My policewoman daughter was murdered for doing her job – I’m in an exclusive club no one wants to be a member of
BRYN Hughes is one of the toughest men you will ever meet.
For 25 years he was a prison officer in some of Britain’s most notorious jails.
He is black belt karate coach and has run a marathon at the North Pole in minus 42 degrees.
But he is reduced to tears remembering how his police officer daughter was murdered in the line of duty.
It is nearly nine years since 23-year-old PC Nicola Hughes went to a house to investigate a routine report of vandalism.
Upon arriving, she was shot and blasted by a hand grenade as she got out of the police van.
To this day Bryn cannot bring himself to utter the name of his daughter’s killer, who also murdered PC Fiona Bone in the same attack.
Speaking ahead of the unveiling of a new national memorial to commemorate the nearly 5,000 police officers who have died in the line of duty over the years, Bryn 57, says: “I think about Nicola every day.
“What job would she be doing now? What rank would she be? Would she have her own children?”
Recalling the day that shocked Britain in September 2012 — the first time two female officers were killed on duty — Bryn says: “Nicola had been shot nine times. There was no need for a grenade.
“He wasn’t trying to get away. It was intentional, deliberate. Like a final act of disregard and degradation.
“What makes it harder to deal with is that he didn’t attack Nicola because of who she was. It was because of what she was — the uniform she wore.”
KILLED ON DUTY
Bryn is a member of the committee that raised £4.5million for the brass monument that will become a symbol to the bravery of UK police forces for generations to come.
Next Wednesday, at the official opening, he will lay a wreath, as will Fiona’s father Paul.
Their daughters, who were unarmed officers with Greater Manchester Police, were lured into the deadly trap by mobster Dale Cregan.
Fiona, 32, was killed instantly after being shot 22 times, while Nicola, who bore the brunt of the grenade blast, died later in hospital in Thameside, Gtr Manchester.
Cregan, 38, who was on the run for the murder of two men, was holed up in a house in Mottram, where he had kidnapped the occupants.
He handed himself in an hour later and is currently serving life.
Bryn, who has Nicola’s police number 14846 tattooed on his wrist, says: “Me and Paul are members of that semi-exclusive club nobody wants to be part of.
“Like other families of officers who lose their lives protecting the public, we’ve experienced death and grief before but never in such shocking circumstances.
“We meet up and you don’t need to explain yourself. You don’t have to tell people why you are here. They know.”
Next week’s emotional dedication ceremony at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire will be attended by the relatives of dozens of police officers who have died serving their communities.
Some of their names are forever etched in our memories.
FOREVER IN OUR MEMORIES
Sgt Matt Ratana, 54, was gunned down in his own police station in Croydon, South London, last year.
In 2019, PC Andrew Harper, 28, was dragged to his death behind a car by burglars in the Berkshire countryside.
And PC Keith Palmer, 48, was stabbed in a frenzied attack outside the Palace of Westminster in 2017.
They and 1,500 other brave officers and police staff who were killed in acts of violence are among the 5,000 listed on an online memorial that will eventually be displayed at the monument.
One name not there is the third “victim” of Cregan’s assault on the police. PC Andy Summerscales was one of the first officers on the scene as Fiona lay dead in the street and Nicola fighting for her life close by.
Bryn says: “Andy took my favourite photo of Nicola, in the van on a night shift not long before she died.
“He was one of the first there after it happened and he never got over what he saw that day.”
PC Summerscales suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and was off work for 12 months. He was still haunted by the murders when the fourth anniversary approached in 2016 — and took his own life aged 46.
PC Donna Jones, the other officer who ran to the scene of the slaughter, could not carry on working and retired from the force.
Bryn, who also suffered from PTSD, quit his job at Wakefield Prison because he could no longer work with Category A criminals.
He says: “I couldn’t really go into a prison and deal with the type of people that had killed Nicola.
“It wouldn’t have been healthy or safe for me and it wouldn’t have been healthy or safe for the prisoners.
“So I came to a decision with the director general of the prison service that we would part ways.”
Seeing the memorial is bitter-sweet. It makes me feel proud but makes me quite sad as well.
Bryn now runs the PC Nicola Hughes Memorial Fund, which gives help to children whose parents have been murdered.
The 12m-high memorial to police bravery resembles a half-opened door. A brass plaque says it represents “the threshold to the dangerous places the Police go”.
To Bryn, it is a fitting symbol because Nicola and Fiona were knocking on the door of a house where it had been reported youths had thrown concrete through a window.
He says: “Nowadays, with police resources, if somebody throws a brick through your window you get a crime reference number and claim off the insurance.
“But at the time because it was a 999 call they must have had to send somebody there. I always say, ‘If is the smallest word with the biggest consequences’.
If they had sent somebody else, if Nicola and Fiona hadn’t gone, if they had just given a crime reference number — but you can’t torture yourself like that.
“She was the tiniest thing, just 5ft tall.
“After Nicola died, someone told me, ‘She had the body of a lion cub but the heart of a lion’.
“Nicola had done karate since she was five.
“She knew how to take care of herself. But she could look after herself with her mouth better than anything. She could talk herself out of anything or into anything.
“Nicola never once expressed any doubts about her job.”
Walking towards the monument, Bryn stops at the words engraved in a slate path set among a sea of wildflowers.
They read: “Courage and sacrifice in memory of the members of the UK police service who dedicated their lives to protecting us.”
He adds: “Seeing the memorial is bitter-sweet. It makes me feel proud but makes me quite sad as well.
“Every leaf that’s cut out and is falling represents an officer who has been killed on duty. Each of those deaths becomes a national event.
“The families of fallen officers have to do their grieving in public, which is hard.”
Whenever he is in Manchester, Bryn tries to avoid the city’s cathedral, where Nicola’s funeral was held.
He says: “Walking past the cathedral, you see the guard of honour, the police horses, the public.
“Even if it is early Sunday morning and the street is empty, you still picture what you saw that day.”
Despite anti-cop feeling after PC Wayne Couzens murdered Sarah Everard and recent criticism of policing at Wembley stadium, Bryn believes the new memorial will have a positive effect.
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He says: “I get people don’t like the police, don’t like the authorities.
“People don’t like being told what to do but there really is a thin blue line between us and the baddies.
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“It is nice to remind people that police officers are human. They go to work expecting to finish a shift, planning to come home to see their family.
“Nicola was planning her future with her boyfriend. That day she had a mortgage appointment but never got there.”
Seven more killed on duty
SINCE PCs Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone were murdered on September 18, 2012, seven more officers have died in the line of duty.
Sgt Matt Ratana, 54, Met Police. Shot while a man was detained in custody. Died September 25, 2020.
PC Andrew Harper, 28, Thames Valley Police. Dragged by a vehicle while investigating a burglary. Died August 15, 2019.
PC Gareth Browning, 36, Thames Valley Police. Wounded deploying a stinger in 2013. Died April 1, 2017.
PC Keith Palmer, 48, Met Police. Stabbed in terror attack. Died March 22, 2017.
PC David Phillips, 34, Merseyside Police. Run over during pursuit. Died October 5, 2015.
PC Andrew Duncan, 47, Met Police. Run over by suspect. Died September 22, 2013.
PC Adele Yvette Cashman, Met Police. Collapsed chasing robbery suspects. Died November 5, 2012.
The full list is on .