09/12/05 - Fight for dead sons
By Eden Black
Romford & Havering Post

TWO fathers whose sons were both killed in separate tragedies have joined forces and gained the backing of their MP to have the cases re-examined.

Les Balkwell and Terry Kendall have teamed up against Essex Police for the way they dealt with the deaths of Lee Balkwell and Bradley Kendall. Both cases are now being "looked after" by Hornchurch MP, James Brokenshire, after he was approached by the concerned parents, who were brought together by a shared belief that their sons deaths were not investigated thoroughly enough by the police force.

Angry that nobody has been charged with the killing of his son. Mr Kendall, 57, of Elmer Close, Rainham, said: "My son's case wasn't looked after properly. They were incompetent and it has been totally misdealt with." Mr Balkwell is enraged that his son's death has not been treated as murder.

Lee Balkwell, 33, of Jersey Road, Elm Park, was killed two weeks after starting work at Upminster Concrete in Baldwins Farm, Dennises Lane - he was found mysteriously crushed in the mechanisms of a cement-mixing lorry at 1.30am on July 18, 2002.

An inquest has yet to be heard at Basildon Coroner's Court, despite being opened and adjourned at the time. In December the same year, 30-year-old Bradley Kendall, of Church Road, Harold Wood, died after being shot at a flat in Warley.

Though defendant Lee Manning, 27, admitted the shooting, he said it was an accident, and he was never charged with the offence. Reluctant to go into details about each of the cases, for fear of jeopardising any future proceedings, Mr Brokenshire said: "I have literally got a lever-arch folder full of papers to go through which relate to further information.

I need to review this so that I can be satisfied there are further grounds to challenge or come up with a further complaint, or get the police to investigate further. I will then assess the best way to go forward in light of this. "In both cases there are fundamental differences but there are outstanding issues which have been brought to my attention."

An Essex Police spokesman said: "We are entirely satisfied these matters have been investigated as much as humanely possible."