IN the back bedroom of the Gazzard family home all the clocks are stopped.
The room is exactly as 20-year-old Hollie Gazzard left it, complete with a
jumble of colourful clothes, her childhood teddies and her favourite quote
stencilled onto the wall: “Have hope, be strong, dream big and never give
up”.
The only signs that anything has changed are the clocks, which all read 6.51.
That was the moment Hollie was brutally killed – stabbed 14 times in front
of customers at the hair salon where she worked, at the hands of her violent
ex-boyfriend, Asher Maslin.
The first anniversary of the young hairdresser’s tragic death falls on
February 18, and for the Gazzard family, at home in Gloucester, that fateful
day will be one they will never forget.
Hollie’s dad Nick, an operational manager, was the first to hear the news.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, he recalls: “It was a Tuesday.
“On Tuesdays we would normally pick Hollie up from the salon, and then go
round to her sister Chloe’s house for tea. That day I had left something at
our house so I had to nip back home before going to pick up Hollie.
“I was just coming back out of the house when I saw the policemen coming up
the drive. As soon as I saw them, I somehow just knew what they were going
to say.”
The police told Nick the terrible news, then took him to tell wife Mandy, 47,
and daughter Chloe, 24.
He said: “There are two truly terrible things I have had to do in my life. The
first was tell Mandy and Chloe that Hollie had been killed. The second was
identify her body.”
It shouldn’t have been this way. Everyone who knew Hollie says the same thing
– she was a girl just bursting with energy and zest for life.
As a child, Nick says she was a “bundle of joy”, who “never stood still – she
was always here, there and everywhere.”
Sporty, quick-witted, fun-loving and fiercely loyal to her friends, she was
popular wherever she went. As a teenager, she constantly experimented with
her hairstyle, and decided she would like to make a career from hairdressing.
It was shortly before she was due to leave for London to begin her training at
the Steiner academy for hairdressing that Hollie met Maslin at a nightclub
where she was working part-time.
Nick says: “We met him a couple of times before she left for London. He was
very confident, very outgoing, liked to be the centre of attention.
“But we didn’t think that much about because we were certain it would fizzle
out when she left.”
In fact, the family hoped that would be the case. Chloe considered him “loud”
and noticed that his behaviour towards Hollie could be domineering.
She says: “She was a bit under his spell. I used to get quite frustrated with
her when he’d say something nasty or she’d get loads of phone calls from
him, but she would just brush it off.
“He’d always end up turning up every time she went out without him so we could
never just have a girls night out.
“What she thought was affectionate was actually very controlling and
possessive. She had six missed calls once in the space of half an hour, just
because she was in the bath.”
But Hollie was always so strong-willed and self-assured, so the family were
confident that she could handle Maslin in her own way.
At the time, she planned to get a place hairdressing on a cruise ship when she
finished her training. It seemed unlikely her relationship with Maslin would
last the distance.
However, he had other ideas. When she moved to London, he followed her. And
when she did get the longed-for job on the cruise ship, she had only been
away a few weeks before he persuaded her to quit and come back to London.
But after a fight at the Notting Hill Carnival, when Maslin apparently pushed
Hollie to the ground, she decided she wanted to come home, and got a job at
a local salon.
Maslin also came back to Gloucester, but their relationship cooled. Although
they continued to see each other, Maslin was no longer welcome at the family
home.
Chloe explains: “Hollie was not the sort of person to give up on someone.
“But then he threatened suicide, and that made her feel really guilty. It was
the ultimate controlling behaviour really.”
In February 2014, Hollie ended the relationship for good. Her decision sent
Maslin into a murderous rage.
CCTV footage shows him selling his DVD player to pay for a knife, then heading
to Hollie’s salon where he killed her in a frenzied attack.
Chloe simply could not take it in when her dad told her what had happened. She
says: “I was in shock. I was completely numb.
“My mum fell to the floor, Dad was crying.
“At about 6pm Lucas, my partner, had received a text message from Asher saying
“ I warned you all, it didn’t have to be this way.”
“He text Lucas again later saying: ‘How is Hollie? I loved her.’ It is sick.”
The Gazzards had to be taken to a safe house while police hunted Maslin, who
had gone on the run after the attack.
When the family were finally allowed to see Hollie in the mortuary, two days
after her death, it proved almost unbearable. Nick says: “Even the
consultant who came in was visibly shaken.
“Seeing her was very hard. We didn’t know she would have marks to her face,
and she had lots of defence wounds on her hands where she had tried to fight
him off.
“And just to see her in a mortuary in a white gown was devastating. We were
not allowed to touch her so we could just give her one kiss, and that was
it.”
The family came face to face with Maslin in court. But he was completely
unremorseful.
Chloe says: “He was like an animal, the way he swaggered in. He mouthed
something too abusive to repeat at us, and he would look at us and just
stare.
“He has never had an ounce of remorse. He’s just evil.
“I think it was a case of if I can’t have her, no-one else can.”
In July 2014, Maslin received a 24-year life sentence for Hollie’s murder.
It is not punishment enough for Chloe, who says: “I hate him. He took my only
sister, my best friend, when she was so young and I will l never forgive him
for that. You shouldn’t be able to do that to someone and just be able to go
on living your life, even if it is in jail.”
But Nick, remarkably, says he feels no anger. Instead he tries to focus on his
happy memories of Hollie. He says: “ Hollie made a positive impact on a lot
of people’s lives and I try and focus on that.
“We are lucky because we have so many funny memories of her, and when you have
a down day those are the things that keep you going.”
The family have thrown all their energy into setting up the Hollie Gazzard
Trust, a charity that provides workshops for young people about domestic
violence, sponsors talented young hairdressers through college and campaigns
against knife crime in the Gloucestershire area.
Nick explains: “We can’t change what has happened to Hollie but we didn’t want
her to be just another statistic. This is a way of creating something
positive out of her death.”
The clocks may be stopped, but in the family home, where Hollie’s beautiful,
lively face smiles from every wall and surface, her spirit is kept very much
alive.
Nick smiles: “We feel her all around us and that is very consoling. It’s up to
us now to keep her legacy going.”
Britain’s Darkest Taboos airs on Sundays at 9pm, on CI. Information about the
Hollie Gazzard Trust can be found at www.holliegazzard.org.