The life of a local victim of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing has been celebrated by her partner today during the public inquiry into the attack.

Det. Con. Elaine McIver, 43, who was originally from Ellesmere Port but who lived in Frodsham, had served Cheshire Constabulary as a regular officer since 1998.

She had been waiting with boyfriend, Paul Price, to collect his young daughter from the Ariana Grande concert, when she was killed by the bomb blast in the foyer of the arena.

In Paul's 'pen portrait' of Elaine, which was read today by colleague and friend, Jo Doyle, he paid tribute to "the love of [his] life."

"Our love of music is what first brought Elaine and I together," Paul wrote. "During our time together we enjoyed going to lots of concerts. Some evenings Elaine and I would just sit on the sofa and listen to music all night.

"Elaine and I spent many weekends away together, visiting the Lake District , and to London for my birthday and concerts. We loved travelling but equally loved spending our weekends together, snuggled up on the couch. We couldn't have been happier.

"We were so in love and looking back, it was so perfect, it almost doesn't seem real now.

"Elaine had a lovely personality. She was always sorting things out for everyone or helping them. It was like her job was to make other people happy.

"If there was an occasion, a get-together or a party to plan, Elaine would sort it out. That was her thing. Plus she was very good at it. She always had lots of ideas to make things extra special.

Their relationship going from strength to strength, Elaine and Paul had been planning to buy a house together at the time of her death.

"We couldn't stop talking about our new house and our new future together, what we were going to do, how we were going to have the house, with the spare room for people to stay over and a room for my children if they came to visit and stay," Paul wrote.

"We wanted to do so much. She was everything to me. No one has ever truly understood me or known me like Elaine.

"After the bombing, at first it was hard for me to remember the wonderful times I had shared with Elaine and the time we'd spent together. It was upsetting for me as I would do anything for things to go back to those days.

"But now, as time has passed, and I am beginning to cope with the loss of Elaine and process my emotions, I truly feel blessed to have those memories, which I will always treasure in my heart.

"In one way, my life ended on that night, but I know that Elaine would want me to be happy and enjoy life again.

"It is so hard to face each day without her, but I hope one day to return to work and to try and find some happiness again. But I am forever broken-hearted and the sadness will never go away."

Speaking on the eighth day of the inquiry, on Monday 21st September, Elaine's sister, Lynda, asked: "How do you begin to talk about someone who was such a big part of your life?

"Well the thing is, you don't. You just can't.

"You just can't say, in a short period of time, what somebody meant to you, and how much they meant to you."

Quoting the old adage: "a picture paints a thousand words," Lynda included a photo montage in her tribute to Elaine, saying that she hoped to reflect her sister's "character" and "lust for life" to the inquiry.

Lynda added that Elaine was "just a cheeky little girl from the minute she was born.

"She just embraced life [...] she was gusto and gung ho and just a joy to be around.

"She was very much loved and very much a massive pivotal part of our family.

"She would hate to be remembered as a victim."

The inquiry also heard that Elaine's nieces "were treated by Elaine as her very own children."

Although initially reticent about the idea of a public pen portrait, Elaine's family eventually decided that "we might regret not saying something on her behalf."

These family tributes to the 22 people killed in the Manchester Arena bombing will continue until the end of this week.

The formal inquiry into the terrorist attack, chaired by Sir John Saunders, which aims to examine the events leading up to the night of May 22nd 2017, and the response of the emergency services.

While Salman Abedi, the suicide bomber who detonated a rucksack bomb inside the arena, was killed during the attack, his brother, Hashem Abedi, is serving a 55-year minimum sentence for his part in the atrocity.