JONES TRIAL: DAVID MacKinnon's children will finally be able to put a headstone on their father's grave now that a jury has returned a guilty verdict on his killer.

Speaking just hours after a jury at Bristol Crown Court convicted his girlfriend Jane Jones of manslaughter, Mr MacKinnon's son Matthew and daughter Kate said they felt they could finally close a traumatic chapter in their lives, after 11 months of anguish and anxiety.

"Until now we haven't been able to put him to rest properly," said Ms MacKinnon, 24, a former insurance broker from Calne, who is seven months pregnant.

"Time does heal, but there are still things that jog your memories. It will never be over, but now it feels like a chapter has finished."

It was not until the jury delivered its unanimous verdict at the end of the eight-day trial that the family finally felt able to ring a stonemason to order a headstone for his grave.

Ms MacKinnon said that time had stopped for the family during the trial that dominated their lives and left them emotionally drained. "You forget all sense of time and day," she said.

The hardest thing for the brother and sister, described by family members as a credit to their father, to come to terms with is that their children will grow up without their grandfather.

Ms MacKinnon is due to give birth to her first child in July, while 27-year-old Mr MacKinnon, a self-employed Calne builder, has a one-year-old daughter, Sophie, whom his father met only once before his death last May.

Both children will be taken to visit their grandfather's grave and told what kind of man he was.

The circumstances of his death will be explained to them when they are old enough to understand the tragedy.

"It's so sad that he won't be around to see his grandchildren grow up, he would have made a fantastic granddad," said Ms MacKinnon.

She added that they felt sympathy for Jones's two children, Stephen, seven, and three-year-old Kira, who had loved Mr MacKinnon and been deprived of him, too.

Jones, who had been involved in a relationship with 49-year-old motor mechanic Mr MacKinnon for about three years, and shared a home with him at Wood Lane, Chippenham, had claimed she killed him with a single stab wound to the chest in self defence.

She was cleared by the jury of his murder, and was found guilty of manslaughter but not by reason of provocation.

Mr MacKinnon's children said they felt the verdict was fair, although they will now have to wait three weeks before 38-year-old Jones is sentenced.

"I don't mind it taking a long time if it's being done properly and she gets the sentence she deserves," said Ms Mackinnon.

They say that because the jury decided Mr MacKinnon did nothing to provoke the attack, their father's character has been vindicated.

They had felt throughout the trial that nothing had been said about the good man their father was and that this had been distressing both for them and for their 87-year-old grandfather, Fred, who had followed reports of proceedings in court by listening to tapes of the Gazette.

"He was worried that it wasn't a true representation of his character and that people might think badly of him," said Mrs MacKinnon.

The family was ordered out of the courtroom at the end of the trial for applauding following last Thursday's manslaughter verdict, but Mr Mac-Kinnon explained that this was simply a release of emotion.

"After 11 months of anxiety, we just felt a big relief," he said.

"It certainly wasn't entertainment."

He described his father as a caring and gentle man and a very approachable dad.

"We knew that if we ever needed anything we could just go and see him," he said.

Mr MacKinnon senior was born in Swindon, a twin to sister Diane, and grew up in Calne, living in Curzon Street the same street as the cemetery where he is now buried.

He went to Guthrie Infants' School and Fynamore Secondary School and as a boy enjoyed running, a hobby he kept up in adulthood, running the London Marathon. He also enjoyed cycling and motor racing.

He worked for 35 years at Zebedee and Powney, in Oxford Road, Calne, as a garage mechanic, but he also helped his family and friends keep their cars in good order.

In 1974 he married Libby Romaine at Derry Hill Church and the couple remained good friends even after their divorce in the early 1980s.

Miss MacKinnon has fond memories of childhood trips to the coast at Weymouth, and more recently of meeting her dad for a drink on a Sunday afternoon or going to his flat to cook him dinner.

She remembers him as a laid back man with a cheeky grin and a sweet tooth.

"He used to fix my car for me in his spare time and I would pay him with jelly babies and wine gums," she said.