April

by Paul

  The next few minutes passed in a blur as police officers and court officials hugged and wept on each other’s shoulders. It was only now that we could see how much this verdict meant to so many people. We couldn’t begin to express how grateful we were to each and every individual who’d worked so hard to make it happen.

  Rhian and Hayley helped Coral draft a statement to read on the court steps once Bridger had been sentenced, and she practised it a few times. I could tell she was nervous – it was a wonder she could speak at all.

  Just under two hours later, Coral, Jazmin and I were summoned back into the court, with Dave and Hayley at either side of us. The jury was free to go, as their duties had been completed, but the judge had asked the jurors if they would like to see Bridger sentenced. We were very touched when all twelve of them returned, taking their seats for one final time.

  I stared hard at Bridger as he was brought back into the dock but I wasn’t surprised when he fixed his gaze on the floor. His lip was quivering slightly and I hoped it was a sign of how scared he was.

  Before Mr Justice Griffith-Williams made his decision on the sentence Bridger would be given, both barristers had one final chance to speak. Elwen had asked if she could read out a victim impact statement from Coral. This was a longer statement to the one my wife would soon read out on the court steps. She and Hayley had spent many hours working on it, as they wanted to convey to the judge how much our lives had been destroyed by the actions of this disgusting man.

  ‘“I am Coral Joyce Jones and I am the mother of April Sue-Lyn Jones,”’ Elwen began, as a hush descended on the room.

  The mood was very strange. Everyone’s relief at the verdict was palpable but there was hardly a party atmosphere. April was never far from anyone’s thoughts and, with every sentence that was spoken, came a reminder that we’d all been brought together as the result of the most unimaginable tragedy.

  Elwen continued to read: ‘“In addition to previous statements I have made I also wish to make a statement in relation to the devastating effect the loss of our beautiful daughter April has had on me and my family.”’

  Coral inhaled sharply but she was much stronger than I’d expected. As ever, I took her hand in mine and we both stared straight at the man who’d shattered our existence into a million pieces. We could only hope that soon he’d understand a little of the pain we felt every day, a pain that would never ease with the passing of time.

  ‘“Words alone cannot describe how we are feeling or how we manage to function on a daily basis,”’ Elwen went on. ‘“I would never ever want any other family to go through what we are and will go through for the rest of our lives.”’

  She then read the words Coral had lovingly written about April’s childhood and about our lives before this horrific ordeal began. For the first time that day, I felt a lump spring to my throat, but I managed to hold it together. So much of the trial had focused on April’s brutal death. It was almost as if her short life had been momentarily forgotten but now people were finally getting the chance to hear what a wonderful little girl she had been.

  ‘“April was born prematurely, weighing only 4lb 2oz, and was in intensive care for two weeks,”’ Elwen said. ‘“She has always been a little fighter and we later found out that she had a hole in her heart.”

  ‘“When she was around three years old we noticed she was becoming clumsy, so after numerous visits to the doctors they finally diagnosed April with cerebral palsy down her left side from her hip to her leg.”

  ‘“She became a guinea pig for other children in that she was measured for a special suit to support her growing bones, and if this suit was successful they would make suits for other children.”

  ‘“We would have to massage her legs and get her to do exercises because she would have pain in her legs constantly. She very rarely moaned about the pain and would be always on the go, wanting to go out to play with her friends.”

  ‘“April ruled our lives. She was the youngest and, because of her various disabilities, we would have to provide some kind of care for her all the time.”

  ‘“Paul would get her ready for school and then I would be there when she came home. I still cannot go into her bedroom to sort out her clothes because the pain of her not being there is indescribable.”

  ‘“I have to watch Jazmin and Harley grieve for the loss of their little sister, whom they would sometimes carry upstairs because she was in too much pain to walk.”

  ‘“I have to see people whom I have known for years cross the road to avoid me because they do not know what to say to me. At Christmas I tried to make it as normal as possible but would find myself breaking down in tears when I would be in a shop and would see April’s favourite Hello Kitty things and anything pink, which was her favourite colour.”

  ‘“I broke my heart writing Christmas cards, wondering whether I should put April’s name on them. In the end I decided to just put a pink bow instead of April’s name as a symbol of hope for our lovely girl.”’

  A few people in the public gallery had begun to dab their eyes. Even some of the jurors were crying. Elwen paused a little, before continuing: ‘“I will never forget the night of the first of October 2012.”

  ‘“This was the night that we allowed our daughter April to go out to play with her friends, something she has done hundreds of times before, and this is the night that she never came home. Since that night, the estate is quiet, as the children are no longer allowed to go out to play as they used to.”

  ‘“As April’s mother I will live with the guilt of letting her go out to play on the estate that night for the rest of my life. She fought to come into the world, she fought to stay in this world, and he has taken her not only from us, but from everyone who loved her.”

  ‘“I will never see her smile again or hear her stomping around upstairs and on the landing. 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?”’

  I bowed my head for a few seconds. Words could never express how the loss of April had affected us, but Coral’s statement came close.

  Brendan Kelly then rose to speak for Bridger but there wasn’t much any lawyer could do for him now.

  ‘It is likely he will spend the rest of his life in custody,’ his barrister admitted. ‘I’m loath to raise this but the only mitigation is that he is not a repeat offender.’

  At this point, I caught sight of Bridger nodding his head. He was truly deluded – acting as if the fact he had never murdered a child before entitled him to some kind of special treatment.

  But, finally, Mr Justice Griffith-Williams turned to him in the dock. This was the moment we’d all been waiting for.

  ‘The sentence for murder is life imprisonment but I have to decide the length of the minimum term you must serve,’ he began, gravely.

  ‘Schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 provides that if the court considers the seriousness of the offence is exceptionally high, the appropriate starting point should be a whole life order.

  ‘The cases which would normally fall within that category include the murder of a child which involves the abduction of the child or sexual or sadistic motivation.

  ‘While I am satisfied that the seriousness of your offending is exceptionally high, I must nonetheless consider whether a substantial minimum term, in excess of a starting point of thirty years, would be sufficient to reflect the gravity of these offences.’

  The courtroom was eerily silent as everyone hung on his every word.

  ‘For the last four weeks, the court has listened to compelling evidence of your guilt, evidence which has also demonstrated that you are a pathological and glib liar,’ the judge continued.

  ‘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 childr
en.

  ‘What prompted you on Monday, the first of October, to live out one of those fantasies is a matter for speculation but it may have been the combination of the ending of one sexual relationship and your drinking.

  ‘Whatever, you set out to find a little girl to abuse. I am not sure you targeted April specifically – it was probably fortuitous that she can be seen on some of the images you stored on your laptop of her older sister – but you were on the prowl for a young girl.

  ‘April would not have been afraid of you partly because you have some charm. She may well have seen you about the estate and you let her know your son was a friend of her brother, Harley – just as you had tried to charm her sister, Jazmin, into allowing you to be her Facebook friend by mentioning your links to her parents.’

  I instinctively reached for Jazmin’s hand and took it in mine. Yet again, she’d shown maturity and composure beyond her years and was sitting in dignified silence.

  The judge went on: ‘And so it was, that innocently and trustingly, April got into your Land Rover smiling and happy. What followed is known only to you but this much is certain – you abducted her for a sexual purpose and then murdered her and disposed of her body to hide the evidence of your sexual abuse of her, which probably occurred on the way from the estate to your home because there is some sixty minutes of your time which cannot be accounted for.

  ‘I cannot infer from the evidence where you murdered her but if she was alive when you took her to the house, she died there. How you disposed of her body must remain a mystery. It will serve no purpose for me to speculate as to what happened but all the indications are that you burnt at least a part of her in the wood burner.

  ‘The grief of April’s parents cannot be overstated. They lived with the torment of a missing daughter, praying that she would be found alive and then, following your arrest, with the knowledge that you were providing the police with no assistance at all as to her whereabouts.

  ‘To add to that torment, they have had to endure the spectacle of your hypocritical sympathy for their loss and of your tears, flowing not because of any regret for your crimes, but because of your enduring self-pity.

  ‘Without the knowledge of what happened to April, her parents will probably never come to terms with their grievous loss, described so eloquently in the impact statement. It is to be hoped, for their sakes, for the sakes of Jazmin and Harley and for the sakes of all those who mourn April, that the verdicts will bring some measure of closure.

  ‘Your offences were aggravated by their premeditation and by the destruction of at least a part of her body and the concealment of the rest. It is also a relevant consideration that you not only abducted April with a sexual motive but then sexually abused her in some way.

  ‘While I have had regard to the absence of any relevant conviction, I have no doubt there can be only one sentence.

  ‘For the offence of murder, I sentence you to life imprisonment with a whole life order. There will be no separate penalties on counts one and three.’

  Bridger simply closed his eyes and bowed his head before he was taken down to the cells for the final time.

  Around half an hour passed before we were taken to the court steps to face the press. Just like when the verdict was announced, it took a few minutes for Coral and me to get our heads around what had happened. As the people surrounding us hugged and cried, we were simply overwhelmed with relief that Bridger would never be allowed to walk the streets again.

  In the midst of the flurry of activity, we managed to say our goodbyes to the court staff and volunteers. As we thanked them for their kindness, many of them were in tears.

  I took Coral’s arm as we walked out to the front of the court, with Dave and Hayley following closely behind us. I was glad I wasn’t the one who had to do the talking. Coral was shaking but she had a determined look in her eyes.

  Coral recalls:

  My legs had all but turned to jelly as Paul and I walked out to the court steps. The police had put up a barrier between us and the reporters, but it didn’t stop me feeling panicked. I remembered the last time I’d spoken directly to the press, just two days after April was taken, when I appealed for information on her whereabouts – and a knot of dread formed in my stomach.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Rhian. ‘They won’t be able to get any closer to you than this.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied, weakly, remembering how terrified I’d been as I’d sat in front of them on that awful day seven months previously.

  Andy John was already standing by the microphone, as he was due to speak first. With Dave and Hayley on either side of us, Paul put his arm around me as Andy began to talk.

  ‘A short while ago, the jury in this case concluded that the defendant, Mark Bridger, was guilty of all offences charged,’ Andy said. ‘The strength of evidence was overwhelming and he was responsible for the most horrific of crimes – the abduction and murder of a vulnerable five-year-old child, April Jones.

  ‘Justice has been done and Mark Bridger, an evil and manipulative individual, will have his liberty taken away from him for the rest of his life. He abducted and murdered April and has then gone to enormous lengths to destroy evidence, conceal his involvement and avoid detection.

  ‘It is as a consequence of an intense and thorough investigation, using the best possible resources, experts and prosecution team, that the evidence gathered has proved that he, and he alone, was responsible for these horrific crimes.

  ‘April’s parents, Coral and Paul, and their family have shown such enormous strength, courage and dignity during the most difficult of times. Neither I nor the majority of the public can ever begin to imagine what this family has gone through and continues to go through.’

  Now, it was my turn. I took a deep breath and started to read out the statement I’d prepared just a few hours earlier.

  ‘We are relieved that Mark Bridger has today been found guilty of the murder of our beautiful daughter April,’ I began.

  I was vaguely aware of one reporter asking me to get closer to the microphone, so I stepped forward. I felt light-headed with adrenaline and prayed I wouldn’t collapse.

  ‘April will be forever in our hearts and we are so moved by the overwhelming support we have had from so many people all over the world,’ I continued. My voice was much stronger than I thought it would be and I was glad it didn’t betray how jittery I was inside. Strangely I didn’t feel like crying. I was still a little numb and I knew it would take a while to come to terms with what we’d just been through.

  ‘Paul and I would like to thank Dyfed-Powys Police for the support they have given us, the investigation team, the search teams from all over the UK, and our family liaison officers.

  ‘We would like to thank our family and friends and the community of Machynlleth. Without their support, we do not know how we would have got through the last seven months since April was so cruelly taken from us.

  ‘We would like to thank the media for the respectful way in which they have reported April’s story, and we would like to take time now to be with our family and to try and come to terms with the loss of April.’

  Paul again wrapped his arm around me as I finished reading. It was perfect timing, as I was sure my legs were ready to buckle beneath me. When I see footage of that day, I’m amazed at how calm I look. At the time, I was convinced I was visibly shaking with a strange mix of grief and relief. The verdict would never bring April back, nor would it give our family closure. But at least we were safe in the knowledge that Bridger could never put anyone else through the hell we were forced to live, day after day.

  Ed Beltrami, chief crown prosecutor for Wales, spoke last.

  ‘We welcome today’s verdict, which brings to a close a difficult and challenging criminal process,’ he said. ‘Ever since his first interview with police in October last year, Mark Bridger has relentlessly spun a web of lies and half-truths in order to try and distance himself from the truly horrific nature of the crime he pe
rpetrated.

  ‘He has refused to take responsibility for what he did to April and has stopped at nothing to try and cover his tracks. Despite his best efforts to evade justice, he has been brought to account by a highly professional investigation by Dyfed-Powys Police, which was acknowledged by the trial judge today, coupled with the diligence and hard work of the prosecution team.

  ‘Working together, we have been able to comprehensively dismantle Bridger’s version of events and expose him as a violent, cold-hearted murderer and a calculated liar. I would like to record our thanks to everyone who supported the prosecution of this case, particularly the child witnesses.

  ‘One girl in particular, aged only seven, gave vital evidence in the case regarding the abduction and her parents should be very proud of her.’

  I thought of Amy and the testimony she’d given and how grateful Paul and I would always be to her. I dreaded to think what might have happened had she not been so brave and honest.

  ‘At the very heart of this case are April’s family, who have been through – and continue to go through – an ordeal of appalling magnitude,’ Ed Beltrami went on. ‘They have conducted themselves with a humbling dignity throughout.

  ‘We can only hope – and I’m sure I speak for all of the prosecution team – that today’s verdict will be of some help to them as they continue to try and come to terms with their terrible loss.’

  A little while after the press conference, Dave and Hayley dropped us off at our cottage for the final time. The next day, we’d be going home to Machynlleth, where we’d have to attempt to get on with the rest of our lives.

  It was strange saying goodbye to them. For the best part of a year, we’d seen them almost every day, but now the trial was over their visits and calls would be scaled back. Although they’d still be our FLOs, they would have far fewer official duties. We understood that they had to be deployed elsewhere, but it was still a wrench.