The father of murdered Soham schoolgirl Holly Wells has described his emotional journey in the 10 years since his daughters death, telling an ITV documentary that while "time doesn't heal" the pain of losing his daughter, he has always vowed to "make it out the other side".
The 48-year-old father said the murder of his daughter and her friend Jessica Chapman by school caretaker Ian Huntley took his family to breaking point and nearly destroyed his marriage to wife Nicola, 45.
Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were murdered by the school caretaker Ian Huntley
But he has revealed that he made a decision not to let the tragedy destroy his family's future as he stood by the shallow grave where his daughter's body was discarded two weeks after her murder in 2002.
Speaking in ITV documentary Soham: A Parents' Tale, he said: "Time doesn't heal, someone got that wrong.
"It anaesthetises. Grief does not diminish, but you can manage the intensity and learn to live with it.
Holly's dad described his heartbreak after his daughter was killed
"Murder has the capacity to destroy more lives than the one taken. I recognised that from the start, so I tried to take control, to make plans and to exert positive thought.
"I clung to my family, my community, my work, sometimes to God and sometimes to a late-night tumbler of whisky. I chose to believe in the future, a future that I could craft from the life we once had. Really, all I wanted was for us to be the ones who'd make it out the other side."
He told the documentary makers that his grief didn't heal with time, but that he was determined his family would survive
Mr Wells revealed the couple, who had been together for 20 years when Holly was murdered, struggled to support each other as they "processed their grief at different speeds".
But, he said, "slowly but surely" they came back together as a couple.
"They say 95% of the parents of murdered children split up...we were determined to be among the 5% who survive," he said.
Ian Huntley who was imprisoned for the murder of the two schoolgirls ten years ago.
They also struggled financially as Mr Wells sold his window-cleaning business to focus on the trial, forcing the couple to remortgage their house and even rely on a £6,000 charity hand-out to pay bills.
But it was when he re-started his business in 2005, later joined by his 16-year-old son Oliver, that the family began to get back on track.
He said: "Getting back to work was not just about money in the bank, it was also about what it represented - an everyday life, a familiar pattern, some kind of control."
As part of their recovery, the family also considered adopting or fostering another child, but eventually decided it would be too hard, although they look forward to becoming grandparents.
They are now planning to move back into the house in Soham, Cambridgeshire, and despite struggling for years with feelings of parental guilt, the couple have at last made peace with themselves.
"The failure is that of police intelligence and of society for permitting Huntley the freedom to prey on children," Mr Wells said.
"Today I accept there was nothing more or different as a parent that I could have done to change the outcome."
Approaching the 10th anniversary, Mr Wells revealed the family cannot help but ponder the years missed.
"We think about the things she'll never know, sitting her driving test, attending her school prom, her 21st birthday, it's a lifetime of loss. One of Holly's closest friends is already a mother which gives us pause for thought," he said.
For Mrs Wells it is the "busyness" of her daughter she most misses.
"The music and dancing and drawing, the reading, the homework, the friends, the Brownies, the Majorettes. I used to grind my teeth at the hours I spent driving her to activities. Now I long to be able to do it."
:: Soham: A Parents' Tale will be screened on ITV1 at 9pm on August 3.