A TRIBUTE to murdered Joe Geeling from his mum and dad, Gwen and Tom, sisters Kelly and Danielle, and brothers Sean and James was printed on the front page of the Bury Times on March 9.

They wrote: Everybody wants us to make a statement or give a few comments on how much Joe meant to us and what a loss he will be.

None of you has enough time to hear how much he meant to us. How do you condense 11 years of fun and love and heartache, worries and accomplishments into a few words?

Without exaggeration I can say that Joe was one of those special people that if you ever met him and spent even five minutes talking to him he would leave an impression on you that you would remember and usually with fondness. We were spoilt. We had him every day.

He had a few problems being a child born with cystic fibrosis, but all those who knew him know that he refused to be restricted by that. He got on with life and made minimum fuss about his condition. He loved all the things every other little boy loves, like football, computer games, Bart Simpson, but he was also amazing when it came to problems of any sort.

You always came away from him thinking to yourself "how come I couldn't think of that?"

You really needed to know him to appreciate his potential and now some of you will never know him.

We used to say how good he was, but like all little lads he was no angel.

Somebody just changed all that for us. Now we're sure he truly is a little angel.

God bless him and may he rest peacefully now.

Joe had a huge circle of family and friends, all of whom are equally devastated and like us they will never ever be quite the same again.