THE mother of murdered French student Laurent Bonomo has revealed how she desperately tried to call her son on the day he died.

Mr Bonomo and friend Gabriel Ferez were stabbed 244 times at his bedsit in Sterling Gardens, New Cross, on the morning of June 29 last year.

Their mobile phones, two PSP games consoles and bank cards were stolen from the flat.

But their bodies were not discovered until firefighters were called to a blaze at the bedsit, started by killer Nigel Farmer, at around 10pm that evening.

Mother Lydie Bonomo said her son's girlfriend Marie Bertez first raised concerns.

Miss Bertez, who was due to visit Mr Bonomo in New Cross the following day, told Mrs Bonomo she had failed to get his usual morning call on June 29.

Mrs Bonomo said both women tried calling Mr Bonomo non-stop on his mobile phone “hoping each time I was going to hear his voice”.

They also tried to call Mr Ferez, getting no response.

She said: “This silence became in the course of the hours more and more incomprehensible and heavy.”

And Mrs Bonomo said she even tried calling a police station in London and the French consulate that day to see if they had heard anything about him.

She began to worry that her son, who she described as “clever, lively, cheerful, so appreciated by all” and a “young responsible adult”, had been attacked.

The following day she received a call from the French consulate saying there had been a fire at Mr Bonomo's flat and two people had died but officers did not know their names.

Mrs Bonomo says: “Me I knew. My son died. It is finished.”