A grieving father has recounted the devastating ordeal of deciding to turn off his 17-year-old son’s life support after he was fatally stabbed at a school end-of-term party.
Martin Cosser paid tribute to his son Charlie, who suffered catastrophic injuries including a ruptured bowel and spleen, and brain swelling, after being attacked by 16-year-old Yura Varybrus. Charlie did not know his attacker, who stabbed him three times following a dispute on the dancefloor at a private farmhouse in West Sussex.
Charlie went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance, and despite a four-hour operation, doctors were forced to stop life-saving measures. Martin, 50, said: “I was there for his first breath when he was born, then I had to watch him die… It’s a lonely place to be, as if I’m still standing next to Charlie’s bed, switching off his life support machine.”
The party, attended by around 100 teenagers celebrating the end of A-levels in July 2023, should have been a safe environment, Martin said. “He should have been able to go to a party and come back home. I’d never spoken to my children about knife crime because I thought it was just a problem in gangs. I had no idea young people were carrying knives here.”
Police arrived at the family home in Surrey at 12:30 a.m., rushing Charlie to Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. The surgery was stopped after four hours due to complications from the stabbing, including a cut to his aorta.
Martin, who has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, has spoken at over 200 schools to raise awareness about knife crime. His daughter, Eloise, 18, and the rest of the family continue to campaign against knife-related violence.
Martin said: “No family should ever go through that, and no amount of time will ever heal those scars… I held Charlie’s hand and promised him, ‘I’m going to tell everyone about you and educate people about the dangers of knife crime.’”
Yura Varybrus has been sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of 16 years.
