One just wanted to help people, the other's father begged her not to join the force: Grieving families pay tribute to murdered police officers

Nicola Hughes was so determined to serve her community that she quit her  university degree after just a few months to join the police.

WPC Hughes impressed her colleagues during her short career with her bravery, maturity and compassion.

Her father, Bryn Hughes, said: ‘It’s a nightmare you can’t wake up from. It’s a horror film you are watching on television. You want to pause and rewind as you know what’s coming, but you can’t.’

Born in Oldham in 1988 to Bryn and Susan Hughes, Nicola was brought up in the pretty rural village of Diggle on the edge of Saddleworth Moor.

She went to Huddersfield University where she studied social sciences and psychology but abandoned the degree halfway through her first year.

She told her father ‘this isn’t for me’, and applied to join the police.

She studied hard, went through the training and was accepted as a recruit in 2009, aged just 21.

Mr Hughes said: ‘She was as happy as anything.

'She wanted to find something interesting, something challenging and something long-term secure.

‘She just wanted to help people from an early age. She used to check on an elderly neighbour and the next thing she was saying, “you need to go round to fix her windows”.’

Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy said: ‘She showed herself highly capable in situations of disorder, brave when searching apparently unoccupied premises and going into the unknown but, on the other hand, she showed great compassion to victims of crime.’

He added: ‘On one occasion she stopped her police van to rescue a mouse being fought over by two cats.’