The pain of losing her son so brutally and sitting through the trial of the monster who murdered him is etched across Sally Devlin’s face.

Since the day Simon Gorecki was stabbed to death on a Canterbury housing estate in March, her life was changed forever.

Her grief - still as raw seven months on - is one no mother should feel, but has been intensified by the picture painted of her son by his killer’s defence team.

Scroll down for video

Foster Christian, who smirked as he was jailed for life last week, had claimed Simon had racially abused him before attacking him with a knife during a drunken row over a shower,

But a jury saw through his vicious lies, agreeing that Christian had armed himself with a knife, stabbing Simon four times in the back and leaving him for dead at the house they shared in Dickens Avenue.

In the horrific attack, Christian also knifed Natasha Sadler-Ellis to death and stabbed her 20-year-old son Connaugh and a 16-year-old boy.

Christian, 54, denied all charges and pleaded self defence, forcing the victims’ families to sit through a three-week trial at Maidstone Crown Court.

VIDEO: Simon Gorecki in his prime, enjoying life as a fishmonger.

It was an experience Sally says has hurt her family terribly.

“Simon was painted by the defence as being a racist, drunken, violent man and that was completely untrue,” she said in an exclusive interview.

“I need to redress that balance, not just for Simon but for his siblings - Adam, Rory, Elizabeth and Alice. This has hurt them terribly.

“Simon was a fun, caring, kind, compassionate and very ethical man. To listen to him painted in that way was dreadful.”

Just 47 when he died, Simon was a passionate West Ham fan who grew up in London but later moved to Canterbury, where he earned the nickname Simon the Fish while working as a fishmonger at the Goods Shed.

He was living in a communal house with Christian at the time of the murders.

Throughout his trial, mechanic Christian showed little remorse for his dreadful crimes - laughing, smirking and even gesturing with his middle finger when sentenced.

“Christian didn’t have one scrap of remorse,” Sally said.

“Throughout most of the trial I chose to sit to the side because he was in the dock which had solid sides.

“I did that so he couldn’t see me and I couldn’t see him.

“But I know that he was doing horrible things. That’s why I went to sit there, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“But when he came back from his little stint, through the dock, he walked past by me so close it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.”

Christian was jailed for life with a minimum tariff of 30 years, meaning he will be 84 before he is even considered for parole.

“He got what he deserved,” Sally said.

“And I’m really happy that he is probably never going to come out of prison.

“He will never be able to hurt anybody again, except someone in prison. He might well hurt one of them, or they might well hurt him, but that’s his life now.”

Sally also saves scorn for two women convicted of helping Christian after the murders.

Naomi Toro, 36, arrived at the house in the moments after, taking the blood-stained knife and giving it to 19-year-old Samantha Groombridge to hide.

Toro - who was jailed for a year - later retrieved the weapon, dumping it in the River Stour, from where police recovered it.

“I was concerned because I felt that if she hadn’t taken the knife away the defence wouldn’t have been quite so free to put Simon on trial in the way that they did,” Sally said.

“The fact that she must have stepped over Simon and Natasha twice is a reason I don’t think her sentence did reflect what she actually did, which was awful.”

Groombridge was sentenced to 10 weeks in youth custody for the part she played in helping Christian.

Before the sentencing, Sally - who is in her late 60s and lives in Ashford, Surrey - told the court of the lasting effects Simon’s murder has had on her.

“Simon did not die instantly,” she said. “He lived for some minutes but he knew he was dying. I always used to think I would know if one of my children died. I would feel it because they were a part of me.

“My new world is a dangerous and frightening place.”