TRACY Gilligan should have been giving her daughter Kally driving lessons today to celebrate her 17th birthday. Instead she will be visiting her grave.

Tracy had hoped to carry on the family tradition by doing the same for Kally as she had done for her two older girls, Leane, 23, and Cheryl, 22.

But sadly Kally was murdered last year, just weeks before her 16th birthday, when her ex-boyfriend Josh Thompson, 18, shot her on the doorstep of her Lower Broughton home before turning the gun on himself.

Kally's mum and sisters have still not come to terms with her death and say they never will.

Tracy has penned a poem to her daughter, who had ended her relationship with Josh, telling family and friends she had 'had enough of him'.

In it she refers to Kally as 'my beautiful angel' and describes the pain she is going through: 'My heart still aches with sadness, my tears will forever flow'.

A bench, fitted with a plaque for Kally, now sits in the front garden alongside a small memorial garden. They were paid for with a collection from hwe neighbours on Orion Place.

Kally's bedroom is still full of all her favourite things - her clothes, her music, her makeup.

The Albion High School pupil loved nothing more than spending time with her sisters and going out with her friends.

Tracy still finds it difficult to believe that her 'baby', who had 'blossomed from a tomboy into a glamorous young lady', is gone.

She said: "In my head it's like something you watch on TV or something you read about - it just doesn't happen.

"But it has happened and it's just something I can't believe or accept. I still expect her to come home.

"I saw all her friends recently and they all looked gorgeous. I was just trying to picture what my baby would look like. I could see them laughing and joking and was trying to picture what she would be doing."

Kally's niece Lacie, who is three next month, is still too young to be told what happened to her auntie and Lacie's mum Leane doesn't know if she'll ever be able to tell her the details.

Leane, from Kersal, said: "I can't hold myself together when Lacie says things to me about Kally. I don't know how I'd go about telling her. We just tell her that Kally's an angel and she's always blowing kisses up to her in the sky."

An inquest in December recorded that Kally was unlawfully killed and that Josh took his own life.

Tracy, 40, said: "What hurts me is that she must have been so scared. We were only upstairs and she didn't even shout me. I just don't think about him at all. I can't say I hate him, I just don't let myself think about him.

"I just try to think about how happy she was and I believe she's in a better place. I will never come to terms with losing my daughter. If she was poorly or had been in an accident that would be different. I'll never understand why he had to choose that way.

"If he'd have done something to himself we could have got her through that. He didn't have to be selfish and do what he did."

At the inquest police said they were still trying to find out where Josh had got the gun from. This is something Tracy and her family still need to know.

She said: "I don't know if they'll ever get to the bottom of it but I just hope whoever gave it to him can live with themselves. To ruin and devastate a family like they have done, I don't know how they can sleep at night.

"He has taken something that can never be replaced. I used to call us the four musketeers, it's just not the same anymore."

Detective Inspector Joanne Rawlinson, from Salford CID, said: "Somebody out there knows where the gun came from and I would urge anybody who knows anything about it to come forward.

"People can speak to us in absolute confidence and we will fully investigate any new information that comes to light."

Salford CID can be contacted on: 0161 856 5351.