Family’s fight to rebuild their lives after dad’s murder
FOUR YEARS ago, Natalie Preece had it all. She and her partner Michaelee Emmett were looking forward to the birth of their little girl, to join their twin boys Logan and Riley. Then one night in August 2014, everything changed.
Michaelee was murdered by a 16-year-old boy after walking him home from the Stone House pub in Cefn Forest, near Blackwood, after seeing he was drinking underage.
Father-to-be Michaelee, who was just 29 at the time, and a friend, John Williams, had dropped the boy off with his parents.
But the teenager grabbed a knife from inside the house and began to attack them.
Michealee suffered a deep wound to his liver and died a month later in hospital, where he had been lying in a coma.
He died just six days after his daughter Lola-Grace was born.
His attacker, Connor Doughton, was jailed for a minimum of 15 years for the murder.
His partner Natalie, meanwhile, was left struggling to deal with life in the aftermath of unimaginable tragedy.
She had twin boys to bring up, as well as being the mother of a newborn baby – with little time to grieve for her loss.
“It was difficult, with everything else going on and trying to manage the boys’ feelings as well as my own and looking after a new baby,” Natalie said.
But now the children are older, life has changed dramatically.
“In the beginning, I can’t say they were fine because they were only young, so they didn’t understand,” she said.
“They were only just eight when it happened, so they were still children. They were too young to understand the full extent.
“But they do ask. They’re at the age now where they look up things on the internet and they read.
“I’ve told them the truth from the beginning. I thought, ‘I don’t want to hide anything if they do read it.’ They know everything.”
Dotted around the house are memories of Michaelee. Pictures with the kids and angel wings on the Christmas tree are small reminders that he is still a part of his children’s lives.
But that’s something Natalie, now 32, is keen to keep going.
“She [Lola-Grace] was only six days old, but she does speak about her dad a lot,” Natalie said.
“I always encourage that. I try to involve him – if they have homework where they’ve got to put their family, I always put their dad.
“School have even said she’s got up on her own and just stood up and started telling her friends who her dad was.”
Then, two years later, Natalie met current partner Dean Bumby, a cement truck driver who works in Newport.
Soon after, Natalie fell pregnant with baby Rayah. But she said she felt a certain stigma by moving on. “It was difficult,” she said. “You don’t want to upset anybody by moving on. That’s the way you’re made to feel.
“With the boys, I didn’t want them to meet too soon. They had their disagreements, but they do get on now. I was a bit nervous because I didn’t want to upset anybody. I don’t think I told anyone for a while. I didn’t want to upset the boys. I didn’t want them to think I’m bringing Dean in to take over that role of their dad.
“We’ve said from day one that’s not going to be the case. I think they accept that fact. Natalie with her new baby Rayah Bumby
“In the beginning, I did feel a bit guilty. You just have to accept that life does go on for everybody.”
Then on June 25 this year, baby Rayah made her arrival – born in the car park of Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr in Ystrad Mynach.
“She was five days over,” Natalie laughed. “There were no signs all day and then out of nowhere, from start to finish, it was 50 minutes. I can’t remember much because it happened so fast.”
The experience was very different to when she gave birth to LolaGrace.
“They love her, the boys, now she’s a bit older they tend to fuss over her a lot more. She was small at first, so they were a bit afraid.”
But despite her new family, Natalie said the hardest bit has been getting help for her sons, who are now 12 years old.
“It is still a struggle,” she said. “With the boys I am still struggling. I’ve literally had to fight for four years to get them any sort of help. Only in the last month has that been put in place.
“It’s not so much Riley as Logan, but he was closest to his dad out of the two. It’s affecting him massively now.
“I think if they get help early enough, they help to understand and can move on. I don’t think they’ve moved on. I think they’re still stuck four years ago.
“I think I was offered help but I think I refused. I had so much going on and obviously I had a newborn baby and the kids kept me going.
“I woke up one day and thought ‘I have to do this for the kids.’”