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 the breakfast dishes left by her teenage daughters before they departed for school.
Now, she and her husband – also in handcuffs – were being bombarded with questions by police officers who had just stormed through their front door. Questions about their 23-year-old son Louis. Did he have any medical conditions? Where did he work? When was the last time they had seen him?
‘I couldn’t process what was going on,’ Elizabeth recalls now. ‘I couldn’t conceive of what Louis might have done – and not in a million years could I have guessed.’
For the devastating truth, which Elizabeth only learned after an agonising hour of questions, was 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.
So many desperate questions have been triggered by the events of that day. But for Elizabeth, one stood out the most. ‘Amidst that absolute shock was this thought about whether something in me had turned Louis into this, or put him on this path?’ she says now.
‘Right from the beginning there was this terrible guilt that I didn’t do enough for him.’
They are questions she has continued to wrestle with in the five tumultuous years since learning that Louis, who is autistic and now in prison for the rest of his life, had ended the life of Sergeant Matt Ratana in September 2020.
Elizabeth De Zoysa, mother of convicted murderer Louis, reveals: ‘Right from the beginning there was this terrible guilt that I didn’t do enough for him’
Louis De Zoysa was found guilty of the murder of Sergeant Matt Ratana who he shot dead while handcuffed in a police cell
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.
His loss was shattering to his family and long-standing partner.
Anyone who has seen Netflix drama Adolescence – in which a 13-year-old boy kills a fellow pupil – will recognise the devastation that a killer’s actions wreak on their own family, too. Yet in real life, Elizabeth knows that people are far less sympathetic towards the mother of a murderer.
‘Nothing compares to the pain the loved ones of Sergeant Ratana have endured, I understand that,’ she tells me. ‘I am not asking for sympathy. 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.
‘Our world is filled with ‘if onlys’, and if speaking out sheds some light on those and helps others avoid our agony then it is worth it.’
Though some have stood by her, Elizabeth has lost friends since all this unfolded. ‘One friend in particular I just never heard from again since this happened,’ she says. ‘I have seen others avoid me, and some friends I avoid in turn as I feel they might be judgmental.’
Elizabeth, a 60-year-old translator, has been married for nearly 30 years to yoga instructor Channa. They live in south-west London, where they raised their five children – Louis, now 28, has two brothers and two sisters, aged between 17 and 26.
Louis was Elizabeth’s first-born, a handsome boy who seemed different from the rumbunctious sons of friends. ‘He could very happily entertain himself just lining up screws or nuts and bolts, helping me with little jobs around the house for hours,’ she says. ‘He seemed happy in his own little world, although he was very affectionate too.’
Sergeant Matt Ratana, a popular 54-year-old New Zealander who had served in the Met for nearly 30 years, was just three months from retirement when he was killed. He is pictured with his wife
Elizabeth with Louis as a young boy. Louis, who was clearly bright, struggled to make friends and his parents were often called in to be told he had hit another child. He was diagnosed with autism when he turned 14
Once at primary school, Louis, who was clearly bright, struggled to make friends and his parents were often called in to be told he had hit another child.
‘Later I found out through research that this happens so much to autistic children,’ says Elizabeth. ‘He’d been provoked, and responded, but he wasn’t able to give that account.
‘Now, looking back, I feel a lot of guilt. I struggled with the idea of him being different, and worried about the stigma. Did that stop me fighting as hard as I should for support for him?’
Louis did not receive a formal diagnosis of autism until he was 14, though it made little difference at school. ‘He really didn’t get help at any point,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We had a meeting with the headteacher who was just very defensive.’
Happily, Louis excelled academically, winning a place at University College London to study mechanical engineering, although he carried on living at home. ‘Looking back, I think that’s when things started to unravel for him – although I didn’t know it at the time,’ says Elizabeth quietly. ‘I think being out in the world having to deal with his autism as an adult was much harder for him. He definitely withdrew and it was difficult for me to get him to talk about his feelings.’
Her voice breaks and she says: ‘It leaves me with huge guilt that I hadn’t better helped him understand his diagnosis. Later, after what happened, I got access to his medical records and found out he had gone to the doctor around the age of 19 to ask if he’d been mixed up with his younger brother, who was also diagnosed with autism but whose symptoms were different. It showed me he hadn’t really accepted his own diagnosis. That breaks my heart.’
Only in his second year, when her son barely left the house, did she realise he had dropped out of the course after failing his first-year exams. ‘I rang the university, but because he was over 18, they refused to talk to us, so we never found out why and he refused to talk about it,’ she says.
Determined that her son would not cast himself adrift, Elizabeth suggested he apply for the civil service, and Louis was accepted as a tax analyst for HMRC, starting in September 2018. Around a year later, he moved out, although he would still come home for visits.
That is until early 2020 when he had a heated argument with his father and his brother, with whom relations had long been fractious.
‘After that, he cut off contact with all of us, including me,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I was very upset, but I felt he knew where we were, and that he knew he was always welcome and would return in his own time. I didn’t want to force myself on him.’
With the trial going ahead, Elizabeth had to pluck up courage to see the bodycam and CCTV footage showing her son’s arrest and the terrible events that followed. Her son is here pictured with the gun, circled
Elizabeth says: ‘When I saw him being arrested, all I could see was how autistic he seemed, and in the custody cell everything that happened looked like an autistic meltdown’
It meant she was unaware her son had been furloughed during the pandemic. Holed up on his own, a later search of his digital devices confirmed his interest in weapons.
Elizabeth had always known that, like many young boys, Louis had an interest in guns. He had joined the cadets as a young teen. But this was different; according to police, he had extensively researched militaria.
She says: ‘I felt this huge shame, but also huge fear, worried that somehow it was our fault, that we should have known. I wondered if we’d been naive. We had always told him if he was angry never to take it out on a person. So I couldn’t equate the portrait the police seemed to be painting with what I knew of him and what we had taught him.’
Either way, the consequences were devastating. In the small hours of September 25, 2020, Louis was arrested while walking not far from the family home under stop and search. He was carrying a holdall, which officers deemed suspicious as there had been a spate of burglaries in the area.
In fact, as Louis – who remained polite and initially asked police to call his parents – informed officers, he was carrying not stolen goods but cannabis.
He didn’t tell them he was also carrying an antique Colt revolver – bought legitimately over the internet, but for which he had fashioned his own homemade bullets – concealed in a holster hidden under his arm. Why did he have a gun? And was he, as some have since suggested, heading to the family home to use it?
Elizabeth vehemently disputes this. ‘He often visited the area, without coming to see us, I know that. One of his favourite takeaways was there. I know him well enough to know he would not do us harm.
‘He has since managed to tell me that he was coming home to eat, and that it was in the small hours because he liked the house being quiet. One of the first things the police asked me was whether I was ever scared of him – and I could look them firmly in the eye and categorically say no.’
Whatever his motivation, the gun was not discovered, despite the fact that police found the homemade bullets. Louis was taken to Croydon Custody Centre where, once inside the custody suite, Sergeant Ratana entered and told Louis he would need to be searched again.
What happened next unfolded with lightning speed, and still remains unclear. As another officer pulled him to his feet, Louis managed to bring his still-cuffed hands from behind his back to one side and shot Sergeant Ratana in the heart and leg before firing two more bullets, one of which hit the cell wall, the other landing in his own neck.
‘I don’t think he intended to kill himself,’ Elizabeth says. ‘Just as I believe he didn’t intend to kill Sergeant Ratana. I think this was his way of saying leave me alone, in the throes of an autistic meltdown.’
Sergeant Ratana was rushed to hospital where, tragically, he died of his injuries. The time was 2.15am and at home Elizabeth was asleep, blissfully unaware her world was about to change for ever. That is until ferocious banging on the door six hours later. Pinned against the wall, Elizabeth, in an answer to officers’ questions, told them her son was autistic and dyspraxic.
Only around an hour into this barrage of questions did she learn the horrific truth about what had happened – and that her son was in hospital. ‘It’s the most traumatic thing I have ever experienced,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I was in a state of total shock. Nothing felt real. But I instantly knew it had happened by mistake.’
Not for one moment did she ever question that she would stand by her son. ‘I gave birth to him, and there isn’t a deal which says you only love them if they are perfect. I could never abandon him,’ she says, adding that she and Channa vowed to fight for their son together.
‘Channa and I recognised immediately that if we cast blame we would all fall apart, so we made a pact that we were in this together. It was hard, and tense, and we still had lots of arguments, but we managed to pull together.’
Louis was being held under armed guard at St George’s Hospital in Tooting but his parents weren’t allowed to see him.
This continued even when the following evening – 36 hours after the shooting – Louis suffered a stroke that left him with a catastrophic brain injury. Elizabeth only found this out when a surgeon rang, asking if he could perform a highly risky craniectomy to relieve the pressure on her son’s skull.
Elizabeth and Channa raced to the hospital, to be told again they were not allowed to see their son. ‘The receptionist called security, and they said that if I tried to go to the ward, I’d be arrested,’ she recalls quietly. ‘They were prepared for the fact that he might die without us saying goodbye.’
This situation continued for three months, during which time Elizabeth relied on her brain-damaged son’s solicitor to record video footage for them. These snippets proved difficult to watch; largely non-verbal, and paralysed down one side, Louis was barely recognisable.
‘It was devastating,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Before visiting Louis in the hospital for the first time, I didn’t know how I’d feel about him; I thought he might be different to the loving son that I knew. But as soon as I saw him, even though he was wearing a blue helmet, in a hospital gown and in a wheelchair, all my worries disappeared because I saw that he was the same person I’d always known and loved.’
Six months after he was admitted, Louis was discharged into a specialist unit. Despite being wheelchair-bound with limited communication skills, he was considered fit to stand trial. In April 2023 he appeared via video link to enter a not guilty plea to murder, holding up a whiteboard to help him communicate. It is a decision that Elizabeth admits she still finds troubling, and which she believes was fuelled by the fact he had shot a police officer rather than a civilian.
‘In my opinion he was never fit to stand trial – and still would not be today even though his condition has improved,’ she says. ‘There were two fitness-to-plead hearings, and five psychologists gave evidence saying he wasn’t. But the judge took the view of the one psychologist for the prosecution who deemed him able to give evidence.’
With the trial going ahead, Elizabeth also had to pluck up courage to see the bodycam and CCTV footage showing her son’s arrest and the terrible events that followed.
‘It was incredibly emotional for a lot of reasons, not least because by then I hadn’t seen him without his brain injury for a long time.
‘When I saw him being arrested, all I could see was how autistic he seemed, and in the custody cell everything that happened looked like an autistic meltdown.’
Louis’s trial began at Northampton Crown Court in June 2023, his family already prepared for the fact that, if found guilty, he would be given a whole-life order (the harshest sentence possible, meaning he would never be released).
During the trial, Louis’s lawyer, Imran Khan KC, said communication problems caused by his injuries meant it ‘may never be possible to know exactly what was going through his mind’ at the time of the shooting, arguing he had diminished responsibility because of his autism.
The jury saw it differently, and convicted Louis unanimously of murder. Sentencing him to the whole-life order, Mr Justice Johnson said that ‘any communication difficulty, or difficulty with communication, had no bearing on your intention to kill Sergeant Ratana.’
‘I will never stop believing that he never intended to kill,’ says Elizabeth – a belief she is not able to have ratified by her son, who has no memory of what happened after his arrest. ‘Yes, it’s hard for me not to hear it from him, but far harder has been having to accept that he’s brain damaged and in a wheelchair for life.’
Louis can only manage simple dialogue. Elizabeth is now campaigning for wider understanding in dealing with those with autism when taken into custody. ‘I hope that in 20 or 30 years’ time, we’ll look on this case differently, and it will be studied by law students,’ she says. She recently appeared on podcast series Mums Of Murderers, which talks to four mothers whose children are serving life for murder.
She does what any mother would do for her son, visiting him regularly at Belmarsh Prison, where he is kept in the hospital wing, although she is campaigning to have him moved to a prison with better medical facilities. ‘It’s not the right place,’ she says. ‘It’s designed for a relatively quick stay, not a whole-life order.’
Nonetheless, Elizabeth accepts that wherever he ends up, her son will almost certainly never experience life on the outside again – and that her own life, and that of her family’s, is irrevocably changed. ‘I have to accept it, as does he,’ she says. ‘It’s sad, but then so much about this situation is desperately sad.’