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'Samantha had so much to live for'

Monday 10 March 2008

New mum Samantha Madgin was just 18 when she became a victim of binge-drinking Britain. On her first night out after giving birth to her son Callum, she was stabbed to death by Jordan Jobson, a 15-year-old girl drunk on vodka and high on cocaine.

Everything to live for

Last week, Jobson was sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder, but that is little comfort to Samantha’s parents. “I’ll never get over it,” says her father Stan, speaking exclusively to Closer. “I didn’t even have time to pray for her – she was dead when I got to the hospital.

“The only good thing is Callum. He has no idea what’s happened, but every time I hear his laugh I think of Samantha. Sam had everything to live for and she loved that boy. When I think of what he’s going to miss out on, it’s awful.”

The brutal attack

Callum was just 10 weeks old when Samantha got caught up in a row on a night out in Wallsend, Tyneside, in August last year. She was trying to act as peacemaker after her friends got into a row with friends of Jobson. She was walking away when she was brutally attacked.

Jobson, who had downed three pints of vodka and cola, six cans of lager and snorted up to eight lines of cocaine, stabbed Samantha in the face, arms and chest.
She delivered a fatal blow that passed through Samantha’s lung and heart, before leaving her to bleed to death in an alleyway.

"It's a battleground"

She didn’t show any remorse in court,” says Stan, a publican. “She put the family through a trial, rather than admit murder, but there was no doubt in my mind. She got that knife and stabbed Samantha.”

In a statement after her arrest, Jobson blamed her actions on drink and drugs, saying: “I was drunk and I’d taken cocaine. I can’t recall how this made me feel, but it must have had some effect on me because I can’t recall how I came to attack this lass or why.”

But despite Jobson’s conviction, Stan, 43, believes that thanks to Britain’s teen drinking culture, it’s only a matter of time before another family suffers the same anguish.
He says: “If it hadn’t happened to Samantha, it would have happened to someone else in this area. It’s like a battleground because of all the drinking.

“There are eight year olds knocking back bottles of vodka, looking up to all the big villains in their massive cars. If the Government is going to tackle binge drinking, it needs to raise the legal drinking age to 21.”

Callum, who’s now 10 months old, is being brought up by Samantha’s mum, Alison, and his dad Stephen McKenzie, 26, who cares for him two nights a week. Alison, 42, who’s separated from Stan, says: “At some point, Callum will have to deal with the fact his mum was murdered. We’ll try to protect him from it as much as we can.
“I’m just so glad Samantha gave us that gift before she died. She was young, but at least we’ve got Callum. We make sure we’re never miserable around him.”

Words by Victoria Raymond