‘We lost Mum to severe depression after April’s death’
THE sister of murdered schoolgirl April Jones has revealed how her mother was “lost to depression” in the aftermath of her death.
“We kind of lost a mum in a way, because she wasn’t the mum she used to be,” Jazmin Jones told ITV.
April vanished near her home in Machynlleth, Powys, in October 2012 when she was just five-years-old.
The crime shocked the Powys town, with friends and neighbours among the hundreds of volunteers – from across Wales and the rest of the UK – who helped look for the youngster in what was the biggest-ever police search in Britain.
Mark Bridger, who is serving a whole-life sentence after being found guilty of April’s sexually motivated murder and abduction, had hundreds of indecent images of children on his computer and had viewed child pornography on the day he snatched the schoolgirl, who had cerebral palsy.
In an interview with This Morning yesterday, Jazmin Jones revealed the heartbreaking effect losing April had on the entire family.
The 21-year-old said her mum suffered with severe depression in the aftermath of the little girl’s death.
“She went through really, really bad depression and we could go days without seeing her because she was sleeping just trying to deal with it,” Jazmin said.
“We lost the mum she used to be. We felt like we’d lost our mum as well as our sister.
“She’s better now, we’ve finally got our mum back.”
Meanwhile, Jazmin turned to alcohol as she was left heartbroken by April’s horrific murder.
Earlier this month she revealed how she almost died after hitting the bottle in a bid to cope with the tragedy. She was only able to give up alcohol by focusing her energies into campaigning for tougher laws for sex offenders along with her parents Coral and Paul.
She told BBC Wales: “When I turned 18 I just turned to drink as a sort of release.”
Bridger was convicted of April’s murder and jailed for a whole life sentence in May 2013.
He abducted April from outside her home after becoming obsessed with child pornography and Jazmin believes internet search engines should be better policed.
Jazmin said: “He had over 500 images on his computer of children.
“If he’d been caught with them before and if the internet was monitored better, police could have got to him then and he’d have been on the sex offenders’ register and there could have been a different outcome for us.”
But Jazmin is happy that the petition for “April’s Law” will now finally be discussed by MPs in Westminster on March 13. She said it was hard work getting the 100,000 signatures required to get the petition debated.
“So when it finally passed the 100,000 mark I was really excited. It just meant maybe they might listen to us. I know there’s a long way to go, but it’s another small step.
“We’re hopeful it will get the law out and even if it saves one child’s life we’ll prevent another family having to go through what we’ve been through.”