IPSWICH: More than two years since his son was convicted of being one of the country’s most notorious serial killers, and now recovering from major heart surgery, Conrad Wright is in reflective mood.

Despite the overwhelming evidence against Steve Wright, his 74-year-old father still fails to comprehend what has happened.

The meek and mild, cheeky little boy that he remembers is now serving a life sentence for the murder of five Ipswich street workers at the end of 2006.

But now at home with his second wife Valerie, following a heart attack at the end of March, the Felixstowe resident still finds himself wondering if there is more he could have done.

“He was as soft as anything,” said Conrad. “I never saw any aggression from him which annoys me in a way. Why could I not see something?

“I never saw it coming or had to quell any violent moods he had. If we had been a little bit closer or if I had seen him more often, maybe it would not have escalated to what it did.”

The last few years have no doubt been difficult for Conrad and at the end of March this year he suffered a heart attack.

In April he spent ten days in Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire, where he underwent a double heart bypass.

Although he admits that the stress he has been through in the last few years, “may well have triggered it”, he says his son cannot be blamed for it.

But during this time he has had no contact with his son – the last time he spoke to him was at a family wedding in 2002.

Although Conrad says his relationship with his killer son “has gone”, there is still a sign of hope in his voice that maybe this nightmare isn’t true and he can once again sit and enjoy cricket matches with him.

“If there is any way he can prove that he is innocent then yes I would like to speak to him but if it is 100 per cent that he is guilty, I really do not want to know him. There is nothing that I can do. If he is guilty then he has to live with it and probably will. He is a different bloke to the one I know.”

For now Conrad is concentrating on getting himself back to full health, and keeps himself busy by being the fixture secretary of the Suffolk Cricket Alliance.

But for Conrad time is no healer and he still cannot completely understand how the son who was “never a problem” is now one of the most recognised serial killers the country has ever known.

“The thought of him being able to take a girl’s body and just chuck it in a ditch is very hard to comprehend,” he said. “It is bloody mad.”

n Do you have sympathy for Conrad? Let us know, write to Your Letters, The Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN.