IT WAS a day she didn’t dare think would come, especially not so soon.

Doddie Edmonds has spent the last eight years trying to come to terms with the brutal murder of her mother and accept the fact that the man police said had killed her, had walked free after being cleared by a jury.

Now 58, she had finally reached a point where the horrifying nightmares of what happened to her much loved mum in the minutes of her life had been replaced by happy memories she cherished.

So when the bombshell news came that detectives had found a crucial piece of new evidence that could finally nail Matthew Hamlen, she found herself propelled back to the very dark days of 2008.

Speaking to the Daily Echo, Doddie said: “It came just as I started to have lovely, happy memories about mummy again and was starting to put all those horrid, grisly details out of my mind. I was just trying to get back to normal.

“When the police got in touch and said they had new evidence and they thought there was a chance for justice again, which my mother truly deserves.”

Doddie, who is a community nurse now living in Sussex, told how she received a phone call out of the blue from officers involved in the investigation in to her mother’s death in which she was asked to attend a meeting at police headquarters.

There she, along with brother Harry Edmonds, was told of the new evidence gleaned from tapings taken from her mothers’ blouse on the day she was killed.

But it was to be the start of a very long, delicate and very secretive process that involved taking the discovery to the Court of Appeal to have Hamlen’s acquittal quashed.

“We were not allowed to go to the court during that time, but then suddenly it was all go and it was here again.

She added: “I knew it was very strong evidence they had found, so I believed because they believed.”

Doddie has remained in court throughout the second trial, sitting in the public gallery from where she watched her mother’s killer take the stand for the second time to try and convince a jury of his innocence.

She said: “I felt like I have needed to hear every word. I think I have approached it just like a juror.

“I see Mrs Hamlen sitting just along from me and I treat her like any other person in the court. It is not her fault.

“I’ve just taken it day by day but it felt a bit stronger this time round.”

Doddie added: “Someone with a very nasty streak killed mummy in the most horrific way. I cannot dare imagine what she must have felt before she died.

She earlier described how she had struggled to comprehend what had happened, when she was told the news of her mother’s murder while she was working as a nurse in Sudan.

“It was baffling. I struggled to understand or believe it was true. I remember being unable to breathe and just |crying and crying.

“Nobody deserves their life to end that way, especially mummy who was a small and frail little lady who loved her home and was always so happy.

“Now I’m living back in England I would give anything to have shared my life with her but all that has been stolen from me.”

Doddie added: “Things do get easier in time. Inevitably there are things that remind you, there are things that you want to share with her, to tell her about.

“I don’t think there is a day that goes by that I don’t think of my dear mum. She was such fun."