April

by Paul

  How dare he call my daughter little April? People who loved her called her little April. It was too much to bear. I stood against the wall and sobbed. He was so brazen, putting on a show like this for the jury. Pretending he cared, pretending he was crying for April when really his tears were for no one but himself.

  My face was hot and my already weak legs had turned to jelly. I knew I had to steady myself, to go back in and face the monster who had robbed me of my child but I needed a few minutes to get myself together.

  Hayley followed me out. She put a supportive hand on my arm and told me to take my time to compose myself.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I sobbed. ‘I’m fine. I just need a minute.’

  He was probably enjoying my agony. He probably got a kick out of seeing me running out of court in tears. I wondered how he would feel if he had to live my life for a day if this had happened to one of his children. But it was useless. Bridger was a callous, disgusting animal. He didn’t have emotions like Paul and me.

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘I’m ready to go back in,’ I said to Hayley, dabbing the last of my tears.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, firmly. ‘I want him to sit and look at me. He’s not getting away with anything.’

  I sat back down in my seat at the front of the court. Clasping Paul’s hand, I fixed my gaze on Bridger once again.

  He was still saying those words.

  Little April, little April, little April . . .

  It seemed like he dropped the phrase in every few sentences, just to see how I’d react. I had no real idea if he’d sensed that this was what had made me so upset, but in the heat of the moment I became convinced he was doing it purely to torment me.

  ‘How can he call her little April?’ I raged to Paul when the court was adjourned for a short break. ‘She was our little April. He’s got no bloody right.’

  It had been a distressing day, particularly for Coral, but when Brendan Kelly had finished with Bridger, Elwen had the chance to cross-examine him. She didn’t pull any punches and got straight to the point.

  ‘Where is April?’ she demanded of him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, fighting back tears. ‘I really don’t know.’

  ‘What did you do with April’s body?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. The panic was evident in his voice and it was almost fun for us to watch him squirm.

  ‘You have absolutely no idea?’ Elwen asked. ‘Is that what you are telling the jury? Can you just consider the scale and scope of the police search?’

  Bridger said nothing, simply looking at the floor.

  ‘You have heard the evidence,’ Elwen went on, sternly. ‘Can you agree, whatever you did with April’s body, you got rid of her so thoroughly that no part of her, apart from possibly the blood and bone, has been found? Do you agree?’

  ‘I’m not proud of it,’ Bridger replied.

  ‘Well, you did it,’ Elwen retorted.

  She then moved on to the duct tape found in the dashboard of the car. One of the cartoons he’d viewed in the hours before April went missing showed a young girl being held down by a man and restrained by duct tape. Elwen asked him if he remembered this.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied yet again, blinking back more tears.

  We went back to our cottage that night knowing Elwen had a full day to finish her cross-examination the next day. I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking of Bridger and his lies.

  ‘Elwen just ripped Mark Bridger to bits,’ I wrote in my diary in the early hours. ‘She only had an hour with him but he looked stupid. Not one person believes a word he says. He lied the whole time but I just wish he’d own up. We all know he murdered April and burned her in the fire but he intends to keep going. I just hope Elwen makes him snap and then we’ll know for definite.

  ‘I love you, April. Dad xxx.’

  We left for court around 9 a.m. Melere came with us but we were all quiet. We knew the day ahead would be tense.

  Elwen began by grilling Bridger about the child pornography on his computer. She had to ask him five times if he had viewed the images before he cracked and admitted it, but still the lies kept coming. Bridger insisted he hadn’t meant to search for an image of a naked five-year-old girl, but a naked fifteen-year-old girl. It was all, he claimed, because he wanted to check his teenage daughter was developing properly.

  ‘Are you a paedophile?’ Elwen asked him over and over.

  ‘No,’ he answered. ‘It was a mis-type. I was looking into the development of my two youngest children.’

  Bridger then repeated the lie that he’d kept the images to complain to internet providers.

  ‘Are you saying you had this disgusting filth on your computer to complain to companies?’ Elwen asked, narrowing her eyes in his direction.

  Bridger screwed up his eyes before he answered. ‘A small batch of pictures, yes,’ he said. He then claimed he wasn’t a paedophile because he didn’t spend every day looking at ‘reams and reams’ of indecent images. Elwen replied that he didn’t have to look at them constantly to be a paedophile.

  ‘Yes you do,’ he insisted. ‘You have to have serious problems.’

  I could tell this was becoming hard for Coral, who was quite tearful, but she knotted her fingers through mine and stayed rooted to her seat.

  Elwen then moved on to the pictures of the other murder victims, asking Bridger why he had stored images of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

  ‘I had read the stories and the sad story of the two young victims of Soham,’ he said. ‘I had read crime stories for many years. They were not all rapes and murders, there are also images of real-life accidents. These are not all crimes and rapes and paedophilia.’

  After lunch, Elwen focused on what Bridger had done with April’s body after he’d abducted her. By this point, he was on the verge of hysteria.

  ‘I had a dead child in my car!’ he said, almost shouting, as his sobs got louder. ‘How does that affect anyone? I had pins and needles. I felt sick and frightened.’

  At several points, the judge had to tell Bridger to answer the questions put to him, instead of trying to argue with Elwen. He was a desperate man.

  Elwen then asked why traces of April’s blood had been found on his living room floor. He replied that he’d laid her body in front of the fireplace to ‘keep her warm’.

  ‘She was dead, and in some silly way it would have been some peace and quiet for her,’ he added. He was still crying his vile tears of self-pity. ‘Maybe it was because it would be warm for her.’

  ‘Do you accept you killed April?’ Elwen said.

  ‘No. I caused the death of April,’ he replied. ‘I did not kill her. I did not dispose of her body. Disposed is such a horrible word.’

  It had been a draining day, but it wasn’t over yet. When court finished shortly after 4 p.m., Elwen said she would need to cross-examine Bridger further in the morning. We wanted her to do all she could to see him sent down, but we were at breaking point and I wasn’t sure how much more Coral could take. She’d tried to be strong all day, but the exhaustion was evident on her face.

  ‘Elwen made a fool of Mark Bridger again today,’ I wrote. ‘He just kept on talking but the tension never left us all day. It’s been a difficult day, listening to a desperate man who will do anything to get out of his predicament. Coral is in bits and very stressed. I’m OK because I know what’s he’s done. I’ve known for a long time, so I’m just listening to his sad attempts to get out of his mess.

  ‘I love you, April. Dad xxx.’

  Thankfully the rest of Elwen’s cross-examination took only an hour or so. She quizzed Bridger on what he’d done with April’s body and this was overwhelming for Coral. We went out of court for around twenty minutes and when we came back in the cross-examination had been completed. We were glad it was over and that we didn’t have to hear any more of Bridger’s pathetic lies.

  The judge then
told us the lawyers would be able to begin their closing speeches the following Tuesday, as Monday was another bank holiday. The jury was expected to go out on Wednesday.

  Coral fell into my arms and we both cried a few tears of relief. The end was in sight.

  When Dave and Hayley picked us up on Tuesday morning, we were all on edge. There wasn’t much conversation. We’d come such a long way and we couldn’t even consider the prospect of a not guilty verdict.

  We were surprised by how concise Elwen’s speech was. She managed to condense four weeks of evidence into an hour and a half. Both Coral and I were tearful as she spoke, especially when she mentioned little Amy.

  ‘April’s little friend has been one of the most impressive witnesses, all seven years of her,’ she told the jury. ‘The totality of her evidence is powerful and compelling in this case.

  ‘Imagine the frustration for the defendant that in effect his whole story is laid to waste by the evidence of a seven-year-old girl? If you conclude that she is telling the truth then that is the end of the defendant’s lies, fabrication, fantasy.

  ‘On his own admission, this is a man who over twenty years ago decided to create a whole new lie – a whole new life for himself, and a man who was prepared to live that lie.

  ‘He came up with a false identity, embroidered the fabricated fantasy that he had been a soldier of some skill, a mercenary of some skill. It was a story he advanced for his own benefit and it was a lie that was advanced to everyone. You have seen some glimpses into his mindset and some of those glimpses, you may have thought, are quite frankly shocking.

  ‘The evidence points to one and only one conclusion and that is this defendant, Mark Bridger, is guilty of counts one, two and three of the indictment.’

  We had a short break for lunch, before Brendan Kelly began his closing speech. We found this easier to listen to, mainly because it had far less substance than Elwen’s. He asked the jury not to base their verdict on speculation and told them that Bridger was not necessarily guilty of April’s abduction and murder simply because child pornography had been found on his computer. We appreciate this man had a job to do, but he was quite clearly clutching at straws.

  That evening I saw little point in going to bed. I sat on the sofa, thinking and crying, while Coral tried to get some rest. When we went back to court in the morning, more cameras than usual were thrust in our faces as we approached the entrance. The judge spent a few hours giving the jury some legal guidance.

  ‘You’re under no pressure for time,’ he told the jurors. ‘You must take as long as you need and no verdict should be based on guesswork.’

  Shortly after 1 p.m., they retired to consider their verdict.

  ‘This is it,’ I said to no one in particular, clutching Coral’s hand.

  Around 4 p.m., we were told to go home for the night. The jury had not yet reached a decision, but were expected to have done so by the next day.

  It was hard to imagine how we would get through the next few hours. Thankfully a few friends from Machynlleth had come up to visit us and they suggested going out for a pub meal. A nail technician also came round to give Coral a manicure, which perked her up a bit.

  Over dinner and a few beers, we managed to unwind a little, although our minds never wandered far from what the next day had in store for us. The case against Bridger was so compelling it was hard to see how he could be acquitted but it didn’t stop us worrying about it. Dave and Hayley had told us never to take anything for granted, and the thought of our daughter’s killer roaming the streets again was unbearable. I was certain it would kill Coral and I didn’t have much faith that I’d fare any better.

  ‘The tension was massive today,’ I wrote in my diary that night. ‘You can really feel it. Minutes feel like hours. We’re all hoping tomorrow the jury will come back with the verdict we want. This is all for you, April.

  ‘We all love you and miss you. Dad xxx.’

  10

  The Verdict

  On the morning of Thursday 30 May 2013, the alarm woke Coral and me up at 6.45 a.m. We sat up in bed with a start and were both surprised how well we’d slept considering what the day ahead held. I left Coral to get ready while I popped downstairs to make us breakfast and coffee. Already I could feel my body tensing with nerves as I fixed my pink bow to my freshly ironed shirt.

  Dave and Hayley picked us up just after 9 a.m. This time, Rhian, the police press manager, was in the car with them and she gave us some advice on speaking to the media after the verdict was announced. In the event of a guilty verdict, she said she would help Coral draft a statement to read out on the court steps.

  It was all becoming very real.

  A few of our friends had gathered at court, as well as my mum, Dai and Fil, who had brought Jazmin along with them. We’d never have allowed her to sit through the trial, as it would have been extremely disturbing for her, but we agreed that she could be in court to hear the verdict. By now, she was just a few months shy of her eighteenth birthday and Coral and I felt she was mature enough to attend the final day of the trial. We also hoped it might help her understand the court process and what we’d been doing for the past month.

  Coral and I walked through the sea of flashbulbs and into the court, where we took our seats. The jurors filed in one by one and confirmed, as we’d expected, that they needed more time to continue their deliberations.

  We were taken to our holding room, where the volunteers made us some hot drinks. I could barely taste my coffee. It was hard to know how to feel. On the one hand, a guilty verdict was what we’d been hoping and praying for these last eight months, but it was always going to be a bittersweet moment – and it wouldn’t bring April back.

  I smiled to myself as I watched Dave and Hayley. They’d always been so calm and cool but today neither of them could sit still for a minute, fidgeting with their phones and pacing the floor. They’d been with us every step of the way on this terrible journey and the result mattered almost as much to them as it did to us.

  ‘Look at them,’ I said to Coral. ‘They’re like yo-yos.’

  There was nothing we could do but wait. Every minute seemed like an hour as we drank endless cups of tea and coffee and watched every second on the clock.

  ‘They can’t take much longer,’ I said, as I too began to pace up and down the small room, but in truth I had no idea how long the jury would deliberate for. For all we knew, we could be waiting days.

  Finally, just after noon, the jury bell sounded and we were summoned back to the court. It had been just over two hours since we’d arrived at court but it felt like years.

  ‘Is this it?’ I asked Dave.

  ‘It could be,’ he said, wringing his hands, nervously. ‘But they could just ask a question, or be looking for a break.’

  I hoped it wasn’t the latter. The longer the deliberations went on, the more nervous I became. It goes without saying that the longer the jury is out, the greater chance there is of a not guilty verdict. I was utterly convinced the prosecution had proved Bridger’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, but what if the jury wasn’t? What if there was one rogue juror who wasn’t quite satisfied that the evidence was enough to convict him? What if there was someone who actually believed his lies and thought he was innocent? It was almost too much to bear.

  We filed back into our seats, with Dave and Hayley on either side of us. The courtroom was so quiet I was convinced everyone would be able to hear the sound of my heart hammering in my chest.

  Mr Justice Griffith-Williams came in first, before the court clerk summoned Bridger to the dock. Then the jury entered, shuffling into their seats one by one.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the judge spoke.

  ‘Have you reached a verdict?’ he asked the jury spokesman.

  ‘Yes,’ the spokesman replied, rising from his seat. He handed an envelope to the judge, who opened it, read its contents and nodded. It was impossible to gauge his reaction to what he’d just seen.

 
; Then, the court clerk asked the spokesman for the jury’s verdict on the first charge on the indictment, that of April’s abduction. My knuckles were white as I squeezed Coral’s hand as hard as I could, but I barely registered when the word ‘guilty’ passed his lips. It was the next verdict we were all waiting on.

  ‘In relation to charge two on the indictment, the murder of April Jones, how do you find the defendant?’ the clerk asked.

  ‘Guilty,’ the spokesman replied. He added that the verdict had been unanimous.

  ‘Yes!’ was all Coral could say. ‘Yes!’

  Bridger nodded his head and appeared to swallow hard. The spokesman was then asked for the jury’s verdict on the charge of perverting the course of justice by disposing of April’s body and again he replied that the jury had found Bridger guilty.

  Just then, something quite extraordinary happened. To my right, Dave put his head in his hands and began to sob audibly. It was such a strange sight, to see this tough, resilient man crying like a schoolboy in public but I knew his tears had come straight from the heart. He had been our rock, so collected throughout everything, never betraying the strain the case was having on him.

  On Coral’s side, Hayley was even more emotional than Dave – she too was openly weeping and seemed powerless to stop the tears streaming down her face. Both of our FLOs had been so strong for so long. It was only then I realised how much of themselves they’d given us, how they’d put their lives on hold for many months to make sure this moment arrived. We’d almost forgotten that they were both parents themselves and this, of course, was every parent’s worst nightmare. Hayley later admitted that, as a mother, she had put herself in Coral’s shoes many times over. Perhaps the feelings they’d been bottling up for the past eight months had now finally come to the surface.

  Strangely enough, the emotion of it took a few minutes to hit Coral and me. Neither of us was crying. I wrapped my arms around Jazmin, who had tears in her eyes, but I think I was in shock.

  The judge said he would sentence Bridger at 2 p.m. The court was then adjourned as we were ushered back to our holding room, where Rhian was waiting for us. She, too, was in tears. It was only then that Coral sank into my arms and allowed herself to cry a little. But she quickly composed herself and wiped her eyes. There would be plenty of time for that later and we still had the sentencing to get through.