SHE is a dedicated volunteer who works tirelessly for her community.

But Rosie Wall, whose son, Daniel, was brutally murdered two years ago, has been told she will receive no compensation for his death.

Rosie, 54, of Chapelfields, was told her application to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) for an £11,000 fatality award had been refused because her son had a criminal record.

Daniel was bludgeoned to death by heroin addict John Marshall as he lay sleeping at Marshall's Gillygate flat in December 2003.

Community worker Rosie, who has been chairwoman of Chapel-fields Residents' Association for five years, said both Daniel and her family had been unfairly judged by the CICA.

"He did wrong but he did pay for his crimes," she said. "They shouldn't judge the family on what he did."

Leeds Crown Court heard that Daniel and fellow victim Kevin Mulgrew were drug dealers who sold heroin to dozens of addicts across the city.

Rosie conceded he was a heroin user, but denied he was a dealer, and said he had been unfairly portrayed as a "drug-dealing, smack-headed gangster" in court.

She described how she, her husband Jeff, 52, and Daniel's sisters Nicola and Rebecca, were heartbroken when their son, who as a boy loved football and Liverpool FC, was introduced to drugs.

She said he started to go off the rails when his cousin Tim committed suicide aged 20. "That hit him hard because a fortnight later his grandmother died," said Rosie.

"It was heartbreaking because we thought we had done something wrong in bringing him up."

As her son descended into a world of drug addiction, Rosie set to work to keep other young people off the streets.

She set up independent group Chapelfields Crossroads to provide a drop-in centre and youth club at a disused shop on the estate.

Next month a new community house and convenience store will be opened in Bramham Road. Rosie has been a driving force behind the project.

Rosie said her family were forced to borrow £600 to avoid her son being given a pauper's funeral.

She said: "Yes, he was an addict, but there was more to him than that," she said. "Dan was a caring son who visited his dad every day for five weeks when he was in hospital."

Since being refused compensation Rosie has appealed and applied for a payment based on the family's pain and suffering.

The CICA operates a system of penalty points based on unspent criminal convictions, with compensation being reduced by up to 100 per cent.

A CICA spokesman said: "In the case of a death, we look at both the claimant's character and the deceased's character, including any unspent convictions."

Double murder

DANIEL WALL, 27, was killed along with 38-year-old Kevin Mulgrew by heroin addict John Paul Marshall on December 1, 2003.

Marshall, 43, bludgeoned the pair to death with a wooden lamp stand while they lay sleeping at his flat above a bakery in Gillygate, York. At his trial last year, Marshall claimed he felt intimidated after the pair moved into his home and began selling drugs. He admitted killing the two friends but denied murder on the grounds that he was provoked. But the jury found him guilty and he was sentenced him to a life behind bars.

Penalty points

THE compensation scheme uses a person's unspent criminal convictions to decide whether they are entitled to a full or reduced payment.

A system of penalty points is used to decide the level of an award.

The more recent the conviction and the more serious the sentence, the more penalty points a victim accumulates. For example, a six month prison sentence more than two-and-a-half years ago is worth only two points. But if the victim had been released in the last six months, it would be worth ten.

Lesser sentences including fines, community service orders and conditional discharges are still worth two or three points if handed out in the last two years.

The compensation award is reduced by 25 per cent for every three points a victim accumulates. Once they hit ten points, they will receive no payout.

Updated: 12:51 Monday, October 31, 2005