The voice echoing through the halls of Cheltenham’s Park Campus lecture hall is assured, without one trace of stutter.
Its words retell a horrific story. The story of Hollie Gazzard – the young hairdresser from Gloucestershire who was stalked over a period of months between 2013 and 2014 before being killed at her own job.
Two others are present. Both journalists, who covered the events of the late Gazzard’s murder at the time. This is an event for the Hollie Gazzard Trust, after all – a university talk on the importance of appropriate media behaviour in the midths of distressing times.
And yet the voice of Nick Gazzard, the father of Hollie, remained front and centre.
Stories like Hollie’s are often tear-jerkers – understandably. Yet that wasn’t the feeling conjured within as Nick spoke. Rather, the fighting spirit of someone fighting for their loved one lived on through his words.
“Everyone’s grieving process is different”, as Nick said. His personal process manifested in the Hollie Gazzard Trust – a charity committed to reducing cases of domestic violence through public awareness.
Soon to be a decade since the founding, and the work the organisation bearing his daughter’s name has done to prevent cases of domestic abuse and violent behaviour is ceaseless. The Hollie Guard mobile app is perhaps the crowning achievement, providing tangible support to anyone in potential danger in public.
Very much the face of the Trust at events like this, that there aren’t tears in his eyes or a wobble in his throat isn’t a sign of some cold demeanor from Nick Gazzard.
Exactly the opposite, in fact – it is an innumerable measure of character. He expresses his grief in a way that empowers others, that brings forth the horror of his daughter’s story while empowering others to see a world that never sees a similar case again.
By this point, Nick has recounted the entire story of his own daughter’s death at the hands of a parasocial stalker. He has described at length the support provided by the local media and community – and the less amicable reception from online trolls.
And yet he sits and speaks every bit as confident as the media-trained journalists sat beside him. Regularly bouncing off them to recall the time when Hollie’s killer was still loose and the media coverage during the events, there’s a sense of hopefulness in each of his words; seldom expected, yet undeniably respected.
