How do you cope when your grief for the death of your husband becomes front page news, and every private moment becomes public?

Janine Goss' husband, Mick, died in 1996 afte the helicopter he was piloting crashed on the way back from a football match in Lancashire. On board were four other men, including Matthew Harding, Chelsea football club's vice chairman and a high profile businessman. Within hours of the crash, journalists were onto the story, eager to discover more about Harding's complicated private life and his final moments during that fatal trip. Already trying to cope with their personal tragedy, Janine and her two sons, then aged 11 and 5, found themselves at the centre of a breaking news story in which they were, at best, bit players.

"Until it happened to me I always imagined when news broke that the next of kin knew that their nearest and dearest had been killed in an accident... I found out on the breakfast television news." It was Janine's eldest son, in the middle of getting ready for school who shouted to his Mum that their had been a helicopter crash. Janine rang the local police station, where the receptionist told her there was no problem. Janine insisted, and a police officer came over to be with her and the children. Tabloid interest in their story began almost immediately after Janine had had the death of her husband confirmed. "The policeman with me picked up the phone, thinking it would be a colleague, and it was a tabloid journalist wanting details. The policeman told them their phone call was very inappropriate." This didn't deter the press at all. Within half an hour, the press appeared outside the house, forcing the Janine and her two sons, all extrememly distressed, to leave their cottage by the back door and walk up a lane behind the row of cottages. Curtains were kept closed against the long-range camera lenses, "The children were just so upset. My youngest son, only 5 at the time, curled himself up into a ball and didn't want to talk to anyone. He kept saying over and over, "Why have they got cameras on our house, Mummy?"

Not content with making the Gosse family more unhappy than they already were, the journalists continued to bang on the door at intervals asking for Janine's comments or troubled the neighbours. "Many of my neighbours, weren't even aware that Mick was a helicopter pilot, and certainly weren't aware that he'd died. They all felt the intrusion to be totally inappropriate. One elderly couple came to me in tears, saying they were really sorry, they'd spoken to the press, and the story didn't actually say what they had said." said Janine. Even at the funeral, the television cameras were present. The press intrusion made grieving difficult for the boys and Janine, especially as Janine's father died four days after her husband, "He had lung cancer, but his prognosis was good - I just feel the shock killed him."

Two years on when Janine was selling the house, wishing to move with her life, the press reported that she was doing so because she had debts to pay. "It was complete fabrication," says Janine. Also difficult to cope with was the threat of legal action from the Harding family, on the grounds of possible negligence on Mick's part. "I could understand them wanting get compensation for Matthew Harding's loss of earnings, but it was the fact they were trying to prove Mick negligent when he was just doing his job." If proved negligent, half of Mick's estate would have been taken, which would have left Janine and the boys homeless. Fortunately it didn't come to this.

A year later, an inquest took place, "There was just a mass of journalists and photographers outside the coroner's court, shouting my name, asking me if I had anything to say. During the inquest, the coroner asked me if I would like to leave the court when they played Mick's last communication from Air Traffic. I said 'yes', and someone sat in a room with me, and took me back after it had been played. The following day, the coroner, looked to the press and said he was disgusted that they had reported that I had allegedly fled from the court hysterically." Several years on, the problem still hasn't gone away. When Frankie Dettori was involved in an air crash, the press were back banging on Janine's door.

Janine and the boys are doing their best to put those years behind them, "Mick was a great dad and a great husband; we're just getting on with our lives now. But my heart always goes to my mouth if I hear of another helicopter crash... and there have been a number since Mick's death."