CAROLINE Coyne's son Cameron was too young to remember much about the mother who was brutally taken away from him when he was still a baby.
He was just five months old when Caroline, 28, was murdered by "sexual predator" Carl Powell as she walked home from a party.
The events of the early hours of July 23 last year have already been keenly felt by Caroline's other son, Ethan, eight, however. And Caroline's mum, Mandy Coyne, said the life term handed down to her daughter's killer yesterday would make it just a little easier for the family.
"He keeps asking questions about what happened and who did this," she said.
"While it doesn't change the fact she can't see them grow up, it will be slightly easier now to explain to him that the person who did this has been sent to prison."
Caroline was targeted by Powell as she walked back from a family party in Arnold. It's still not known why the 28-year-old, who lived in Bakewell Drive, Top Valley, was going on a route which took her through Mapperley and Thorneywood on her way home.
She left the party, in Roundwood Road, Arnold, with her half-sister Rhiann, now 18, at about 11pm on July 22. The pair walked the short distance to Caroline's stepdad Jason Stansfield's house in Arnot Hill Road just before midnight, but she did not go inside.
Mr Stansfield, 42, recalled: "I could hear them halfway down the street, they were making so much noise. They were both loud.
"I met them in the back garden. I went to give Caroline a hug and she just kind of wriggled out and ran off out the back garden.
"I didn't get any other calls that night asking where she was. The next day, at a restaurant booking in town I'd made to celebrate Rhiann's birthday, Caroline didn't turn up. That night, I got a call from Mandy saying Caroline was dead."
Caroline worked as a care assistant for West Bridgford-based MGB Care Services Ltd. Her role was to help look after adults with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour at the company's Burlington Villa care home, off Mansfield Road, in Sherwood, and the Ash Villa home in Musters Road, West Bridgford.
Mr Stansfield helped bring Caroline up while in a relationship with her mother. He and Mandy had two children together, Jensen and Rhiann, who live with Mr Stansfield.
"Caroline was a sweet, loving and caring young woman who was six years into a relationship with her partner, Nick," Mr Stansfield said.
"Everyone who met Caroline could not help have their spirits lifted by her. She always had a smile and always had time for other people. This was especially true for the residents she looked after at the care home where she worked.
"Her two boys have not only lost their mother, but each other, as Ethan has gone to live with his natural father, James, in Derbyshire and Cameron – who will never have a memory of his mother because he is too young – now lives with his father, Nick, in Leicestershire.
"So Caroline's abrupt and tragic end has not only torn our family apart metaphorically, but quite literally as well.
"The family is, of course, pleased that the trial has had a positive outcome and Carl Powell has been found guilty of Caroline's murder. Powell is clearly a significant danger to women."
Caroline had taken a taxi for part of her journey but then decided to walk. At one point, she got into a police car with two Special Constables, but – after a computer check was carried out – she was told they were "not a taxi service".
As she walked down Porchester Road in Mapperley, Powell was walking near her – and he fatally attacked her in Thorneywood Mount, Thorneywood.
Mr Stansfield said: "During the trial, we learnt that Caroline flagged down a police car. Two Special Constables were asked by Caroline if they could take her home. After a check on the police computer showed no trace of Caroline, they told her to either walk home or get a taxi. So the police, in our opinion, failed Caroline and their advice to take a taxi put her right in the path of her murderer.
"The taxi driver was trying to help but didn't get an address, so wasn't able to drive her to a place of safety."
Powell, 24, of Carlton, was given a life sentence – with a minimum of 20 years before parole – at Nottingham Crown Court yesterday, after being found guilty of murder. A month after killing Caroline, he followed a second woman, now aged 22, who had been walking home alone. He was jailed for four years concurrently for falsely imprisoning her with intent to commit a sexual offence and 18 months concurrently for sexual assault.
After the jury convicted him unanimously on all three charges, the judge, Mr Justice Flaux, told him Caroline Coyne was an "innocent stranger" who had the misfortune to encounter him by chance as she made her way home.
"You rapidly appreciated that she was very drunk indeed, vulnerable and alone," he said. "Whatever you said or did to her at the Punch Bowl pub [Mapperley], she was frightened and distressed enough to run away from you but you followed her, effectively stalking her."
The judge said Powell pulled up his hood, donned a pair of gloves and followed Caroline into the alleyway, where he attacked her and savagely bludgeoned her around the head. He told Powell: "Only you know what happened in that dark alleyway at the side of Thorneywood Mount but it's clear that you cornered and attacked her."
He added that Powell had left Caroline "to die alone and defenceless".
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