'You think about it all the time' Linda Robson opens up about coping with son's best friend's murder as a family

She said it's important to always be able to find the good in a tragedy.

(Image credit: S Meddle/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

It isn't the first time Loose Women regular Linda Robson has spoken out about the trauma of her son's friend Ben Kinsella being murdered in 2008.

But she appeared on the ITV show this afternoon to discuss the ways in which it's important to gain strength through experiencing tragedy, particularly in the wake of events like Manchester's terror attack.

Speaking candidly on the panel, which also featured Andrea McLean, Jane Moore and Penny Lancaster, Linda admitted that her son suffered long-term PTSD after the attack.

In spite of such terrible circumstances, Linda pointed out that the Kinsella family had done an incredible job of finding strength and bringing people together after his death.

Speaking of their charity, the Ben Kinsella Trust, which was set up to raise awareness of knife crime and to support families affected by it, she said, '[after] something so terrible as losing their son, they've turned into something really positive and [are] helping people.'

The comments came during a segment about the heroes of the Manchester bombings - the emergency services, the taxi drivers and hotels who offered their services for free, and the ordinary people who ran towards danger in order to help others.

In 2015, Linda spoke on Loose Women about how she feared her son, Louis, would have to be sectioned under the mental health act, after crippling panic attacks left him locked in his room for days on end in the aftermath of his friend's murder.

'Me or [my husband] Mark had to be around him all the time and we couldn't go out, because he'd panic if we weren't around,' she said at the time. 'The doctor said Louis needed to be locked up, sent away and put on medication for a month.'

Speaking about Ben's murder, she said: 'Life changed from that day. I just think, "That could have been my son". It never goes away. You think about it all the time.'

16-year-old Ben Kinsella was stabbed to death on 29th June 2008 in Islington, London.

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