Losing a child is a mother’s worst nightmare, but when you lose two children – your innocent sons – at the hands of the man they should have trusted the most, it’s almost unimaginable.
“He rang me and just said he’d killed the children"
But for Denise Williams, this was much more than a nightmare; it was her reality.
She suffered a decade of domestic violence at the hands of controlling husband Steve Wilson, before finally finding the strength to leave him in 2002.
Four days after moving out, she arranged to meet her husband and their two sons, Brett, 8, and Brad Lee, 7, for lunch at McDonalds.
After the meal, Wilson asked Denise to come back to his car, where she chatted with him and her two sons for a little while longer.
But, as she made to leave, Wilson turned murderously violent, punching her and threatening to kill her, before hurling her from the car and speeding off with their little boys.
In a despicable act of revenge, Steve slashed Brad Lee’s throat with a craft blade and then stabbed him with a screwdriver.
Bret was forced to watch his brother being murdered. Then Steven used the screwdriver to stab Bret.
He then phoned Denise her to tell her what he had done.
Describing the phone call she got from him, Denise told ITV’s Lorraine: “He rang me and just said he’d killed the children.
“At first I didn’t believe him but then I thought back to the phone call, after he’d put the phone down, and I couldn’t hear the boys, so then I did start to panic.”
Denise has now written a book called Mummy’s Little Angels, which she hopes will help other women suffering from domestic violence.
Denise said: “Just to help one person from this book would be the achievement and also it’s keeping my boys memory alive because as a mother you can never forget your child regardless of how you lost them.
“A mother and a child is a very, very exceptional bond, they weren’t just my children they were my best friends.
“I’d got no one else in life, I’d got them and that was it because I was isolated away from friends and family, didn’t see no-one, only the people he wanted us to mix with so that’s one of the signs to look out for, isolation from everyone, not being allowed to go anywhere.”
Denise, who is now remarried and has three children, but admits she struggled to trust husband Kevin Griffiths when she first met him.
She said: “It was very hard, when I first got with Kevin, in my own mind I’m saying to myself, 'can I actually trust him?'
“Kevin’s a different man to what Steve was, different personality. He’s amazing. I’m surprised I’m still with him.
“I’m surprised he’s put up with me the way I have been from obviously when we were first together I was in a right mess and he’s really pulled me through it.”
***You can buy Mummy’s Little Angels on Amazon.co.uk now for £4. ***
Lorraine is on ITV, weekdays from from 8.30am to 9.25am