I Was on the Phone to My Wife While She Was Murdered | This Morning

it's September the 14th 2015 you're on a work trip to Hull yeah and and Nicky is at home correct yeah and so pick up the story from there yeah Nicky just called me late in the evening and said she was worried about somebody outside the house and that the police being earlier she'll try and move the children inside children are in bed asleep yeah Stanley was six and Isabella was three so we were discussing options on the phone what to do and I was you know telling her to leave the house and go to my mum and dads but before she could do anything the guy broke in through the back doors and yeah and killed her I knew I heard all of this down the fire yes yeah and there was no doubt in your mind as to what had happened no doubt whatsoever no doubt whatsoever for you yeah I mean at the time it's just complete shock you don't know really what's going on and I utterly helped us as well completely do you have a miles away completely yeah I was on the phone to the police on the other line trying to relay information but yeah this thing talking just yeah then then you've got so you've had this horrific the conversation with your wife and then as is blatantly apparent what has happened but then you've got the children there as well yeah so I didn't know what happened to the children until I heard them crying on the phone and then I thought that they were okay I thank God yeah yeah well Nicky's killer was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and he killed Nikki whilst in the grips of a psychotic episode medical investigations to go to unfit to plead and he accepted a charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and he sent to a psychiatric unit indefinitely so where do you pick up from something like that how do you continue what do you children well so you have to find some way to find that strength where do you even begin for me with the children it was being honest straight away with what was facing us what the challenge was going to be and not hiding things from them too much no graphic details no horrible stuff but being honest that mummy wasn't coming back being honest that it was going to be the three of us and we were gonna work on it together and get our lives back on track and we were going to have happy lives we moved to your parents house didn't you and I did yeah but there were times whilst your house was on the market you would still go back of course yeah the the children I felt we couldn't go back to our home it was it was previously a safe environment and that had gone the bubble of burst so we stayed with my parents but I would use the house to go back to and use as a sort of a loan place where I could lay out my emotions in private did you feel closer to her anyway yeah I did yeah when you when you're around your stuff you feel closer to the person definitely he said one of the most important things for you was the homicide victim support service recommended that you seek trauma counseling and he said that she being a man you were like I've owned I probably don't need this and he said you should have done it sooner he's actually when you did go down that road it was the best thing you could have done absolutely it's the best decision I've ever made to say I do need help for the first month after Nicky was killed it was flashbacks and being dragged back into that situation where I just felt like I couldn't breathe I was underwater I couldn't hear properly that sort of thing that I was back in that moment and then I realized you know if I'm going to be a good dad to the kids and I'm going to make sure they grow up and have into confident happy adults then I need to be the best that I can be and if that means getting help then I will did they have counselors well yes Stanley started straightaway Isabella was too young really - yeah need much trauma counselling she was only three so the brain works very different scary memories for Stanley yeah very he's still a very anxious boy yeah constant work and we need to sort of monitoring really closely I mean really it's only been two two years I guess so it's still early earlier that's obvious yet and so how are you doing now I'm doing really well yeah yeah of course you know we make every day special for the kids and we make Nicky part of our daily lives but yeah I'm personally I'm doing really well you know well you were because of our health issues you had the conversation that that we should probably all have but nobody ever does with me here and she was poorly and and and she did say you know if anything ever happened to me you know be happy move on and you never recover from something like that obviously you just realign your life in whatever way you can and I think it was a year was a year ago today that you met the metallics this weekend Cummings are real yeah yeah and an Alex is fitted so beautifully into your lives hasn't she she absolutely has yes she just sort of came in with just let everything sort of wash over it's a brave decision to get involved with the family that's a mental health clinician she is yeah so she's been perfect with the children absolutely yes she specialises under fives but she can do things with the kids techniques and things that I don't know anything about memory boxes yeah using your hands and your senses to remember certain memories is someone like her that comes in and keep that memory loss yeah you know it's been amazing it quite freaky really to have somebody come in this and it's a perfect another way of a maze engraving it forward you are you you're now taking counseling as a career you may you're thinking you think you're going through your training now and you're and that's what you were yeah I'm volunteering with victim support to be a peer supporter to other families that are going through similar situations to us homicide and manslaughter and they will refer people to me and I will just lend a sympathetic ear over the phone and listen to their problems and it's it's you get an instant connection with somebody that's been through something similar to you yeah yeah so they don't have to put on a pretense I don't have to put on for tents and we could just chat you

Channel: This Morning

Views: 2,774,679

Keywords: this morning, interview, holly willoughby, phillip schofield, ruth langsford, eamonn holmes, chat shows - topic, chat show - topic, talk shows - topic, real life, murder, sas who dares wins, trauma, mental health

Id: -rcrr4m-qUk

Length: 6min 26sec (386 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 17 2018