It is hard to imagine a more traumatic experience than losing a child, sister, brother or parent.

But to know that your loved one was murdered can make the grief, anger and hurt intolerable.

For Joan Martin the details of her sister Betty's violent death were the catalyst for a cocktail of new and strange emotions which have stayed with her ever since.

In 1979, Betty, a 43-year-old a mother-of-three, was strangled with her dressing gown cord in her bath.

The killer was her second husband, Edward Ives.

It came out during Ives' trial that there had been a history of domestic abuse and on the day of the murder, while Betty's body lay in the bathroom of their home he visited neighbours telling them she was at appointments with her doctor and dentist.

He was later given a life sentence for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility but has since been freed on parole.

As Joan, now a grandmother, talks about the events in the months following her sister's death, her hurt and anger can still be seen in her eyes. She finds it difficult to mention the killer's name.

On the wall, June 13, the anniversary of the murder, is scribbled out on her calendar. "That day just does not exist for me any more", she said. "It's always a bad day and I find I hide away."

The former nurse, of Beeches Avenue, Worthing, said: "At first there was disbelief. I couldn't believe it had happened and then for the next three months I was really quite numb and I was getting on with everything that had to be done.

"After that had worn off it was like having a gaping, bleeding wound.

"There were feelings of anger, grief and loss, and the one I found the hardest to deal with - hatred.

"I hated Betty's killer. For weeks after her death I waited for the phone to ring, willing someone to tell me he was dead."

Joan and her family refused to have Ives' name on Betty's grave but they were not allowed to use her maiden name for the inscription so her headstone reads just Betty Jean.

She said: "I felt a lot of guilt after my sister's death. I knew something was wrong with her marriage but I never did anything because I didn't want her to accuse me of interfering.

"The guilt eventually goes as you become more rational with time. I felt guilt because I cared and he didn't."

She added: "Eventually I thought, 'I can't live with this hatred and anger any longer, it will destroy me'. The only thing to do was to turn it into something positive. I didn't see why he should be able to change my life completely."

Joan looked around for help. Although loathe to use the word counselling, she knew she needed more support than her family alone could give. She also believed she was in a good position to help other people in similar situations.

She said: "I became aware as soon as it happened to me that I didn't know where to turn. My husband Ray, bless his heart, coped as well as he could but he couldn't deal with all the psychological wounding - the cocktail of different feelings I was experiencing."

By 1981 Joan had helped set up the Worthing branch of the Victim Support Scheme, an achievement for which she has been recognised by the Borough of Worthing in their own new year honours.

In 1989 she was asked to speak about her experiences as a victim of crime to a House of Lords Select Committee. It was here she met members of the support group Parents of Murdered Children.

She kept in touch with them and by 1994 they had come together to set up a South East branch of SAMM (Support After Murder and Manslaughter).

The group, which meets monthly at Gatwick Airport, now helps more than 150 families and individuals who have lost relatives or friends.

She said the group 'is not all gloom and tears' but people are faced with things they never expect and few can understand when their relatives are murdered.

She said: "Families of murder victims suffer because the body of their loved one is no longer theirs. It belongs to the state while post mortems are carried out and during the trial. The killer can change lawyers and delay proceedings again and again.

"Sometimes families can wait months for the release of the body and people find it hard not having a grave they can go to.

"Some relatives are treated as suspects in the first hours after the death and have to have their fingerprints taken and endure questioning before the truth is discovered. Others have to hear the defence lawyers blame the victim for provoking murder.

"The thing I was most frightened of and upset by was seeing my sister's killer at the trial, but a vicar told me not to see him as a man but as a devil and that helped."

Along with countless others across the country, Joan has watched the family of Sarah Payne cope with their grief on TV and through the newspapers.

She believes the way they have shared their grief has not only helped the wider community deal with its grief, following the weeks people searched for the missing eight-year-old, but will in time help them too.

"The way the Paynes have come out and shared their emotions, and the way the public has responded, is tremendous," she said.

"They are achieving something positive and making society more aware of the other victims of murder, which has still not been done enough.

"I don't think people understand that I am still grieving 21 years later and I still have bad days when I can't cope."

Joan added that while the Paynes try to return to some sense of normality for their other three children, it will be very hard.

She said: "One of the things they are going to want to do is try and feel normal, but you can't.

"They will always be the parents of four children. Sarah and what happened to her will never go away. They are going to find Sarah's birthday hard and the other children's birthdays and times when she would have brought homemade cards and pictures home from school.

"The wounding eases with time but it never goes away completely. I still feel sick if I go near her (her sister's) home, even past on the bus.

"The Paynes have shown they are a strong family and they appear to be supporting each other which is important."

SAMM meets on the last Sunday of every month in the Winston Churchill Suite at Gatwick Airport between 12.30pm and 6pm.

Although it has received a small amount of money through charitable donations, a lot of the administration costs are met by members. The group is currently trying to raise more than £5,000 to start a fund to pay people's travel expenses to the meetings and to buy a new computer.

Anyone who would like to know more about SAMM can write to Joan Martin at 46 Beeches Avenue, Worthing, BN14 9JF.