The parents of murdered teenager Jimmy Mizen joined his classmates for a special mass yesterday on what would have been his last full day at school.

Jimmy died in his brother's arms on Saturday, the 13th teenager to be murdered in London this year. He had fatal cuts to his neck after he was attacked with a shard of glass the day after his 16th birthday when he went to buy his first lottery ticket in Lee, south-east London.

Yesterday, he should have been at a leavers' mass at St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive in Eltham. Instead his grieving family joined tearful pupils at the service, dedicated to Jimmy and his family.

Afterwards his parents Barry, 56, and Margaret, 55, paid a loving tribute to Jimmy.

Mrs Mizen, a mother of nine, said: "There was no side to him, he was happy-go-lucky, loved his family, loved his guitar and playing rugby in the garden."

Mr Mizen added: "He was a dear, dear sweet young man, we loved him dearly.

"On the night of his birthday he was going out with his friends and we cuddled him. That is just a great, great memory."

Speaking about the parents of her son's attacker, Mrs Mizen said: "What can you really say to them? You can imagine, that's their child, they held that boy in their own arms as a baby. They must be in pain. It's so painful that their child has been so cruel and so wicked."

Mrs Mizen said she was comforted by the fact that one of her sons cradled Jimmy in his arms as he lay dying.

She said: "He managed to get there in time. He held Jimmy in his arms. That brings comfort to me, that my son was there when he was dying and he wasn't on his own."

She said Jimmy's many friends had been distressed by his death.

Mr Mizen said the school had already mourned the deaths of three pupils this year, two in a car accident and one from illness.