Simon San - 'Police will give answers in due course'

Simon San was by all accounts a gentle and unassuming man who wanted nothing more than to support and protect his family.

In stark contrast to his quiet and productive life, the tragic circumstances of his death have reverberated around the Capital.

The jailing of his 16-year-old killer John Reid for five years yesterday will sadly not close the book on these terrible events.

The sentence handed to him is the very least the courts could do in order to send a clear signal that the feral behaviour of the youths who attacked him will not be tolerated in civilised society.

But Mr San's family believes that it's possible his death could have been avoided, and they want answers from Lothian and Borders Police.

They believe that the force could and should have done more to tackle the antisocial behaviour they complained about in Lochend in the months leading up to his death.

Few details of the police's efforts are known just now, apart from the fact that undercover officers targeting such youths were working in the neighbourhood on the night Mr San was killed.

The San family will not be the only ones eager to hear the force's answers.

It is a fact of life that many people feel the police and other agencies do not have the resources to tackle such problems and cannot respond quickly enough to many neighbourhood complaints.

One thing of which we can be confident is that the San family and the wider public will get their answers in due course.

Lothian and Borders Police has a long and proud record of building strong ties with the communities which it serves.

And lawyer Aamer Anwar, who is representing the San family, is an extremely tenacious campaigner who would not allow even the slightest reticence on the part of any individual officer to go unchallenged.

It will take time for them to gradually establish a complete picture of everything the force has done in this area. We must be patient and wait until that investigation is complete.

And, while locking up his killer will bring precious little comfort to Mr San's family and friends, there is some reassurance in knowing the youth responsible has been tracked down and dealt with by the courts.