Matthew Daley was an "ideal" child before the breakdown of his parents' marriage while he was at university coincided with his mental health decline.

His mother, Lynda Daley, said for 10 years they had appealed for him to receive better care and treatment before he went on to fatally knife Donald Lock following a minor shunt.

Born in 1981, Daley grew up as a "quiet, shy and respectful" boy who was "very studious", according to his father John.

Mr Daley said he was never a problem as a child and attained sufficient GCSEs to enrol on to a two-year building studies course at Chichester College in West Sussex.

"He just seemed such a shy, quiet and reserved boy," Mr Daley told Lewes Crown Court. "He would never push to the front of the queue and would defer to authority."

In an interview with consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Philip Joseph, Daley dated the start of his mental health problems to around the time of his parents' marriage breakdown.

At the time, Daley was studying for an architecture degree at the University of Portsmouth in Hampshire. He failed his first year there but successfully re-sat exams and moved into a flat with five other men.

Examples of "odd" behaviour included the time Daley used his student grant to fund an impulsive trip to Argentina to seek out a property he had seen in a book.

Mr Daley said the family were "beside themselves" with worry after being contacted by one of his housemates saying he had suddenly taken flight with just the clothes he was stood up in.

Mr Daley said he was so concerned about the episode that he personally saw his son's university tutor. Daley's friends were limited to those he lived with.

As his parents went through their divorce, he was said to have started withdrawing into himself.

However, he graduated from the University of Portsmouth and started work in 2004 at a local practice as a trainee architect but it did not last.

He complained about being unhappy at work and at being teased. "I think it all got too much for him," his father told jurors.

Daley's parents bought separate properties and by Christmas 2004, he moved in with his father following trouble with his mother.

In spring 2005, he moved into a bedsit in Worthing, but complained about neighbours' noise - the first clear sign for his father in hindsight that he was hearing voices.

Despite pleas from his family, particularly his father, over the intervening years for more help with his care and treatment, relatives said they were not listened to.

Mr Daley's fateful predictions that his son could go on to seriously harm someone came to pass with the killing of Mr Lock on the A24 last July.

Shortly before the trial, the chief executive of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust wrote to Daley's family apologising, but Mrs Daley said it was "too late".