Father who doesn’t know partner died
THE partner of the murdered off-duty policewoman has been sedated since the bombing and does not yet know she has died, it emerged yesterday.
Paul Price, 49, and Detective Constable Elaine McIver, 43, were blasted with shrapnel while waiting for his daughter in the foyer of Manchester Arena.
The father-of-two is in hospital with a broken leg, shrapnel injuries over his body and burns to his head and face. His brother Mark said: ‘Paul is still under sedation and is in critical care. Luckily he appears to have escaped brain injury and his vital organs are okay. He has been unconscious since it happened.’
Mr Price’s father John, 79, from Liverpool, said his son and Miss McIver had been about to buy a house in Widnes, Cheshire. They wanted to be closer to his children Miles, 20, and Gabrielle, 13.
John said: ‘Paul is still under sedation and we dread the moment he finds out Elaine didn’t survive. He doesn’t know she is gone yet.
‘We are devastated beyond belief. It is just like a bad dream. When Paul met Elaine it seemed too good to be true.
‘Now we dread the future. When Paul met Elaine an angel walked into his life. He had been in a very dark place following a very acrimonious divorce, and at one time had a breakdown.’
Mr Price, a worker at the Jaguar car plant in Halewood, near Liverpool, had moved into Miss McIver’s home in Frodsham, Cheshire. His father added: ‘After the dark years Paul had spent this was like a miracle.
‘They told us they would get married eventually, but they could not have been happier together.’
Miss McIver and Mr Price had gone for dinner while Gabriella and a friend were at the Ariana Grande concert.
They went to the foyer area to collect the pair when the bomb was detonated. John said: ‘I can only imagine how Gabrielle feels.
‘Her and her friend were put in a taxi and sent home to Liverpool.’
Meanwhile, the seriously injured mother and sister of the bomb’s youngest victim are going to be okay, a family friend revealed yesterday.
Saffie Roussos, eight, died at the scene while mother Lisa, 48, and halfsister Ashlee Bromwich, 25, suffered shrapnel wounds.
Yesterday a family friend, who has been in contact with Saffie’s father Andrew, said: ‘They are going to come through this physically and they will be okay.’
It is not known if Mrs Roussos, of Leyland, Lancashire, has been told about Saffie’s death.
‘After the dark years she was like a miracle’