IMMATURE, rejected by his father and the victim of relentless bullying - Michael Hamer sought solace in a fantasy world.

Aged 14 at the time of Joe's murder, Hamer had suffered years of bullying at his primary and secondary schools.

Targeted by his peers, Hamer suffered verbal abuse, was pushed and shoved around and excluded from social groups. More recently he was teased for having a brief relationship with a much younger girl, which had ended just a few weeks before Joe's murder.

Although Hamer and his mother reported the bullying to school, and the situation seemed - on the surface - to calm down, he was threatened by thebullies once again with the words: "You are a dead man walking."

So bad was the victimisation that Hamer began feigning illness on a Sunday evening to avoid attending school the next day. It also began to have an effect on his health and at the start of this year, his mother noticed a significant change in his attitude.

Taking his feelings out on his mum, Hamer argued with her and his school work suffered. He started to eat less, began hiding food around the house and started to stab the wall in frustration.

Feeling increasingly depressed, and with low self-esteem, Hamer felt unable to cope and had experienced thoughts of suicide. While on remand, he told psychiatrist Dr Hilary Grant that he felt he would never be able to escape the difficulties he was suffering both at home and at school. He said he had felt a life-long sense of failure which stemmed from his poor relationship with his father.

Hamer's father had never lived with him and his mum and Hamer had only "infrequent and intermittent" contact with him. His defence lawyer David Steer QC described how the "episodic nature" of paternal contact had only served to raise and dash Hamer's hopes of forming a relationship with his father. This, he said, had a significant impact on his life: a life filled with a sense of "being unloved, denigrated and humiliated".

Two years ago, Hamer inadvertently overheard his father tell his mother that he had no feelings at all for his son, which caused him particular distress. On top of that he felt excluded from his father's other family and had not formed a relationship with his siblings.

Mr Steer said: "Any apparent rejection by his father was exacerbated by the fact he never knew his older half-brother Mark, who died of cancer. He says he wished he had known him and spent a lot of time thinking about him."

Mr Steer added: "What we are really dealing with here is something of a loner, who has found it hard to make friends. One aspect is to do with his difficulties at home, in particular his father's lack of interest in him. But another factor coming into play was that he was bullied in his primary and secondary schools."

With all this taken into account, and the added pressure of trying to cope with adolescence, Hamer retreated into a fantasy world, where he was in control. In the safety of his bedroom, Hamer made lists and pretended to be a teacher at school. According to psychiatrist Professor Susan Bailey, this practice is usually a trait in much younger people. Mr Steer said: "This was a young man suffering from an abnormality of the mind, in the form of adjustment disorder. He told Professor Bailey he wanted someone else to feel the emotions he felt when bullied - loneliness and fear." Tragically, Hamer's target for those displaced emotions was Joe Geeling. But officers found evidence that it could have easily been any other vulnerable pupil at St Gabriel's who could have been targeted. Detectives discovered that in his fantasy world, Hamer made class timetables and registers using real names of young children at his school. It was feared that Hamer had made previous attempts to draw other children into his web of deceit.

During one interview, Hamer was asked why he had chosen Joe. He replied: "It could have been anyone."