The sadness and determination of a mother who has lost her only son

My only son, Patrick, was 28 when he died, killed on a Saturday night by a silver-grey car. That was three years ago, and its still happening. Various families had been battling individually, then when young Debbie McComb was killed in March we got together.

In the past few months we feel we've achieved quite a bit. A petition has collected more than 12,000 signatures so far, and we've got the backing of political parties right across the board.

Our aim is to try to get Westminster to change the law changed because these people don't serve any length of time. The most any of them would serve would be 18 months, and that's ridiculous. So we're trying to get heavier prison sentences as a deterrent to keep the young people from getting into this. We need more resources put into the community too, to try to get the kids off the streets.

Some of the wee, young, vulnerable ones that would get into a car, we're trying to keep them out of it. Maybe if they think they're going to face a heavy jail term they'll think twice about doing it.

There is a hard-core element that only jail would stop, but it's just not taken seriously by the courts.

A wrong person driving a car is like a lethal weapon. If somebody went out and pointed a gun they would be given years but one of the ones who killed the son of a woman in our group got only 60 hours of community service.

That's completely and utterly wrong. It makes you feel your child's worth nothing, that your child is dead – and that's all there is to it.

We're not out on a revenge trip, because our children are dead and we're not going to get them back. The ones who killed them have served their time and they're back into the community again, some of them back to doing what they've always done.

They get bail and keep on committing offences. They're in one door and out another. They know they're going to get away with it. They know the courts are not going to come down heavy on them. The same names keep coming up over and over again.

Not long after we buried Patrick, a car drove right into the wall outside, another drove nearly up to my daughter's front door. It's as though they're trying to say that they're not worried. Even if they kill somebody it doesn't seem to matter to them.

Everybody is just sick of it, fed up with it. People are angry. I have thought about it and thought about it. I try to get inside their heads, wondering what drives them to do this.