"I've stabbed him, I need the police, I need everything, he's attacked me as well."

That 999 call was the first indication that something was seriously wrong at the flat 'Clare and Robbo' shared in Dukinfield.

Neighbours had heard Clare McMahon and John Robinson rowing before, but hadn't seen things get violent.

Things became extremely violent on the night of May 23 this year, when McMahon, 35, stabbed her boyfriend John Robinson 30 times.

The death of Mr Robinson devastated the family who knew him as a funny, hardworking man with a 'heart of gold'.

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And it left the jury in the subsequent trial with a huge decision over what and who to believe.

Was Clare McMahon a woman pushed to the edge of sanity by years of being bullied behind closed doors?

Or was it him who had lived in fear of her?

Certainly, the fatal attack was one of extraordinary brutality.

McMahon used two knives, both of which broke in the frenzy.

She would then claim, in a Manchester Crown Court trial, that he had driven her to it, alleging he was violent and abusive.

But with Mr Robinson, 37, dead and incapable of telling his side of the story - it was his family who left to defend his name, telling jurors McMahon was actually the aggressive one and that he had been 'petrified' of her.

McMahon would admit manslaughter before the jury, on the basis that she was suffering from a 'complex post-traumatic stress disorder'.

But after a trial that lasted around two weeks, it took jurors just two hours to unanimously convict McMahon of murder.

It meant they simply didn't believe the violence meted out to Mr Robinson was justified.

They had heard, before returning those verdicts, of the toxic relationship 'Clare and Robbo' had.

There 'no love between them', and 'never any sign of affection', his sister said.

She saw scratches on her brother's neck, McMahon having attacked him 'for no apparent reason'.

She was, John Robinson had confided in his sister, a 'mad b****'.

Describing how John Robinson had been 'frightened' and 'petrified' of his girlfriend, his sister recalled being told of how McMahon had smashed a coffee table by throwing it at a wall, had hurled a Christmas tree at him, and held a knife to his throat.

Indeed, on one occasion, McMahon had handed a knife to a neighbour in a carrier bag for 'safe keeping' - to stop herself from attacking John Robinson with it.

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And yet he was 'such a joker', that when Mr Robinson told another man how his girlfriend had banged his head so hard against the wall it was like the 'here's Johnny' scene from The Shining, his friend didn't take it all that seriously.

Things hadn't started out that way.

By her account the relationship had been 'good fun' at the beginning, with the couple enjoying nights out at restaurants and the cinema.

They had started going out in 2014, and were an item for several years before moving in together.

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And Clare McMahon would claim, that at one stage, she had wanted to start a family with Mr Robinson.

Her claim, that the pregnancy ended when he attacked her, was only made after she had murdered Mr Robinson.

It was one of a series of lurid allegations of abusive, controlling behaviour that she would make in her defence attempt to escape a murder charge - an attempt the jurors rejected.

She would also claim that Mr Robinson was the author of his own tragic fate, claiming that she had randomly awoken to find him standing in front of the bed with a knife, before dropping it on the bed and reaching for another one, allowing her to pick up the first, and use it in her own defence.

It was telling that it was McMahon who witnesses associated with knives, and not her victim, John Robinson.

The truth was, the prosecution said, that having attacked her partner with one knife, the murderer attacked him with another she took from the kitchen - to make sure he was dead.

"I think he's lost a lot of blood", Clare McMahon told the operator in the aftermath.

Asked whether he was breathing, she replied: "I think a little bit. No, I think he's gone."

What exactly went on that night will never be known.

What is known is that McMahon has been found to be suffering from an abnormality of mind.

But while one doctor said they believed that to be post-traumatic, another said they did not.

Either way, John Robinson lost his life to the murderous rage of the woman he lived with.

As she put it, in a phone call to a former boyfriend in the aftermath:"I've stabbed him to death... I've stabbed him.

"I just couldn't stop myself."