TODAY would have marked the 21st birthday of Jayden Parkinson who was murdered by her boyfriend in Didcot four years ago.

Family and friends of the teenager gathered at the Prince of Wales Pub in Station Road on Sunday afternoon to remember her with a music festival.

Samantha Shrewsbury, Jayden’s mum, said the event - made up of local bands and musicians - was organised because she had promised to take her daughter to a festival when she was 18.

A raffle was drawn, with the top prize being a half-hour flying lesson, to raise funds for a charity set up in Jayden’s memory.

Today, the grandmother-of-four will visit the grave of her daughter in Kent.

At the pub on Sunday, Miss Shrewsbury, 50, told the Oxford Mail it was the first time she felt strong enough to attend the festival also held last year.

She added: “It’s hard to be here because I’m sat across from the train station that he walked her to her death from so I couldn’t come here last year and I’m struggling to keep it together.

“I thought I had to show my face because of it being her 21st and I can’t not be here, I’m her mum.”

Ben Blakeley was jailed for a minimum of 20 years in July 2014 for the murder of then 17-year-old Jayden in Didcot, after she met up with him to say she was pregnant with his child.

The 22-year-old strangled her and then buried her body in the grave of his uncle, Alan Kennedy, in a cemetery near All Saint’s Church in Didcot in December 2013.

Miss Shrewsbury said coming to terms with the loss of her daughter has not got easier.

She added: “I try not to think about it but it hurts so much. It’s just the flashbacks and the thoughts that I get in my head.

“It doesn’t get any easier.

“You have to get on, bite your lip and get on with it I’m afraid to say.”

So far the Jayden’s charity has raised just over £5,000 since it was set up.

Miss Shrewsbury said she hoped to raise enough to purchase a Woodland Yurts holiday for children to go on.

She added: “I have been looking by Woodlands so that the kids can have a holiday.

“If they have got somewhere they can go for a holiday to just chill out, singing Ging Gang Goolie or whatever it is, then I will be quite happy with that and I think Jayden would as well.”

A serious case review in February 2016 revealed a number of agencies failed to realise the seriousness of the risk posed by Blakeley.

Jayden’s sister Sharday George told the review nothing could have stopped him from killing her.

It also revealed he was “violent and highly controlling” towards three previous girlfriends.