I was trekking to the Pole in her memory and I thought, if I just take my jacket off and lie down, the pain will all be over.. then I heard Nicola’s voice..
He was 3,000 miles away from home, running through a freezing polar landscape far from the world of pain he thought he had left behind. Yet as he reached mile eight of the North Pole Marathon in -37C, every step in memory of the daughter taken from him so horrifically two years earlier, Bryn Hughes realised his grief had travelled with him.
His daughter, PC Nicola Hughes, was murdered alongside colleague Fiona Bone as they attended what they thought was a burglary in Mottram, Greater Manchester.
But it was a trap by one-eyed gangster Dale Cregan, a fugitive who planned to kill police officers as an act of revenge.
Suddenly, in the perishing Arctic, Bryn’s sense of injustice and loss engulfed him and, for a moment, he considered ending his life there and then to make the agony stop.
He recalls: “It was pure isolation. You’re at the top of the world, 24-hour daylight, no idea of time and no reference point. You have a lot of time to think of what has happened.
“There was a huge ice shelf and I thought, if I go behind that ice shelf and take my jacket off and lie down it will all be over in 10 minutes. It was a serious moment, when I thought it would be easy...
“In minutes, you would be frozen to death and all the pain would be over.”
What stopped him was the person who had propelled him there.
In his head, he heard Nicola telling him to keep going. “I heard Nicola shouting, ‘Come on Dadzilla’ – that’s what she used to call me,” he says.
Bryn, 55, rarely reveals the depths of the depression he has battled since Nicola, 23, was killed alongside Fiona, 32, in 2012. The former prison officer, who retired as he could no longer bear working with high-security offenders after Nicola’s murder, has since focused in battling it, using a combination of therapy and running.
He has also raised thousands of pounds to help children who have lost a parent to murder through his charity, the PC Nicola Hughes Memorial Fund.
That marathon in the North Pole was the first of three so far. New York and Manchester were to follow, alongside an army of supportive police officers. And every year, he and hundreds more run for 100 days in
succession, two miles or more each day, to raise funds in Nicola’s name. “We’re currently on day 11,” he laughs when we speak.
The charity has raised £500,000 and tonight, Bryn will receive a Fundraiser of the Year award at the first Pride of Manchester Awards, in partnership with TSB, for his incredible efforts. The ceremony, at the city’s Principal Hotel, will be hosted by Coronation Street actress Kym Marsh.
Celebrity guests will include her co-stars stars Sue Cleaver, Helen Worth and Chris
Bisson, actors John Thomson and Sue Johnston, musicians Lisa Stansfield, Michelle Heaton and Rowetta, sporting heroes Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard and Rebecca Adlington and TV personalities including Ray Mears, Duncan Bannatyne, Coleen Nolan, Anne Hegerty, Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt.
Bryn admits: “I hate running, I don’t enjoy it. But some days are better than others, some days are worse than the ones before. It’s how you deal with them, whether you allow it to overwhelm you or put your training shoes on and jump on the treadmill.
“This recognition is a rubber-stamp on what we are doing, it is making a difference, it’s worthwhile. For me, Nicola’s loss has not been pointless, we are trying to continue helping people.”
The Memorial Fund ranges from supporting projects giving bereaved youngsters therapy to buying them practical items like computers – acknowledging death can also have financial repercussions.
It has also provided funding for 100 Victim Support volunteers. But Bryn, who lives in West Yorkshire, also makes a very personal effort to support every family he learns has experienced the murder of a loved one. Incredibly, every time he hears of a case in the news, he sends a message of sympathy via local police.
Sadly, this means hundreds a year. “I say ‘I understand how you are feeling’,” he says. “I don’t know if they get through or not but I always try. I was presented with boxes of sympathy cards after Nicola. What they meant was there were lots of decent people who care about what happens to others. For every act of evil there are f kindness.” as diagnosed with posts-order. His marriage also broke down, partly under the strain of grief. He began an intense, 18-session course of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, designed to help Vietnam War veterans. It encourages patients to relive traumatic events while watching bright lights that trigger side-to-side eye movements.
Although Bryn, who is also dad to son Sam, 27, says it has helped him hugely, he explains just how gruelling it was. He says: “I was left with headaches and exhaustion. I came home after the first session and slept for three hours, and that night slept for 10. And it creates vivid dreams. It was almost like you were there in person... like I could talk to Nicola, touch her.
“The biggest thing was seeing her in the mortuary and this helped me process what had happened. During the EMDR we went back to seeing her at the mortuary, you’re talking to the therapist and walking through it in your imagination. I opened the door and was hit with this overwhelming smell of lilies, that’s what they put in chapels of rest. It took me straight back.”
His harrowing description brings home just how far Bryn has travelled and what he has confronted to stay afloat. That he helped countless others battling bereavement along the way is a testament to his strength.
“You have got to start rebuilding,” he says. “If you don’t, evil wins and that’s what we can’t allow.”
This is a rubber-stamp on what we do. Nicola’s loss has not been pointless BRYN HUGHES ON HIS PRIDE OF MANCHESTER RECOGNITION