Dale Cregan took my beloved daughter's life - she stopped me taking my own from beyond the grave

When he opened his eyes this morning, the first thing Bryn Hughes saw was a picture of his beloved daughter Nicola on his bedside table. It's a routine he has followed every day since she was murdered in the most appalling circumstances.

It's a small comfort for him to know she's never far away.

Today is different, though. Today is the tenth anniversary of her death and one of the most shocking crimes Greater Manchester has ever seen, and the pain of her loss will feel as real to him now as it was on the morning of September 18, 2012, when he learned the terrible news that changed his life forever.

She was just 23 and from Saddleworth. She and a fellow police constable Fiona Bone, 32, from Sale, were gunned down by a merciless fugitive, Dale Cregan, who wanted to avenge the police for their daily visits to his mother while he was on the run.

He had already slaughtered fellow gangster David Short and his son Mark. Cregan lured police officers - any police officers, their name or sex weren't important - to an address in Mottram, near Hattersley, with a bogus report of a burglary.

It was pure chance that Nicola and Fiona were the new recruits who happened to respond. He shot the unarmed officers dead with his semi-automatic Glock handgun and then threw hand grenades on their dying bodies. Cregan calmly handed himself in and he remains behind bars, serving a whole life sentence for the four murders he committed.

Like previous anniversaries, this morning Bryn attended a memorial outside Hyde police station, where Fiona and Nicola were based, with a minute's silence at 10.53am, to mark the moment ten years ago when the two young police officers were gunned down.

A month ago, I called Bryn, 58, a former prison officer, to