Richard Doyle, a Down's Syndrome sufferer, was killed three-and-a-half-years ago. Today, on what would have been his 30th birthday, his father tells Sam Strangeways why he won't give up his battle to get a religious community to accept blame for Richard's death.

KEN Doyle is a man consumed by the death of his son Richard. Three-and-a-half years after the accident which killed the 26-year-old, he has lost none of the pain - or the anger - which began on the freezing December night when Richard went missing.

Each week, Ken, 63, spends hours writing to different bodies - the police, local authorities and most frequently, the Camphill Village Trust, the organisation to which he entrusted the care of his son.

He says he won't rest until Camphill acknowledges its part in the events which led to Richard being hit by a Ford Transit van and suffering multiple, fatal injuries on the A19, near Crathorne, North Yorkshire, just after midnight on December 29, 2000.

The jury at the inquest into Richard's death in 2001 returned a unanimous verdict of accidental death contributed to by neglect at Larchfield, the Camphill centre in Hemlington, Middlesbrough, where he lived.

Camphill, a Christian charity which runs therapeutic communities for disabled people all over the world, has now refused to communicate with Ken except through its solicitors.

But in August 2002, the trust's honorary secretary, Ray Johnson, wrote the following to him in a letter:

"I think the jury on the day returned with a verdict which, ultimately, was entirely understandable, but unjust.

"I was carefully studying the expressions and words of Mr Sheffield (the coroner) whilst you were 'celebrating' the verdict.

"Others involved were of the opinion that at least now, having had this 'victory', you might move on."

Ken has not moved on and today - on what would have been Richard's 30th birthday - he will travel from his home in Harrogate to stage a protest outside the Larchfield centre.

The former Army major and retired engineer doesn't really think his actions will make Camphill, a movement founded by Viennese paediatrician Dr Karl Knig and based on the teachings of Rudolph Steiner, accept any blame.

THIS demonstration is more about a grief-stricken father wanting to let the world know how much anguish he has suffered.

"I'm just hoping that people will see it and it will remind them of what happened almost four years ago," he says.

"All I really want are answers to what happened to my son on that night after he was left wandering around in the snow for five-and-a-half hours."

It's hard to imagine what was racing through Richard's mind when he fled Larchfield on the evening of December 28.

It's something Ken and his daughter Helen, a nurse, have spent hours agonising over. One thing is certain - he was heading in the direction of home.

Richard's family knew he was unhappy at Larchfield - he had run away once before - and they planned to move him to a Camphill centre closer to home.

His misery was made worse after his mother, Jean, 62, died of bowel cancer.

Ken and Helen wanted Richard, who had the mental age of an eight or nine-year-old and was still in mourning, to be home with them for Christmas.

But staff at Larchfield insisted he stay there as he had gone home the previous Christmas. That night, there was a disagreement between him and a member of staff about a games evening he didn't want to take part in. Then he was gone.

"I think Richard's thought processes would have been 'I'm still grieving over my mum, I couldn't possibly take part in a games evening'," says Ken. "I think he just decided he'd had enough of Larchfield."

Helen told the inquest that when she rang to speak to him, Richard's carer, Elisabeth Luedemann-Ravit, told her she didn't know where he was and wasn't going "chasing after him".

Tears flood into Ken's eyes when he remembers those words - they haunt both father and daughter.

"I don't for one minute think that Elisabeth anticipated the outcome," says Ken. "But I think Richard was getting more and more fed up and no-one was listening.

"His favourite saying to me about Larchfield was 'they no listen'. There was no warmth and Down's kids need warmth. There was never any physical contact."

Richard lived at home until he was 18 but Ken and Jean worried constantly about how he would cope when they died.

"The big problem is you grow older and lose the ability to look after them," says Ken. "Then if something happens to you... what happens to them? We thought we can let it happen in a panic when we die, or we can manage it."

Ken tells touchingly how Richard shared the marital bed until he was 13 - because he always needed a cuddle in the night.

But in 1992, it was decided that he needed some independence and so he moved into a Camphill centre near Wakefield, which he loved.

That centre was an educational establishment and in 1997 he moved into the working farm community at Larchfield.

"Larchfield was the wrong environment," says Ken. "Larchfield didn't seem to realise that people are different and needed to be treated differently.

"Richard could be a little bugger and he could be very stubborn. He was mischievous as hell but he had a very strong sense of right and wrong. At Larchfield he felt like an outsider."

On the night Richard went missing, Ken drove from Harrogate to Middlesbrough to search in vain for his son.

He was at a petrol station asking if anyone had seen him when his mobile phone rang and a police officer told him that a darkly-clothed figure matching his son's description had been struck by a van on the A19.

The driver who had unavoidably hit him had dialled 999 and stayed with him until paramedics arrived. Richard was rushed to intensive care at Middlesbrough General Hospital,

"When I saw him I had no idea of the extent of his injuries," says Ken. "He looked fine. Richard was lying there and he was stripped to the waist. I said 'I'd recognise that hairy body anywhere'. He clearly heard it because when I took his hand I got one little squeeze. That was the last sign of life we got from him."

Richard died, with Ken and Helen at his side, a few days later, in the early hours of January 2, 2001, when his life support machine was switched off.

"He wasn't living," says Ken. "Richard got all his fun from communicating with people. We couldn't condemn him to life as a vegetable."

Ken's wish for an acknowledgement of blame seems a forlorn hope. In July 2002, Mr Johnson wrote to Ken: "I cannot envisage how you might ever receive the style of apology you have been adamant in demanding."

The Camphill Village Trust would not answer when contacted by The Northern Echo, but issued a statement saying it had been "deeply saddened and shocked" by Richard's death.

For Ken, the fight goes on. Today's protest does not seem to be the last gasp of a battle-weary man but the start of a concerted public campaign by a father determined to get what he believes is justice.

"I think Ray Johnson's behaviour is outrageous," he says. "The idea that I have celebrated any kind of victory is deeply offensive.

"I don't think an apology would be worth getting. But the least any caring organisation could do would be to say 'hey, we did get this wrong'.

"I want Camphill to acknowledge that they have got something wrong at Larchfield and to do something about it."