Deana Cox thought her partner Alan Riddock was going to make it.

It was late on Saturday, May 24, last year when she received a frantic phone call from her daughter saying Alan had been stabbed.

Moments later, Deana, 38, was on her way to Bristol Royal Infirmary and then Frenchay Hospital, where her partner of 17 years was laying in intensive care on a life support machine.

She said: "At first I was just hopeful. I was told there had been a lot of blood and I thought it might have looked worse than it was.

"When I was told he had gone to Frenchay because of head trauma, I started to get worried. When I saw him, the neurologist came down, shone a light in his eyes and there was nothing.

"The doctor said he was dead, but I said he wasn't. Then he gripped my arm and his hand went out to his son. I was saying 'he's coming back, he's coming back', but 10 minutes after that, he passed away. I think it was his way of saying goodbye."

Few people, if any, will ever know exactly why 41-year-old Alan Riddock was beaten and stabbed to death outside The Park House pub in Bedminster.

It could be he was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, the innocent victim of what was described in court as a "vicious, sustained and merciless" attack.

He may have dropped his trousers during the course of someone else's argument, having had a drink on the day Bristol City went to Wembley to contest the Championship play-off.

But his family asks was that enough to prompt his brutal execution, or were the killers after someone else and they bludgeoned him to death because he just happened to be there?

His loved ones say Alan Riddock was more the type of man to stop a fight, rather than start one.

He was born in Southmead Hospital in 1967 and went to Hareclive Primary School and then Hartcliffe Senior School.

His mother Pat, aged 66, of Hartcliffe, said: "He was a happy-go-lucky kid. He was sporty and he was good at maths. He wanted to be a fitness instructor, but couldn't get the funding."

It was with a pal that Alan strived to raise money to set up a fitness centre for all in Hartcliffe.

Sadly, though they raised more than £30,000 towards a target of £40,000, funding for the project fell short and the dream was never realised.

Pat said: "After that, Alan became a lifeguard at Bishopsworth swimming pool. He fitness-trained every day and he stayed there for 12 years."

Alan then put his business skills to use and opened a cafe, called "Arf and Ale's", which he ran in Bedminster with a friend for some two years.

Deana Cox, of Hartcliffe, knew Alan from when she was aged 15 but started seeing him when she was 20.

She said: "After about a year we moved into a property in Tewther Road, Hartcliffe. I had two children from a previous relationship and I had my third child with Alan."

As time passed, Deana began to feel down, and a week before Alan was killed, she was diagnosed as suffering from clinical depression

Deana went to stay with her mother in Worle for a few days, while Alan stayed at home with the children. He supported Bristol City and had wanted to take his son to Wembley but couldn't get a ticket.

Alan said they would go up the pub to watch it, and his mother's last words to him were: "Make sure you have something to eat".

Deana said: "They watched the game at the Harriers and, afterwards, they went to the Park House.

"There was a row outside, and Alan dropped his trousers and showed his behind in the background. He would have done it to make light of things, he would have tried to have prevented a row. It was nothing to do with him."

The court heard Alan was still stood outside when the attackers rushed him, and he managed to push his son inside before taking the full brunt of the gang. His friend Jonathan Stephens was struck when he came out to see what was going on.

So began Deana and her family's three-hour vigil of Alan at Frenchay Hospital.

She said: "We went to a family room and a woman came in. She said they would put Alan in a room so we could say goodbye and we were hysterical, crying and numb."

Some 400 people attended Alan's funeral service in Bedminster Down and, after all the hurt, Alan's family ensured their final goodbye would not be to solemn music.

Deana said: "We played Alan's favourites of Firestarter by Prodigy and Dilemma by Nelly and Kelly. He would have hated hymns.

"He was taken from us so suddenly, and for why? But he will remain in our hearts forever."