I thought ‘Thank God maybe everything is ok’. Then police knocked on my door

She was at home when she received a frantic call from her grandson. In garbled, confused speech she quickly realised something was seriously wrong.

She urged him to get help but it wasn’t until a few days later when an officer knocked on her door and confirmed the sad truth: Her daughter was dead and her grandson was charged with her murder.

Stephen Ball, 32, would later plead guilty to the unlawful killing of his mother Susanne Galvin, 55, on the grounds of diminished responsibility, and his mental health issues would become a centrepoint for his trial at Bolton Crown court. Ultimately, jurors found him guilty of her murder.

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At trial his grandmother, Mary Galvin, would reveal the devastating reality, and disturbing consequences, of her family’s troubles with mental health.

“As far as I was concerned, both Stephen and Susanne were mentally unstable,” she began.

Susanne Galvin had suffered for years, firstly with alcohol-related mental health issues and then dementia, her mum said. “She had no recollection of recent times, everything was back to 30 years ago,” she added.

Mary helped look after her two boys; Stephen and Michael. She would have them on and off over a number of years until being granted a residential order for them both by the family court.

They were a close family unit, though she noted that Michael ‘didn’t have a lot of time for his mum’. He kept a close eye on Stephen, though, providing support to him when he needed it.

Stephen was diagnosed with ADHD in his teens, though Susanne wouldn’t allow him to be medicated, she said. His mental health would continue to plague him. He would struggle to concentrate at school, instead focusing