My son MURDERED A POLICEMAN

Elizabeth De Zoysa questions whether she is to blame for his crime

- KATHRYN KNIGHT DAILY MAIL

Pushed face first into the wall of her hallway, her hands slapped in handcuffs, Elizabeth De Zoysa could barely process what was happening. Moments earlier, still in her dressing gown, she had been clearing up breakfast dishes left by her teenage daughters before they departed for school.

Now, she and her husband were being bombarded with questions by police officers who had just stormed through their front door. Questions about their 23-year-old son Louis.

'I couldn’t process what was going on,' Elizabeth recalls.

After an agonising hour of questions, Elizabeth learnt that her eldest son had shot dead a police officer while in custody in Croydon, south London, before apparently turning the gun on himself - and was fighting for his life in hospital.

'Amidst that absolute shock was this thought about whether something in me had turned Louis into this, or put him on this path,' Elizabeth says. Questions that she has continued to wrestle with in the five tumultuous years since Louis ended the life of Sergeant Matt Ratana in September 2020.

Preventable tragedy

A popular 54-year-old New Zealander, who had served in the Met for nearly 30 years, Sergeant Ratana was just three months from retirement when he was killed.

'Nothing compares to the pain the loved ones of Sergeant Ratana have endured, I understand that,' Elizabeth says. 'But I also know that my son is not evil, and I believe things could have been done differently, which would have prevented this tragedy.'