Common ties join the families of a killer, and his victim

Stafford Ray will never forgive his the man who kicked his son's head until he died on a Sydney street, but his heart goes out to the killer's family.

Dave Ray, a homeless victim of drug and alcohol abuse, was repeatedly kicked in the head in George Street on a dark March night.

The man responsible for ending his life was Michael McKnight.

"What happened in the altercation... I kicked him a few times, and then I went away, and went back and kicked him a few more times and then that was it," McKnight told police at the time.

When he was arrested he didn't even know he killed Dave Ray.

He too was a victim of a drug dependency and suffered from schizophrenia. His trial heard he had been off his medication that night and had heard voices urging him to attack.

Both Stafford Ray and Michael McKnight's parents sat through weeks of court appearances, and it was in those emotion charged days that a rare connection was made.

"His dad wrote me a little note about halfway through the trial, just saying how sorry he was, from the family," Mr Ray said.

"I wrote him one back and then we saw each other later that day and shook hands.

"I gave Michael's mother a hug and said, 'You know we are not blaming you'. And you can't."

"You'd see these poor people there, just suffering. It was two families with two similar boys, in some ways."

McKnight was found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter and locked up for six years.

Mr Ray will never forgive his son's killer, but his heart goes out to McKnight's family. There's no room for revenge, instead his thoughts turn to the son he lost.