Distraught mum Christine Long looks lovingly at photos of her pretty daughter Rachel and remembers how she told her to have a good time at a 21st birthday party for two friends.

It was early on Saturday night on January 10 at her home in Stockham Park, Wantage, and her 21-year-old daughter had called round with her sister Hazel, 19, and Hazel's baby twins.

It would be the last time Mrs Long, 40, would see her vivacious daughter before tragedy struck that evening at The Volunteer pub in Station Road, Grove.

At 12.35am, Mrs Long received a telephone call from one of Rachel's friends telling her that her daughter, who attended the party with a new boyfriend, had been cut with a bottle.

It emerged later that she had been stabbed in the stomach with a knife used to cut the birthday cake at the party and died from her injuries.

Mrs Long told the Oxford Mail: "My immediate reaction was that I hoped she hadn't been cut on the face because she was a pretty girl and I didn't want her looks to be spoiled.

"I had no idea at that stage that she had been seriously injured and when staff at the hospital told me she had died because her liver had been cut my world fell apart." "Rachel was a level-headed girl but she also enjoyed her life to the full and her whole family has been devastated by this.

She added: "She enjoyed her job as a hairdresser and everything was just starting to go well for her."

Mrs Long and Rachel's stepfather Gary, 50, have tried to piece together what happened on the night their daughter died.

She said: "Sometimes Rachel would go to London for a party and I would tell her to be careful.

"I never thought anything like this would happen on her own doorstep."

Mrs Long said: "I think Matthew Smith should go to prison for a long time.

"I believe Matthew Smith saw the knife earlier and went back to get it after trouble started.

"I think what he did was premeditated and should therefore carry a stiff prison sentence. It wasn't self-defence."

The mother-of-five said her daughter's death has had a devastating effect on her other children, half-sister Kayleigh, ten, Clara, 22, Hazel, 19, and Billy, 16.

She added: "Rachel was living with Hazel and helping to look after Hazel's twins and she has found this very hard to deal with.

"Rachel was the kind of girl who lit up the place when she walked in the room. Everyone had a soft spot for her.

"She loved her job and also had ambitions to be a singer. We all miss her terribly and now we just want justice. Smith should get a life sentence." SPLIT-SECOND SIGN OF ANGER

Strapping Matthew Smith was a regular at The Volunteer where he would play darts once a week for the pub team.

He knew the Crayfords, the couple running the pub, and used his "regular" status on the night of the murder to gain the privilege of selecting two bottles of wine from the cellar.

The 29-year-old carpet-fitter and floor layer from Herman Close, Abingdon, shared a home with pal Ian Goddard. They were together on the night of Rachel's murder.

Six-foot-tall Smith, who was celebrating his dad Philip's 50th birthday on January 10, had been in trouble with the law on two previous occasions.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of actual bodily harm, one in November 1988, the other in August 1989, and was fined on both occasions.

One of the incidents took place in a pub but Smith did not use a weapon in either attack, only his fists. He left school in 1985 and has been working as a carpet-fitter and floor layer ever since. The bachelor admitted that he was a heavy drinker, consuming seven to nine pints during a usual night out.

"If I pop out to watch the football I would only have four to five pints," he told the jury. "I usually drink "snakebite", which is half lager and half cider."

He got up to sing karaoke twice on the night of the incident, something he would not normally do, he revealed, because he was "tone deaf".

Giving evidence from the witness box, Smith wore black trousers and a blue shirt and tie and spoke slowly and deliberately, sticking to his story that he picked up the cake knife to defend himself but did not stab Rachel Long or Mark Parker.

He raised his voice only once during cross-examination by prosecutor Nicholas Browne QC, giving a split-second glimpse of the quick temper which, combined with drink, led him to hit Michael Lipscombe on the head with a wine bottle. A PLACE RAW WITH EMOTION

The electric atmosphere, seething with raw emotions, which greeted police when they arrived at The Volunteer the night Rachel Long was stabbed, is still etched in their memory six months later.

For the Wantage sector commander, Insp Paul Kirkland, who was the first through the door, it was the worst serious incident he can recall in his 16 years in the job.

He saw Rachel lying on the floor near the doorway, and her boyfriend, Mark Parker, sitting near a table some feet away. Both had horrendous injuries and were being given what first aid could be offered.

Insp Kirkland said: "In the bar, there was a cocktail of emotions - anger, fear, hostility and desperation. Everyone was in a state of shock - it was an atmosphere you could touch." He and his duty sergeant, Simon Morris, Pcs Pete Butler and Nigel Eighteen, and WPc Pat Wood, were faced with dealing with the aftermath of the horror attack on their own, before back-up teams started to arrive some ten minutes later, having been alerted from as far afield as Hungerford, Newbury and Oxford.

Insp Kirkland has little doubt, now or then, that the night's tragic circumstances might not have ended there had it not been for the personal handling of the situation and local knowledge of his Wantage team.

"In trying to get a picture of what happened, and seeking witnesses, we had to try and identify the offender, and it was immediately apparent he was still inside the public house," he said.

As Smith was identified and led outside, the officers faced a reception committee of shocked and angry people as he was led to a waiting car.

"It was through the professionalism of these local officers that it was dealt with without further injury or disorder." VILLAGERS IN A STATE OF SHOCK

Everyone in the quiet village of Grove and its neighbouring market town Wantage was in shock after hearing of Rachel Long's murder in a secluded country pub.

There was a sense of complete disbelief as the news filtered through on the morning of Sunday, January 11, that something so horrific could happen 'here'.

Det Supt Trevor Davies, who led the investigation into Rachel's tragic death in the early hours of the morning and the stabbing of her boyfriend Mark Parker, summed it up in one sentence.

"This appears to have been a brutal unprovoked attack on two young people enjoying a birthday party in the pleasant atmosphere of a pub in rural Oxfordshire," he said later that day.

Steve Drew, 42, a regular at The Volunteer pub which stands on its own near a couple of houses on the main road out of Grove, was one of the drinkers who tried to save the hairdresser's life after she was knifed in the stomach.

He said: "We gave her first aid and pressed some bar towels over the wound to stop it bleeding. We were talking to her and she was telling us her name.

"I was shocked when I heard she had died. It's a typical village pub. It's so out of character for the pub, it's unbelievable.

"It's always been friendly people in there, no trouble like that at all. It's just totally out of the blue. The poor girl was so young - that's no life."

Engineer Iain Duff, 55, of Shannon Close, Grove, was in the pub in Station Road until 11.20pm.

He said: "It was noisy but it was all good-humoured. There was a karaoke machine and everyone was having a good time. It's a very quiet town and you don't expect things like this to happen."

The horrific news came as an even greater blow to friends and neighbours of 21-year-old Rachel.

Rachel had been at a friend's house cutting hair before she went to the party that night.

Lynsey Harmer, 23, who lives in Hiskins, Wantage, on the same estate as Rachel's mum Christine and stepfather Gary, said: "She didn't really want to go but said 'I think I will go down and show my face'.

"She knew everybody and was a really popular girl. She was really nice, absolutely full of life. She was up for everything, in for a laugh. She had friends everywhere.

"She was supposed to be coming round to cut my brother's hair today. She said 'I haven't got time to do yours now Barry'."

Her partner Kieran Harmon, 18, said: "It was such a shock when we heard. It hasn't really sunk in yet."

The Longs' next-door neighbour and friend Mrs Janet Haines, 55, was working with Christine as grocery assistants at Waitrose in Wantage and has known her for 16 years. She described them as a lovely family.

She said: "It's dreadful for her. I was so shocked when I heard this morning. It's so sad. I lost my brother six years ago and Chrissie was so good to me then."

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