‘I will never stop hurting. I don’t know if I can help prevent another tragedy, but I hope people will listen.’

It was the first day of a holiday in Corsica with friends and her husband, David. But it saw her receive the phone call which meant her life would never be complete again.

Picking up a call from a withheld number, Vicki assumed it was a friend who was looking after her animals at her North Yorkshire home while she was away. The voice at the other end of the line left her devastated – and the terrible news she received is the reason she is backing The Press and our partners in the ‘Think, Don’t Swim’ campaign.

“A woman said: ‘Is that Mrs Horrocks?’, and my heart dropped immediately,” Vicki said. A mother’s instinct had kicked in, and she knew something was not right.

“The lady said: ‘Can you tell me where you are living?’, and when I asked why and explained that I was away on holiday I was passed on to another person who said he was the police and they wanted to see me as a matter of urgency. I knew it was serious.” Vicki was asked if she had a relative in York. She knew then the matter had to do with her 21-year-old son, Richard, as her daughter, Abbi, 19, a York student, was on her way to Scotland.

“They said there had been an incident when Richard finished his shift at work,” Vicki said.

“He was celebrating his last shift at Revolution, and an hour or so after he had finished he jumped into the river to swim to the other side.”

In the moments that passed, Vicki said she just kept repeating: ‘What has happened to my boy?”

But, at that moment, the body of her only son had not been found – so police could only tell Vicki to prepare for the worst.

“I just kept saying: ‘Is he dead, is he dead?’, but they couldn’t tell me,” she said.

“They said they were trawling through the river searching for him.

“But his friends had seen him struggle and disappear from view.”

Vicki and David managed to get a flight back to the UK within a couple of hours, but by the time they landed they had received the news from Abbi that a body had been found.

Abbi said the moment she found out – 4.48pm – was a moment she will never forget and she had to tell her mum the news. “I just said: ‘They have found him. He is gone’, I didn’t know what to say,” she said.

David was asked to identify the body and confirm it was their son. Abbi, who was travelling to Scotland when she found out the news, took the first service back to North Yorkshire.

Vicki said: “Until Richard was identified there was hope that this wasn’t true, but when David confirmed it was him our lives changed forever.”

Vicki passed through the next week in shock as she went through the agony of organising a funeral for her child. “It is the aftershock,” she said.

“You can see that your family is in tatters. I am a strong matriarch, but this isn’t something you expect to have to deal with. I was just in a fog, but we had to find the strength to arrange a funeral that was right for Richard – one that celebrated his life.”

A funeral was later held at All Saints’ Church, in Northallerton, with more than 400 people, including many friends, packing the pews.

Vicki praised Richard’s friends for their support, which she said gave her the strength to get through the saddest day of her life.

“Once the funeral was over, it was like a switch,” she said.

“People naturally need to get on with their lives and routines and that’s when the harsh reality of facing life without Richard hit me.

“Sorting through our son’s possessions and managing his estate is something we never expected to do.

“I remember Abbi saying to me ‘I am an only child now’ and I thought how this could be when I had two babies.”

Vicki spoke of the happiness she felt on her birthday – the day before Richard’s final shift at Revolution – when she came to York with friends and spent an hour with her son.

“He came to meet me and my friends and we were waiting for him, and suddenly my friend said is that him, he is just so handsome and I saw him and beamed,” she said.

“I was so proud of him. He took us for a drink, he wanted to buy his mam a drink on her birthday. We shared a special time together until he went back to work and we headed home.

“The next morning, I was getting up at 5.30am for my flight and Richard rang to wish me a happy holiday ending the call with the words “I love you’. It would be the last words I ever heard from him.”

Despite her heartbreak, Vicki and her family are determined The Press’s campaign will prevent further tragedies on the rivers.

“My family is left in tatters, and I want to think that when I put my head on the pillow at night I have done something to prevent another family going through this,” she said.

“I will never know if I achieve this, but I know that if I don’t try I definitely won’t have.

“Richard had everything to live for. I hope sharing the story of our tragedy will send a clear message to others.

“If someone looks at the campaign poster, identifies with Richard and understands the devastation that follows then hopefully they will think twice.

“It was his last night at Revolution and he was on top of the world at that moment. He was a showman, and he must have thought if anyone is going to jump in the River Ouse then it will be me. But I want to say that young men are not invincible. They need to think of the consequences of their actions.

“We are left trying to pick up the pieces of a jigsaw that will never again be complete. I used to say I sleep so well when my nest is full, but now my family is incomplete and referring to my son in the past tense is something I will never get used to.

“I will never stop hurting. I don’t know if I can help prevent another tragedy – another family going through this heartbreak – but I hope people will listen.”