neighbours and local businesses collected money for Liam's funeral and his friend Jade set up a Go Fund Me page.

Margaret said: "In our community here, they've always done it, they go round the doors gathering for anybody who dies.

"But there was pubs too, that had a night for him. I couldn't believe how kind people were."

Two men were accused of Liam's murder, Dean Wright and Robert Farrell.

Farrell walked free from court but Wright was found guilty of murder and attempted murder of four others and sentenced to 22 years in prison.

During the trial the High Court was shown CCTV footage of the incident.

Margaret said: "I think [Wright] got a thrill out of watching it. He was leaning forward when any normal person would have sat with their head down."

William added: "If it was Liam sitting in that dock I wouldn't have sat there. I would have walked out and given the family a bit of respect."

William describes what happened to his son as "pure senseless".

"It was for nothing," Margaret adds. "It was the disregard to life for me. He's not got a soul. He doesn't care.

"It's not a human that does that to a young boy, that's a monster."

The couple has looked to support groups for help but, nearly two years on, their grief is still incredibly raw.

Judge Lord Arthurson said the family had been sentenced to a lifetime of grief and it is plain that the damage inflicted on this family is immeasurable.

"Sometimes it feels like it's not real," William said. "I don't know whether my brain's not wanting to accept it.

"A lot of the times I don't even feel anything."

"You have to hold yourself back a bit," Margaret adds, "Because I feel that if you don't hold yourself back then you're going to go over the edge.

"I was scared to do that so I think a bit of you tries to protect yourself. Because how do you live with it? You either try and live now without him or you kill yourself. Those are your only two options.

"I've got to get out of bed because I've got another two sons as well."

William has been off work for 16 months from his job at the McVitie's factory and says his bosses have been great.

He will return to work soon but any kind of normalcy is still tough for the couple.

Margaret said: "When you've lost somebody to murder things you've thought were important in life are irrelevant."

"They say time heals," William added. "But this is... you can't even explain it. You are not supposed to lower your child into the ground."

Anniversaries are particularly hard. Liam has now missed two birthdays.

For one of those his friends held a balloon release but William and Margaret found it too hard to handle, with the pain of seeing his friends moving forward with their lives.

The couple hopes to move away from Barrowfield but they are torn about leaving Liam's bedroom behind.

In the garden, too, are tributes to their son along the fence, letting anyone passing by know about Liam's life.

"Sometimes," Margaret adds, "I'll go up and lie on the bed just to be close to him.

"That's as close as we can get now. We miss him every minute.

"He was some boy."