IT should have been a day of rejoicing, a chance for the family to get together and sing Happy Birthday to Charlotte, the youngest daughter of the Flanagan family.

Instead, April 24 was spent in a quiet church in the small Canarian town of Teguise, high above the tourist resorts in Lanzarote.

There Charlotte's family spent the day remembering the young woman for whom "kindness was her only crime".

Four months earlier, in the early hours of New Year's Day, Charlotte had been stabbed in the neck and died in a pool of blood in her small flat above the Barley Mow pub, just yards from Oxford Street.

Charlotte's mother, Dorothy, said: "We had spoken to her hours before, when she rang us briefly from work to wish us a Happy New Year and that was the last time we heard from her."

At the Flanagan family home, in Melville Gardens, Darwen, 2002 started with knock at the door from police officers, and the Flanagans were told the grim news.

For the next four months, the family pulled together to first get through the post mortems, the funeral, and the court appearances of the man accused of Charlotte's murder.

But when they realised her birthday was approaching, the family decided it was time to get away.

Dorothy, who works at Darwen Medical Centre, said: "We just wanted to be by ourselves, as a family, away from everything for Charlotte's birthday so we could support each other and just think about her.

Her birthday fell on a Wednesday and we went looking for a church, but we couldn't find one which was open.

"So we travelled up to Teguise, a small town, and we found one which was open."

Also there were Charlotte's sister Kate, brother Luke and grandmother Dorothy Marland, of Hoddlesden, along with Charlotte's father, Kevin, an architect, who said: "We went in and there was very sombre music playing and orchids in vases around us. It was like it had been set up for a funeral. It was very appropriate and just gave us chance to think and support each other, because the memories are so very painful."

Charlotte had only intended to leave Darwen for a year, starting in September 2001.

"Charlotte always liked to be close to the family" said Dorothy.

"But she had set her heart on being a nurse and when she discovered she couldn't start the course for a year she decided to try and spread her wings and do something different for a year. She moved down to London and got a job."

"She had decided on being a nurse after thinking about going into the police but nursing would have been perfect for her."

Born in 1979, Charlotte attended St Cuthbert's Primary School, Darwen, and St Wilfrid's High School, Blackburn. Staff at St Cuthbert's remember her as a hard-working girl "who was full of life and fun, very musical and very sporty." She was "the sort of girl who is an asset to a school."

Dorothy said: "She never stopped. She was in the Brownies, the Mary Unsworth School of Dance, played musical instruments.

"We were always taking her somewhere, she never stopped. We always had a houseful of people here, and the phone never stopped ringing, she was so popular. Nobody had a bad word to say about her. She was so caring."

After St Wilfrid's, Charlotte studied health and social care at Blackburn College. She also became a "peer educator" for a project in the Ribble Valley which helped steer vulnerable children away from drugs.

She then went on to work at social services, with people with learning disabilities before gong to London.

"Wherever she worked, she was always kind and thoughtful," said Kevin.

It was while working at social services that she first met her killer, Gareth Richard Horton.

He also worked for social services and rented out Charlotte's house when she moved to London.

He had worked at social services since 1999, and was known to Dorothy through her job at the doctors' surgery.

Regulars at the Barley Mow have strong recollections of both Charlotte and the man they knew by the nickname 'Jeff'.

Gary Furlong said: "Charlotte was a lovely girl and Jeff was a quiet, gentle giant.

"Charlotte was always nice but did start to get fed up with Jeff, and sometimes said she wished he would just go back to Blackburn."

Over the Christmas period, Charlotte met David Ivemey, the stepson of Roy McKinley, another regular at the pub. The pair went out on a Boxing Day date.

She was due to meet him in his native Nottingham on New Year's Day. It is the thought of losing her which is believed to have triggered the stabbing by Horton. Roy said: "Charlotte was a generous, sociable and outgoing girl who did not suffer fools gladly.

"Jeff was a loner. He never started the conversations."

David said: "In the time I got to know her, I think we developed an understanding for each other. After Boxing Day, I took her back to the pub, it was the last time I saw her.

"We spoke a couple of times and she said she would call at 12.15pm on New Year's Day to say what time she would be getting in at Nottingham. The phone did ring at 12.15pm but it was Roy telling me someone had been murdered at the pub, and they thought it was Charlotte."

Despite his isolation, Jeff was trusted by the Barley Mow regulars and staff. He slept on Charlotte's floor on Christmas Day and the pub's bosses, John and Mary Gordon, even allowed Jeff to take their son, John, to see Lord of The Rings.

For Kevin, there was a strange sense of familiarity about the Barley Mow pub when he and Dorothy visited the pub for the first time after Charlotte's death. Slowly, it dawned on him. He had been there many a time when his work involved him travelling to London on a regular basis. It was somewhere he had never dreamed of visiting in such tragic circumstances.

Dorothy said: "The people at the pub have been a tower of strength. The fact so many flowers were laid down there and so many cards had been dropped in showed us what an impact Charlotte had made. That meant an awful lot to us. They all spoke so fondly of her. The Barley Mow had a real sense of community about it.

"Charlotte obviously had a lot of friends there. They all spoke of her happy, smiling face, and that is how we remember her too."

Regulars at the Barley Mow have given £1,500 to help pay for a headstone

At Charlotte's funeral, St Bartholemew's Church, Ewood, was packed, and many people had to wait outside.

Kevin said: "Friends from all over the place who had heard what had happened turned up, and that was very touching."

Despite the verdict yesterday, for the Flanagan family, the anguish goes on.

Dorothy added: "There are days like Father's Day which are hard. Charlotte was always so thoughtful about the present she got, and always made days like that, and birthdays, really special occasions.

"That's when all we can do is think about her and how much we have lost."