Carol Barnes is used to danger. As a TV reporter she worked in Belfast at the height of the troubles and covered the Brixton riots.

Her estranged husband, award-winning TV cameraman Nigel Thompson, has worked and been wounded in war zones including Bosnia, Afghanistan and the Gulf.

She coped by "blotting out" the dangers he faced. But nothing can have prepared her for the death of her daughter.

Carol always said her biggest achievement was "having set up and maintaining a family".

Today that family unit is shattered by the death of 24-year-old Clare.

After attending Brighton College, Clare worked for a publishing company. But she had the same spirit of adventure as her mother and decided to see the world.

She had lived in Australia before for several years and was on her second big trip there. Skydiving became her passion, one she shared with her boyfriend.

The loss of her daughter eclipses the break-up of Carol's 17-year marriage - a union once described as between "the most romantic couple in broadcasting" - in 1999. It took her a year to go public about the split.

She said that after almost two decades together, she and Nigel had simply grown apart.

In 1990 she moved from the breakfast-time Channel 4 Daily programme to present ITN's early evening news, saying she wanted to be able to see her children off to school. Two years later, when Clare was 12 and James nine, Carol swapped her evening news slot to move to News At Ten so she could spend more time with her children.

Shortly after revealing her marriage breakdown, Carol left ITN after 25 years.

When son James begged her to buy him a record shop in the North Laine, Brighton, Carol not only stumped up £12,000 for the lease but also threw herself into the project, decorating the shop herself.

Carol never married Clare's father, born Denis Matyjaszek, the son of a Polish army officer who later took his mother's maiden name.

Oxford-educated Mr MacShane, 55, became minister for Europe in October 2002.

He worked as a BBC producer in the Seventies and was president of the National Union of Journalists. He was elected MP for Rotherham in 1994.

The couple split amicably when Clare was young. Today they are reunited in grief.