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It was a Friday night in the suburbs of Liverpool and Susan O'Donovan was celebrating her 70th birthday.

The drinks were flowing and Barry White, one of Susan's favourites was playing on the Bluetooth speaker. In the kitchen, Susan's son Martin was dancing with his niece, telling her how much he loved her.

Martin was making a rare visit home from Birmingham, for his mum's special day, and was meeting his sister's boyfriend of 19 months, Stephen Bates, for the first time. Very quickly, over glasses of vodka and Red Bull and Jagerbombs the two men were getting on famously. Fellow partygoers went so far as to remark that the two had struck up a 'bromance' with one another.

Stephen was seemingly the latest in a long line of people to instantly become enamoured with the eas

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