FOR the family of John Gibbings, killed by paranoid schizophrenic Steven Price, the court case into the triple killings has left more questions than answers.

The Gibbings family have had the hardest five months of their lives. John Gibbings was a popular man, a devoted father of five and much-loved son and brother.

In April, along with two friends, he was the victim of triple killer and paranoid schizophrenic Steven John Price.

His sudden death tore his family apart, and they have since found it hard to deal with the after-effects of the tragedy.

His friends, Emma Proctor, 25, and Martin Connop, 31, were also killed when Price drove a 4x4 vehicle at them.

In June Mr Gibbings' twin boys, Alex and Sam, were six. In July his eldest son, Jason, celebrated his 18th birthday.

Last month the family came together to commemorate Mr Gibbings on what would have been his 38th birthday.

But for his parents, John and Marilyn, the toughest test came last week when their son's killer was sentenced to an indefinite spell in a mental hospital after admitting three charges of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

John Gibbings senior, 66, of Broadway, Pontypool, said the sentence had only made things worse.

"We were finding the whole ordeal easier to cope with as the months went on - until this court case. Now things are worse than ever.

"The whole outcome is not what we expected," he said. "We don't feel as if all this is over. With the verdict we don't know if we can have any closure on the matter.

"When the judge said 'indefinitely' what does that mean exactly? They say it's going to be a very long time before he is out, but how do we know that? "We would like to have seen the judge put a minimum sentence on him so at least we can know he's not going to be out before a specific date.

"I would hate to think that in just a few years he is out on the street again." Yesterday we exclusively revealed calls for a public inquiry into the case by Michael Howlett, director of respected mental health pressure group the Zito Trust.

John Gibbings' distraught family say they strongly back the calls. "We would definitely call for a public inquiry," said Mrs Gibbings, 63. "I think all the families need to know what went wrong."

Mr Gibbings added: "We heard that Price was told he needed treatment some time ago.

"That fact alone is bad enough. If he'd had treatment this tragedy may never have happened. Something preventative should have been done and an inquiry could get to the bottom of that."