At 3 a.m. on October 15th, 1997, Sukhdev Reel and her husband, Balwant, an Indian couple living in London, were desperately worried about their son.
The previous night, Ricky had gone for a drink in Kingston, south-west London, with three of his friends from Brunel University, where he is a student. But he did not return home and his parents began calling local hospitals and Ricky's friends.
Five hours later and with no sign of their son they rang the police. Sukhdev, however, was shouted at and told she was wasting police time because a police officer already had visited the house and been refused entry. In fact, the police officer had gone to the wrong address.
Less than 24 hours after Ricky went missing, and provided with the knowledge that he and his friends were attacked in Kingston by white youths shouting "Oi! Paki!" the police still failed to link the attack and the disappearance.
In accordance with police procedure, since Ricky was an adult no search could begin for 24 hours. In the meantime, his father and one of the friends he had been with on October 14th walked around Kingston town centre looking for clues and showing his photograph to passers-by.
In what the Reel family now consider to have been a repeat of the police attitude in the Stephen Lawrence case, there were delays in taking witness statements and a reluctance to consider the possibility of foul play. Furthermore, CCTV footage of Ricky and his friends on the night of the attack was lost by the police.
A week after Ricky disappeared his body was found in the Thames.
The zip on his trousers was undone, leading the police to believe he had fallen into the river after stopping to urinate.
In fact, within minutes of Ricky's body being pulled from a shallow water area of the Thames, Det Supt Charles Moffat, who was leading the investigation, told journalists there was no need for a criminal investigation because the death was an accident.
It was a theory the police stood by for another two years.
The Reel family believes Ricky may have been killed in a racist attack, but that theory is also open to question. Three post-mortems failed to provide conclusive evidence that Ricky was attacked, but the Home Office pathologist did find two deep bruises on his back that were consistent with "blunt impact".
After the Macpherson report into the police investigation of the killing of Stephen Lawrence, which found that the Metropolitan Police force was "institutionally racist", the case of Ricky Reel, who was born in Britain, is an uncomfortable reminder that in some instances Asian, Indian and black families still find it difficult to convince police officers to take their concerns seriously.
This week an inquest jury at Fulham town hall disagreed with the Metropolitan Police's theory that Ricky Reel's death was an accident.
It took the jury just 56 minutes to return an open verdict. The Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Mr John Grieve, who is also the head of Scotland Yard's race and violent crimes unit, responded by turning the Met's previous position on its head, saying it was "the correct verdict. I have always had an open mind about this".
Sukhdev Reel was rather more straightforward in her response: "We have campaigned tirelessly for two years to try and find out what happened. From the very outset the police have carried out the investigation with a closed mind. They never had an open mind."
Three police officers were found guilty of neglect of duty during the Ricky Reel investigation.
Now Ricky's family wants a Police Complaints Authority report, which they believe is deeply critical of the police investigation, to be published in full.
Sukhdev Reel said this week that her skin colour had denied her family the justice they deserved: "It was devastating to be disbelieved by the police. I have never felt so degraded. I have never felt so alone and isolated. Someone may have snatched Ricky away from my arms, but no one will snatch my memories away from my heart."