The last time Carol Corr saw her daughter Joleen was when the pair hugged and said goodbye to each other on the morning of December 1 2016.
Joleen and her young son, then aged almost two-and-a-half, had come up from their home in Downpatrick, Co Down on November 25 to stay with her mother for a few days.
At the family home in Beechmount Grove in west Belfast, Joleen had taken the time to put up and decorate her mother's Christmas tree and the pair had discussed plans for the festive season.
Planning a family Christmas together, Joleen had told her mother that she would pay for the food for the family and had shown her mother receipts for payments she had already been making to pay off the turkey and all the special trimmings.
On November 29, the family came together for Joleen's 26th birthday, enjoying a meal at The West Club on the Falls Road.
The following morning, Carol kissed Joleen and her little grandson goodbye and told her daughter she would see her again when she was next up.
The mother-of-five watched Joleen and her son walk out of the house and up that path - not realising the next time she would see her eldest child she would be brain dead in intensive care.
The following morning - Thursday December 2 - after Carol had gotten her two youngest children out to school and was getting her other little grandson ready, her phone rang at 9.45am.
Read More: Mother of Joleen Corr (27) says she has finally 'got justice' after partner's murder plea
It was Joleen's ex-partner, Michael O'Connor, against whom both Carol and Joleen had non-molestation orders.
"He said 'Is this you Carol?'," she said.
"I said 'How did you get my number?' and he said he got it out of Joleen's phone. He said he had gone down to Joleen's house the night before to see the new puppy Joleen had gotten for the child for Christmas and he said he ended up staying on the sofa.
"He asked me if I could look after the child (his and Joleen's son) as he had to come back up to Belfast.
"I asked to speak to Joleen but he said she was asleep and `wouldn't wake up'.
"He said the new puppy had cried all night and had kept her awake and she had gone back to bed. I said `Tell her I want her' but he said she was asleep."
Carol agreed to meet O'Connor to collect her grandchild.
"I said bring the child up to me and we organised to meet so I could get the child," she said.
"I was ringing and ringing Joleen's phone. This feeling was coming inside me."
She met O'Connor and took her two grandchildren to her house to feed and change them.
Read More: Joleen Corr's mum on her battle to get justice for her daugher
On taking them for a walk, she remembers she only got three doors up the street when her phone rang.
"My phone rang and it was him," she said.
"He said 'Carol, you may check on your Joleen. I think she took an overdose'.
"I just remember squealing. My legs went beneath me."
On hearing Carol's distress, neighbours in Beechmount Grove came to her aid and helped her to her daughter's house nearby.
"I was roaring," she said and got a call from a woman.
It would later emerge that the Michael O'Connor had left the door of Joleen's house in Downpatrick open when he left that morning.
A man who owned a TV repair business in the area, who had leased a TV to Joleen, received a phone call to come to the house.
The man's son went to the house and found Joleen on a bed upstairs.
Carol recalls she asked the woman on the phone if her daughter had taken an overdose.
"She said 'I don't know about an overdose but this wee girl is black and blue from the head to her toes," she said.
"She said she had put her in the recovery position and the police were there and the ambulance had just arrived.
"She had been driving in her car and had been flagged down by two men."
Carol recalls Michael O'Connor then called her again and asked: "Well Carol, did you get through to your Joleen?
"I told him I knew what he had done and he said 'I never f***ing touched her."
When a police officer called her back minutes later, she begged them to tell her if Joleen was breathing.
"Police said they were taking her to the Royal," she said.
"Half way up from Downpatrick, they had to stop to put her on life support.
"They said there was a bleed on her brain. They had to operate to remove part of her skull to help the swelling and stop the bleed."
After a four-hour wait, Carol was finally allowed to see Joleen.
"We walked into intensive care," she said.
"She was unrecognisable. I just turned the other way and just ran. I fell into the CID man's arms.
"I shouted 'My Joleen's gone. My child's gone'. I was crying."
A short time later, the doctor spoke to Carol and said that Joleen could have just passed away but staff had "heard a wee noise or cough" and "because she was so young, they wanted to give her a chance".
With an armed guard on Joleen's bed, police set about hunting for the man responsible for the attack.
Carol was told by police that Michael O'Connor was found later that day "hiding in a cupboard" at a flat on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast. She was told he had shaved his head and was about to get into a bath when police apprehended him.
In the following days, while Joleen lay in a bed in the intensive care unit at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Carol made her way to Joleen's house in Downpatrick as she wanted to see the scene.
"It was horrendous," she said.
"But the determination in me, I had to do it for myself.
"Nothing was touched downstairs.
"The Christmas tree was up and there were numerous presents around the tree for the child. I gathered them and put them into black bags."
Upstairs was different.
"I seen blood all over the floorboards. Forensics had to saw half the mattress off because of the blood on it. They had to take her TV with the blood all over it. They had to take the bedroom and bathroom doors.
"There was a hole in the bathroom wall. He had went and got a picture and put it up to cover it.
"Seeing all the blood and all, I could feel my blood boiling.
"I believe he jumped all over her. She had 52 bruises from her head to her feet and numerous impacts to the head.
"The devil was in that house the night before and caused all that damage to my child while my grandson was in the next room."
Carol Corr spent the next six months visiting her daughter every day in a neurological unit at the RVH.
In May 2017, she was transferred to Musgrave Park Hospital in Belfast where she was treated in a specialist brain injury clinic.
However, doctors had already told Carol that the left side of her daughter's brain was dead and its stem damaged, meaning it was unlikely she would ever recover from the head injuries.
In April 2018, it was agreed that the 27-year-old’s treatment would be withdrawn after medics told her family "nothing more can be done".
She was transferred to Northern Ireland Hospice where she passed away 10 days later in her mother's arms.
Carol vowed to fight for justice and revealed her daughter had been the victim of domestic violence in her relationship with O'Connor.
Her daughter was just 22 when she first met O'Connor while out with friends in south Belfast in May 2013.
"She was with a couple of friends over at Ormeau Park. It was a lovely sunny day and he was there," she said.
"They all ended up back at Joleen's wee flat on the Springfield Road.
"I called around and the first time I saw him, he had a 'barrack-buster' of cider in his hand. I put him and his mate out. When I left, they both went in again".
A few weeks later, Joleen told her mother that she had begun a new relationship with him.
"She said he was dead on. She brought him over. She introduced me to him. For her sake, I passed myself. She seemed to like him and he seemed to like her.
"Joleen found out she was pregnant in October 2013. She was delighted. On July 13, 2014, she welcomed a baby boy.
"Myself and my sister called around to see her one day to ask her if she and the child wanted to go shopping. She had foundation on her face but she was wearing her pyjamas and house coat. Her eyes were all swollen like she was crying. She said she didn't want to go out.
"Down the line, I found out later that she had had two black eyes that day and she was hiding it."
In May 2015, Joleen revealed to her mother that she had been the victim of domestic violence.
Just hours after their son had been christened, O'Connor had lashed out, overturning a table, smashing a bottle of spirits and striking Joleen and another woman who was present.
Later, when the couple moved again to Colinview Street, Joleen burst into tears while with her mother.
"She broke down crying and said 'Mummy, he has been beating me since I have been carrying the baby'. I hugged her and the child," said Carol.
Carol said her daughter had a friend in Downpatrick and she would go down at the weekends to stay with her and her family.
In June 2015, Joleen got her own place in the town and moved in with her son.
"She wanted to get away from him and have a fresh start".
Both Carol and her mother were later awarded a non-molestation order against Michael O'Connor and Joleen's new home in Downpatrick was fitted with a panic button.
Carol said life has been a struggle since Joleen was attacked.
"It was like sometimes, I didn't know what day it was," she said.
"I was trying to keep everything together. I was trying to be strong for everybody.
"When the kids weren't about, I just broke down. Resentment went through me. I would think `How did this happen?' It's something you see on TV or read in a book, not something that comes to your door.
"Anyone suffering any type of mental or physical abuse, whether it's a man or a woman, find someone you can trust and talk to them and don't think that they won't do it again, they will do it again. A leopard never changes its spots."
She added: "I miss her every day. It's strange without her. I got her a little teddy bear when she was in hospital, when she was in intensive care and wrote a message on it. I keep it at the top of my bed and cuddle it sometimes.
"I just really, really miss her. All I have now is a lot of good memories."
