Tributes pouring in for the son of Viv Graham

Mar 28 2010 by Lisa Hutchinson, Sunday Sun

SCORES of tributes have been flooding in for the son of murdered Newcastle hardman Viv Graham after he was found dead at the wheel of his car.

Dean Graham was only seven-years-old when his dad was shot in a gangland killing on New Year’s Eve 1993.

The murderer was never found and his family have had to live with the fact that his killer is still out there.

Dean was discovered on Thursday afternoon at the Whinfield Industrial Estate, not far from his home in Highfield, near Rowlands Gill, Gateshead.

Within hours of the 24-year-old’s death a condolence board on the social network site Facebook had been set up and scores of sympathy messages were posted.

Police are now preparing a report for the coroner and an inquest will be opened this week.

A post mortem will be carried out tomorrow.

It is believed Dean drove his black Peugeot car to wasteland on the industrial estate.

He stopped near the Thomas Armstrong concrete block works where it is said an employee saw the car and went to investigate.

Dean was then discovered in the vehicle and a 999 call was made to the police and ambulance.

His mother Gillian Lowes, younger brother Viv junior, grandparents Hazel and Jackie Graham and girlfriend Gemma Fox, with whom he’d had a baby daughter, are all devastated.

Hazel, who only lives a few hundred yards away from Dean in Barkwood Road, said: “I don’t want to talk about it. We’re too upset.”