TODAY marks the first anniversary of the murder of Lancashire nurse Jane Clough.

Her parents Penny and John, close relatives and Jane’s daughter will spend a quiet day with a small private memorial service at St Thomas’s Church where the funeral was held.

They will then sit by her memorial tree planted in Barrowford Cemetery above Barr-owford Park and ‘remember the good times’.

John said: “Weather permitting we will take a bottle of wine there and release some Chinese lanterns in her memory.

“It is still very painful for us. It is with us every single day, in every part of the day.

"But we will try and remember some of the good times, rather than that day one year ago.”

John turns 51 on Wednesday. Last year he spent his 50th birthday in the morgue at Blackpool Victoria Hospital after Jane was brutally murdered by her former boyfriend Jonathan Vass in the hospital car park.

He was on bail at the time after being charged with raping Jane.

She wrote in her diary that she feared Vass would come and kill her for giving evidence against him.

John said: “The abiding memory from last year was the shock, horror and disbelief.

"We were at home when an officer knocked on our door around midnight, asked if I was John Clough and told me he believed my daughter had been murdered.”

After Vass was sentenced to life last October, John and Penny began campaigning for changes in the justice system.

On Thursday they are holding a Justice For Jane conference at The DeVere Hotel in Blackpool to highlight their campaign, which has already raised the issue of changes to the Bail Act in Parliament through Pendle MP Andrew Stephenson.