A close friend of Peter Balcombe said he had never seen Peter Balcombe show any violence in the 25-28 years he knew him closely.

In fact Roly Lockey, 46, who lives at Fyfield near Marlborough said he liked and trusted him so much there would be a bed for him when he came out of prison.

Mr Lockey is one few of Balcombe's friends who visited him regularly while he has been on remand at Horfield Prison in Bristol.

They played in the same darts teams for many years Mr Lockey said at pubs including the Moonrakers in Pewsey, the former Prince of Wales pub at Hilcott and at Marlborough Town football club in Marlborough.

"We travelled together to away games, sometimes driving as far as Oxford to play in competitions together," said former grounds man Mr Lockey.

But his wife Eunice Balcombe knew a different man and her dream of making a good family life with Balcombe in Pewsey was destroyed by his violence. Her family has revealed she had a dream of one day running her own home for the elderly.

She was born Rose Eunice Wambui in Kenya in November 1966.

She was one of a large family of children brought up by Stephen and Rachel Mungai, most of them with aspirations to do well in the world even if it meant leaving their home in Kenya.

She attended two local schools, a Muslim girls' primary and one called Green Acres in her native Redhill in Kenya's Kiambu district.

As a teenager Eunice went to the Mary Mount Secondary School in Lolo and moved to Mombasa in 1984 after completing a secretarial course at Reeswood Secretarial College.

She married Italian Tino Ramoni who owned a hotel in Kilifi and she brought up her niece Mumbi who she had adopted at the age of two when her mother died.

Peter Balcombe had gone to Kenya to do some decorating work at the home of a friend when he met Eunice.

Mrs Balcombe quickly settled into life in Pewsey helped by the fact that she had a Kenyan born niece living in Swindon and many Kenyan friends living in Wiltshire and Bristol.

She wanted to be a nurse and it was following her death that her parents revealed that their daughter's long term ambition was to run her own home for the elderly.

Some of her relatives claimed Mrs Balcombe had told them she was planning to leave her husband in Pewsey and return to Kenya with her three children to achieve her ambition.

She worked hard a s a nurse at the Ridgeway Hospital at Wroughton and was in the final year of a course with the Oxford Brookes campus in Swindon.

Socially Mrs Balcombe threw herself into the community life in Pewsey.

Less than a week before her death she was at Pewsey's Christmas Fair, one of the villages biggest events of the year, helping a friend do face painting for children.

She would help out at the Puddleducks Pre School and also at the Shak youth centre.

Mrs Balcombe could sometimes be found at the village's e-Pewsey internet centre either doing her own work or helping others.

Her daughter Mumbi said shortly after her mother's death: "She worked so hard. She spent ages on the computer doing all her homework and she would get me to proof read it for her.