Ricky Reel, a 20 year old Punjabi went out on a night on town with friends. He never returned home. A few days later, his body was found in the River Thames close to where he, and his three friends from Brunel University, had scattered after being threatened by men shouting racist abuse at them. Ricky's parents believe their son was murdered by racists. The police say he drowned accidentally.

The night Ricky disappeared his parents went to the police,told them that they knew from Ricky's friends about racist abuse before he went missing. But the police refused to take the Reel's complaint seriously. The duty policeman told them: ``If he doesn't come home give usa call'. Ricky's mother Sukhdev says: ``I did call, but they ignored me. If I rang Kingston police station they told me to ring West Drayton, which is our local station. West Drayton told me to ring Kingston. Eventually, as soon as I gave my name they would disconnect me.''

With the police clearly disinterested, the family mounted their own search in the Kingston on Thames area where Ricky had disappeared. They pleaded with the police to send in divers. When the divers finally did go in many days later, they found Ricky's body within minutes.

To add to disinterest was the police's clear callousness in dealing with the Reel family. Soon after Ricky's body was found a woman police constable arrived at the Reel home, where the younger children, a 11-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter had just returned from school. The daughter was on the phone to Sukhdev Reel who was at the police monitoring centre. The Police woman told her to hang up and then informed the children that their brother had been founddead in the river.

The Press Complaints Authority letter accepts the failure of the Kingston and West Drayton police stations to resolve which of them should handle the inquiry. It also apologises for the way the police constable broke the news that Ricky's body had been found. The letter acknowledges the police's lapse in not registering the affair as racially motivated although there was evidence of this. It also states that three police officers, including a detective superintendent, had been found guilty of neglect of duty in the investigation. However they will face no disciplinary action.

Sukhdev Reel described the PCA apology as ``inadequate'' and ``another kick in the teeth''. She said: ``It reads like a list of excuses, rather than an apology. I have been asking for months to see the police report into the investigation but they won't show it to me. How do I know what really went on?'' Ricky's parents maintain their son was murdered by racists. The police still seem unwilling to accept this.They insist that Ricky Reel fell into the river while urinating. His parents say he was a strong swimmer and the three friends who were with him say that he had urinated behind their car just before they split up.

Sukhdev Reel believes the police dismissed the seriousness of Ricky's disappearance because he was Asian: ``It seems if you belong to the black community you are treated differently.'' This is the nub of the findings of one of the most far-reaching investigations into police racism in Britain, to be published next week. A government inquiry set up to investigate the police's handling of the racially motivated murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence five years ago is expected to accuse the Metropolitan Police of institutional racism.