EVEN at the terrible moment when Margaret and Richard Petch were confronted with the death of their daughter, they could not believe they would never be able to talk to her again.

And they could not accept that 20-year-old Leslie Anne's death in her flat, just a few doors away from their own home in the village of West Cornforth, County Durham, would remain a mystery.

Leslie Anne's partly hidden body, discovered by her brother Trevor, was surrounded by an empty bottle of pills, suggesting suicide.

That was something the Petches never thought their fun-loving, happy daughter would ever be capable of doing - as later proved beyond doubt at an inquest.

They knew, even back in March 1999, that the police were treating the death as highly suspicious.

In the time that followed, the couple were left in even more agony as they waited eight long weeks for the coroner to release her body so they could lay her to rest.

It was at that black time, just days before the findings of Leslie Anne's inquest were to come to light, that the desperate couple decided to try a medium.

The couple went to see Chester-le-Street spirtualist Valerie Pattison just days before the inquest findings.

Mrs Pattison recalled: "I had no idea who they were. As they sat there in front of me I went through the motions of her death, feeling hands around my neck.

"Of course I did not know Leslie Anne had been strangled and I apologised to them. But they just said: 'no, carry on. We want to know how she died'."

Sure enough, at the inquest death by manual strangulation was recorded. But the Petches' visits to Valerie and Durham Spiritualist Church didn't end there.

The couple, both convinced, continue to make regular visits to the church to receive messages from Leslie Anne, often told in their daughter's jokey, laugh-filled style. They argue they have too much proof not to believe in it and it was a comfort they came to depend on, especially after the chief suspect in the police's murder inquiry was found hanged in his prison cell.

"That robbed us of a trial and our chance to find out exactly what happened," said Mr Petch. "We await his inquest with interest, but it was a blow."

Richard and Margaret know it can never be proved for sure that are receiving messages from their daughter. But they will continue to pull together as a family, with their sons Christopher and Trevor, and they will continue to take comfort from their sincere belief