Sapper Patrick Azimkar was gunned down collecting pizza outside a military base in 2009.

The mother of a Wood Green man murdered by the Real IRA in 2009 has praised the Queen’s decision to shake hands with former IRA commander Martin McGuinness.

Geraldine Ferguson said her son Patrick would have been "proud he did not die in vain".

Geraldine Ferguson, mother of Sapper Patrick Azimkar, 21, who was gunned down by a dissident republican outside his military barracks in Northern Ireland in 2009, described the handshake as a “symbolic gesture” of “changing times and hopefulness”.

Her Majesty was photographed shaking hands with Sinn Fein leader Mr McGuinness during a meeting at Belfast’s Lyric Theatre on Wednesday, almost 33 years after her cousin Lord Mountbatten was killed by the IRA in 1979.

Mrs Ferguson, of Boundary Road, Wood Green, told The Sun: “Peace is the only way forward - there is no other way. Every step towards reconciliation is a step in the right direction.

“Patrick would have been proud he did not die in vain. Shaking hands is a symbolic gesture that signals changing times and hopefulness.”