Face to face with pathetic monster who took our April
Last week, Paul and Coral Jones told for the first time and in heart-rending detail of the day their five-year-old daughter, april, disappeared for ever.
kidnapped and murdered by local man Mark Bridger, with almost no trace of her body ever found, it was a crime that shocked the nation. Now, in the second and final extract from their compelling new memoir, april’s parents are forced to learn the full horror of what happened to their little girl on that fateful day in 2012, before they can finally see her killer put to justice.
PAUL...
OUR first sight of Mark Bridger since April’s murder was at the pre-trial hearing where he would enter his plea. As he was brought into the dock, no more than 10ft from us, I squeezed Coral’s hand as tightly as I could.
Scruffy in his blue jumper and jeans, the beginnings of a beard, refusing to meet our gaze, he spoke in barely more than a whisper, pleading not guilty to murdering and kidnapping our daughter. We were dumbstruck that anyone could think this remotely believable.
The trial was eventually set for the end of April 2013, and in the meantime the search was officially called off. For nearly seven months, 17 separate teams, including specialised dog handlers, had combed some of the most challenging terrain in the UK, in the biggest-ever police search in Britain.
Throughout a long, cold winter they’d braved wind, rain and even snow. We knew how desperate they were to find April.
On Monday, April 29 the jury was sworn in – nine women and three men – and the trial began. There were so many reporters there wasn’t enough room in the court.
I placed my hand in Coral’s and closed my eyes tightly.
CORAL...
HOW could a man who appeared so insignificant be capable of such evil? I imagined my eyes were lasers, slowly burning his skin. I wanted him to know how I felt as I lay in my bed for days on end, crying so hard I was in physical pain; when we opened April’s bedroom door and saw her empty bed; on Christmas morning, knowing her presents were lying unwrapped in a cupboard; how we felt with the rest of our lives stretching out in front of us without April – a void that would only get wider.
But now we had to tell our two other children, Harley and Jazmin, the truth. ‘Harley,’ I said, taking a deep breath. ‘I’ve got something to tell you and it isn’t going to be easy. April won’t be coming home. She’s been murdered.’
Harley’s face turned white and he let out the same blood-curdling scream as the night April had been taken. I grabbed him and held him to me. I would have given anything to take his pain away. Harley and April had been two peas in a pod, and now he’d grow older while April would be frozen in time.
PAUL...
ELWEN EVANS, the prosecution barrister, cleared her throat and turned to face the jury. A hush fell on the room. Bridger refused to meet her eye, and I hoped the jury could see how pathetic he looked.
‘The prosecution case,’ said Elwen, ‘is that Mark Bridger abducted April, murdered her and went to great lengths to cover up what he had done. He has played, we say, a cruel game in pretending not to know what he has done to her, to try to manipulate his way out of full responsibility.’
In the days before April was taken, said Elwen, he’d been obsessively searching the internet for content related to child sex abuse and murder. Coral had already turned white and I asked her if she needed a break.
‘No, I’m staying for all of this,’ she said, and gripped my hand more tightly.
Bridger had downloaded images of child murder victims, including Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the Soham schoolgirls murdered in 2002. He also had cartoons depicting child rape and a folder full of pictures of local girls, including April and Jazmin.
As Coral’s 999 call was played, cold goosebumps covered my body. The court fell completely silent – I doubt the jury had ever heard anything so harrowing. Bridger dabbed at his eyes as he heard my wife’s choking sobs. I wanted to jump down and punch him. How dare he pretend to be moved by our distress?
‘Crocodile tears,’ Coral whispered hoarsely. I nodded. It was all I could do not to explode with rage. I forced myself to think of April. I had to keep my dignity for her. We needed to do everything in our power to have this monster locked up.
Elwen read out Bridger’s statement wanting to ‘say sorry’ to us because he’d run April over and killed her. Bridger began to cry, his head in his hands. ‘It appears lies and tears come easily to the defendant,’ she said, brusquely.
He had approached other young girls from Machynlleth, the town where we lived, she continued, in the hours l eading up to April’s disappearance, even inviting one for a ‘sleepover’.
Forensic tests revealed some of April’s DNA on his tracksuit bottoms. At that moment, Coral let go of my hand and ran out of the courtroom.
April’s friend Amy was arguably the most important witness; she was the last person to see April alive, and had identified Bridger’s vehicle. A conviction could depend on what she said in court. It was a huge burden for a seven-year-old.
The judge, Bridger’s QC and Elwen all removed their wigs. Amy flashed up on the screen by video-link looking so small and vulnerable. She was hugging one of her teddies and wearing a T-shirt with ‘Love’ on it. The judge asked her teddy’s name. ‘Minty,’ Amy replied, and he told her Minty would look after her.
Bridger’s barrister was gentler with her than he would have been with an adult witness, but he suggested Amy was lying, that in fact she’d seen April being carried by Bridger after he’d
run her over. But Amy refused to crumble. ‘She climbed over the back seat but the man didn’t carry her,’ she said firmly.
‘You’ve helped the court a great deal,’ the judge told her.
Amy hugged her teddy and said, ‘Thank you’. A wave of relief washed over me. Amy had been amazing. It seemed almost everyone – including Bridger’s lawyer – had underestimated her.
A forensic scientist told the court he had found no evidence on Bridger’s car that he had knocked April over. ‘If there had been a collision with a person or bike it always leaves a trace, whether it be scratches or dents.’ Bridger was sitting with his head in his hands, in tears. These tears weren’t for April, they were for himself. He was beginning to realise just how bleak things were looking for him.
When Bridger was called to the stand it was like he hadn’t listened to a word since the trial began. I think he actually believed his own lies. His voice was small and pathetic. ‘I still do not recall having little April in my car,’ he repeated.
‘How dare he call my daughter “little April”?’ Coral said later. ‘People who loved her called her “little April.”’ Elwen got straight to the point: ‘Where is April?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bridger replied, fighting back tears. ‘I really don’t know.’
‘What did you do with April’s body?’
‘I don’t know.’ The panic was evident in his voice.
‘Can you agree you got rid of her so thoroughly that no part of her, apart from possibly the blood and bone, has been found?’
‘I’m not proud of it,’ Bridger replied.
‘Are you a paedophile?’ No, he wasn’t, Bridger claimed, because he didn’t spend every day looking at ‘reams and reams’ of indecent images. He didn’t have to look at them constantly, Elwen replied, to be a paedophile.
On the morning of Thursday, May 30, 2013, Coral and I walked through the sea of flashbulbs and into the court.
The courtroom was so quiet I was convinced everyone would be able to hear the sound of my heart hammering in my chest.
‘In relation to charge two on the indictment, the murder of April Jones,’ the court clerk asked the jury spokesman, ‘how do you find the defendant?’ My knuckles were white as I squeezed Coral’s hand as hard as I could.
‘Guilty.’ The verdict, the spokesman added, had been unanimous. ‘Yes!’ was all Coral could say. ‘Yes!’ Bridger nodded his head and appeared to swallow hard.
Just then, something quite extraordinary happened. Dave, one of our Family Liaison Officers, put his head in his hands and began to sob – this tough, resilient man crying like a schoolboy. He had been our rock, so collected throughout everything, never betraying the strain he’d been under.
Bridger was brought back into the dock. His lip was quivering slightly – a sign, I hoped, of how scared he was. Elwen read out a victim impact statement from Coral. So much of the trial had focused on April’s brutal death: now people were finally to hear what a wonderful little girl she had been.
Coral’s statement read: ‘I will never forget October 1, 2012, the night she never came home. Since that night, the estate is quiet, as the children are no longer allowed out to play. As April’s mother I will live with the guilt of letting her go out that night for the rest of my life.
‘I will never see her smile again, or hear her stomping around upstairs. We will never see her bring home her first boyfriend, and Paul will never walk her down the aisle. How will we ever get over it?’
Mr Justice Griffith-Williams turned to Bridger. ‘The sentence for murder is life imprisonment, but I have to decide the minimum term you must serve,’ he began, gravely. The courtroom was eerily silent. ‘For the last four weeks, the court has listened to compelling evidence of your guilt, which has also demonstrated that you are a pathological and glib liar.
‘There is no doubt in my mind that you are a paedophile who has for some time harboured sexual and morbid fantasies about young girls, storing on your laptop not only images of pre-pubescent and pubescent girls, but foul pornography of the gross sexual abuse of young children. For the offence of murder, I sentence you to life imprisonment with a wholelife order.’
Bridger closed his eyes and bowed his head before being taken down to the cells for the final time.
The verdict would never bring April back, nor give our family closure. But at least Bridger could never put anyone else through the hell we were forced to live, day after day.
© Paul and Coral Jones, 2015 April: A Mother And Father’s Heart-Breaking Story Of The Daughter They Loved And Lost, by Paul and Coral Jones, is published by Simon & Schuster, priced £16.99. Pre-order before April 5 for price of £14.44 at mailbookshop.co.uk; p&p is free for a limited time.