Teenager Courtney Boyle was loving life as a university student when she was murdered in the Manchester Arena bombing, her mother has told the public inquiry into the attack.
The 19-year-old, from Gateshead, was “ecstatic” when she got a place at Leeds Beckett University to study criminology and psychology and was the happiest she had ever been, the hearing in Manchester was told.
Details of her life and death were given during the commemorative phase of the public inquiry, in which family members of each of the 22 people killed in the attack pay tribute to their loved ones with statements, videos and photographs.
Tributes on Tuesday were also paid to Megan Hurley, 15, Kelly Brewster, 32 and Martyn Hett, 29.
Deborah Boyle said she was “besotted” with her daughter from the day she was born, and Courtney had worked hard through school and found a love of music.
She got a part-time job at Greggs to pay to go to music festivals, where she met her boyfriend Callum Maundrill.
In a statement, he said: “Reflecting on her journey through life breaks my heart. She was on her way to being truly happy.
“Courtney’s passing has been such a deep and crushing loss to me and everyone who knew and loved her.”
Ms Boyle said her sometime shy young daughter had grown into an independent woman.
“It was the happiest I had seen my Courtney and she was loving life as a student,” her statement said.
Courtney’s younger sister, Nicole, had attended the Ariana Grande concert on May 22 2017 and the family drove to Manchester and spent the time shopping while she was at the gig.
Courtney left the family in their car to collect her sister and was in the foyer when suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonated his bomb at the end of the gig.
Ms Boyle said: “I can still see my daughter’s smile as she left the car that night, knowing now her life was cruelly taken from her when she had everything to live for.
“I would give the world to see my daughter and best friend again and to hear her voice.”
Watch: Eyewitnesses describe the Manchester terror attack of May 2017
Another Yorkshire victim was Kelly Brewster, 32, from Sheffield, who was planning to start their own family with her partner and had an offer accepted on a new house the day she was murdered in the bombing.
A montage of photos set to music was played as parents and other family gathered at the public inquiry in Manchester to pay tribute to her during the ongoing commemorative phase of the hearings for the 22 victims of the attack.
Miss Brewster had been at the concert with her older sister Claire Booth and another younger relative.
The elder sister to brother Adam, she had attended Norfolk Primary School then City School, Sheffield, while there also working at a part-time job.
After school, she started work at a solicitor’s office, moving into her own home aged 21.
Only five feet tall, she was known as the “pocket rocket” and combined a passion for music and travelling the world, with regular month-long trips abroad.
Miss Brewster met her partner and “soul mate” Ian Winslow in 2014, who had his own daughter from a previous relationship – and the pair were planning their own family together.
On the day she died, the couple had an offer accepted on a new home and were preparing for children.
She had “longed to be pregnant” and had begun choosing baby names.
“Kelly was the happiest she had ever been,” her family said in a statement read by legal representatives.
“We have been robbed of Kelly’s future in the cruellest, most barbaric way.
“We will never see Kelly become a mother or watch her get married.”
The inquiry heard Kelly’s mother Kim is heartbroken and her father, Kevin, has suffered a heart attack and a stroke.
Mr Brewster regularly takes the train to sit in Victoria Station, “where he feels closest to Kelly”.
The family statement ended: “We will never be able to get over our loss or be able to move on from the 22nd of May 2017.”
