by Paul
When she began to tell me about the first, dreadful months after Sarah was taken, I saw so much of myself in her. Like me, she’d been a normal mum from a humble background. She’d never craved the limelight, or the finer things in life. She and Mike didn’t have a big, fancy house or a flashy car in the driveway. What they did have was the love of their beautiful children, whom they would have laid down their lives for – and they wouldn’t have had it any other way.
But, like me, Sara’s world was turned upside down in the blink of an eye when she made what seems like the most mundane of decisions – allowing her daughter to play outside.
Another Sun reporter, Antonella Lazzeri, had been sent to cover the meeting but I almost forgot my words were being recorded as I spoke candidly to Sara.
‘Does the pain ever go away?’ I asked. My hands had started to shake and I could barely hold my coffee cup.
Sara put a supportive hand on my arm. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’d like to tell you it does, but it really doesn’t. It does lessen with time and you get a lot more good days than bad.’
I told Sara all about the months before the trial: how I was often unable to get out of bed and how, some days, I’d survive on a few tiny mouthfuls of Ready Brek. She nodded sympathetically; she too had been barely able to function in the aftermath of Sarah’s death. She and Mike had frequently rowed, as she’d spend hours staring mindlessly at the television while he was at work, barely attempting to do the chores or cook dinner for the children. She’d pull herself together to give newspaper interviews or make television appearances to speak about Sarah’s Law, but privately her life was in disarray.
We then began to talk about the campaign. I asked her a bit about Sarah’s Law, before we moved on to talking about child pornography. It still made my stomach lurch to think of the images I’d seen in court, but I knew I had to do it for April.
‘Paul and I would love to work with you,’ I told her. ‘There’s no reason for these sites to be there. If you’re looking at a paedophile site, there has to be something wrong with you.’
Sara nodded in agreement.
‘I didn’t want to look at those pictures in court, but I had to,’ I said. ‘They were just horrible. Why should they be on the internet?’
Sara squeezed my hand, shaking her head in disgust. ‘I know, Coral,’ she replied.
‘I believe in a warning flashing up when you go looking for those sites,’ I went on. ‘One time, you might have made a mistake, but a second? You should be warned and reported to the police. If that had happened to Mark Bridger, it might have stopped him. This campaign will give me something to focus on. I fear if I stop, I’ll crack.’
‘You won’t,’ Sara replied, firmly. ‘You’re stronger than you think.’
We then had some photographs taken, before we recorded a video for the Sun’s website. Being filmed was a curious experience, as chatting to Sara was as natural as talking to an old friend. Speaking about the campaign, I felt animated and passionate, but when we moved on to April, tears sprang to my eyes.
‘I was the one who said she could go out,’ I said, taking a deep breath. ‘So I feel guilty.’
‘But every child should have that right,’ Sara replied. ‘Every child has the right to play, to go on their bikes. Surely that’s what childhood is about?’
I sighed and nodded. It was all just so cruel. Since April had been taken, I’d been tempted to wrap Harley and Jazmin in cotton wool and never let them out of my sight. But I knew this wasn’t healthy or normal and that I had to let them develop into young adults without constant scrutiny.
Soon the camera stopped rolling and it was time to say our goodbyes. Sara said she’d like to keep in touch.
‘Coral, you didn’t do anything wrong that day,’ she told me. ‘You wanted to give your daughter a treat because she’d done well at school. Why shouldn’t she have had a treat?’
‘I said it was OK, as long as it was just for a little while,’ I replied. ‘I just thought, I’ll give her fifteen minutes extra. It wasn’t even dark.’
‘I drove myself mad with the “if onlys”,’ Sara admitted. ‘But you can’t keep beating yourself up. What could you have done, locked her in her bedroom? You can’t keep blaming yourself. It will kill you.’
I couldn’t quite bring myself to accept that I’d ever get over the guilt I felt for letting April out that night, but I was grateful to Sara for trying her best to convince me I hadn’t been in the wrong.
She then gave me a big hug and handed me a piece of paper with her mobile number on it. I knew we wouldn’t have the time to speak as regularly as we’d like – we were both busy mums with families to attend to – but it was comforting to know she was at the other end of the phone whenever I needed a chat.
Coral seemed buoyed by the meeting with Sara. As we made our way back to the hotel, I could almost sense some of her old vibrancy returning.
‘Hopefully we can make some changes,’ she said. ‘The internet definitely had a lot to do with April’s death.’
‘I know,’ I said, sadly, wondering for what seemed like the hundredth time if Bridger’s desire to abuse children would have got so out of hand if he hadn’t had access to such horrible websites.
‘If I can save just one more child, I’ll be happy,’ she went on. ‘This is for all families, Paul. Not just for us.’
‘I’m really proud of you for doing this,’ I told her. ‘Let’s hope we can make a difference.’
To take our mind off things, the Sun had arranged a trip that afternoon for us and the children to go on the London Eye. We all enjoyed the experience and Coral and I were even treated to champagne. We were then whisked off to an Italian restaurant for dinner, where we had a lovely meal.
As we ate, I felt like I was being torn in two different directions. It was so nice be able to treat Harley and Jazmin after everything they’d been through, and we’d never have been able to afford such a lavish day out in London if we’d had to pay for it ourselves. But, on the other hand, we were under no illusions that none of us would have been sitting there if we hadn’t lost April. London was exciting, but it was also busy and bustling and a little bit out of our comfort zone. Coral and I would have happily never taken another trip or had another meal out again if it could have brought April back to us.
We got back to the hotel around 8 p.m. and I wrote in my diary while Coral, Jazmin and Harley watched a bit of television.
‘Today has been a good day,’ I wrote. ‘I can see a difference in Coral. With something to fight for, she’s more herself. I hope this will make her stronger and help her on the road to recovery.
‘Coral and Sara got on very well. They talked about their suffering and how between them they could maybe get some of these pornographic sites taken down. Both of them felt this would make a serious difference, as surely these sites can only fuel sexual predators.
‘As for me, I struggle for a cause, but perhaps just being there for Coral, Jazz and Harley is enough. Hopefully this will help me on my road to recovery. It’s nice to be able to spoil the kids but I feel very tired and tearful when we’re out together, enjoying ourselves without April. It still makes me feel sad and low.
‘I love you, April. Dad xxx.’
The next morning, we were woken by our alarms at 6.30 a.m. We’d agreed to do our first proper television interview since the trial, with the ITV programme This Morning. We had a quick breakfast before the taxi picked us up at 8 a.m. and we travelled to the studios.
Coral and I would be interviewed by presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, where we would have the chance to speak about our campaign and how we hoped to change the law in April’s name. Phillip Schofield in particular had taken an interest in April’s case from the very start, appealing for information on Twitter just the day after she vanished, so we hoped he’d be sympathetic to our plight. Emma, Jazmin and Harley came along too. They were allowed to watch our interview from behind the camera.
Ph
illip and Holly are national icons and we wondered what they would be like off camera. Rumours often abound about how well-known celebrities can be demanding and dismissive in real life, when faced with the prospect of interacting with the general public. This certainly wasn’t true of Phillip and Holly. They couldn’t have been kinder to us and truly lived up to their reputations. They spent a few minutes coaching us on the interview before we went on air and telling us how they would prompt us when they wanted us to speak.
Appearing on a show like This Morning is very different to watching it at home, where everything looks so effortless and natural. In reality, it can only be described as organised chaos. As well as Phillip and Holly onscreen, there were some thirty people buzzing around in the background, running around with clipboards and cameras or doing make-up. The team was obviously very talented and we were in awe of how they managed to make the programme look so slick as it was being broadcast.
We were told we’d probably be on air for around six minutes but, in the end, the interview lasted twice as long. We barely noticed – we had so much to say on April and the campaign that we weren’t sure how it could have been cut down.
‘These indecent images should be removed,’ I said, when we were asked about child pornography on the internet.
‘I’d like to do something in April’s name,’ Coral agreed. ‘If I can save just one person, it’s better than none.’
Afterwards, Phillip and Holly chatted to the children and signed some autographs for them. I also got a signed photograph of Holly for one of my friends, who was a big fan of hers. Needless to say, he was delighted.
In the afternoon, Coral and Jazmin went to have their hair done, while Harley and I did a bit of clothes shopping. We had a nice late lunch with Ryan and Emma, before we said goodbye to them and caught a taxi to Euston Station to begin the long train journey back to Machynlleth.
On the way home, Coral had a chance to catch up with her emails and Facebook messages and, already, lots of people had contacted her to say they wanted to support our campaign. But, as we knew all too well, a few good days are almost always followed by several bad ones. We got home around 9 p.m. that evening after catching our connection at Birmingham and Coral was so drained she went straight to bed. I took the dogs for a short walk and I found myself crying.
‘Now I’m home, a sadness comes over me,’ I wrote in my diary when I got back in. ‘I look around and, knowing there’s no April, I find so many things that trigger me. It all comes back to me and I feel so sad and down. It’s an awful feeling, so hard to explain.
‘I wish I could see your face and hear your voice, April. I find it impossible to believe I’ll never hear or see you again. I miss you and it’s so tough and unfair. I find myself thinking of you a lot. I don’t cry as much but I still feel low. I have to carry on but at forty-four years old, I shouldn’t be living my life without you.
‘I love you, April Sue-Lyn Jones.
‘Your very sad and sorry Dad xxx.’
On the Friday of our first week back at home, Dave popped round for a visit. It was the longest we’d gone without seeing him since April was taken. We’d only spent a week apart from our FLOs, but it was like walking without our crutches. We were so used to them pointing us in the right direction and explaining everything.
Nonetheless, it was great to see Dave and to catch up. He stayed for over an hour and we told him about our week over a cup of tea.
On the Saturday, we did an interview with Woman’s Own magazine, which seemed to go OK. Coral had a chat on the phone with one of the writers in London before they sent a photographer to do some pictures. He suggested we go to Borth beach on the Ceredigion coast, as we’d often taken April there after school if the weather was nice. It was only a half-hour car journey and we agreed, as he promised it wouldn’t take long. However, we were starting to discover that photoshoots often had the habit of overrunning and we spent several hours posing on the sand. This wiped Coral out, so she went to bed as soon as we got home around 5 p.m.
I didn’t feel like resting, so I took Autumn and Storm down to the river, where I collected some stones for the memorial we’d been slowly building for April on the communal green area outside our home. We’d decided to call it April’s Garden, or Gardd April in Welsh. Lots of the neighbours had helped and it now looked beautiful.
Of course, almost everything we were given for the garden was in April’s favourite colour. There were pink bows, pink soft toys and even a pink doll’s house. Someone had built us a bench and a local business had donated garden furniture. Children had played happily on Bryn-y-Gog for decades before April was taken but in the months since her disappearance many parents had, understandably, been reluctant to let their kids out of their sight, even for a few minutes. We hoped that April’s Garden would be a symbol of hope, reminding them that the children had a right to play on the estate without fear.
The garden had been attracting a lot of visitors from outside the town. On that day, a lady from Welshpool, a town that lay forty miles away on the English border, had brought her daughter to the garden to lay a teddy in memory of April. The little girl was five years old and she bore an uncanny resemblance to my daughter. She had the same mousy brown hair, slight frame and impish smile. It almost stopped me in my tracks.
‘She’s very like April, isn’t she?’ I said to her mum.
‘Many people have said that,’ she replied.
We chatted for around twenty minutes and the girl’s mum told me that they often visited Machynlleth, as they had a caravan nearby. She’d always found the locals so welcoming and had never for a second doubted that her little girl would be safe here. Naturally she was deeply distressed when she’d heard about April’s abduction. It was a poignant moment and I had to bite my lip to stop myself from crying but it was lovely to see this little girl enjoying the garden in the sunshine.
I then took a walk up Penrach, where April and I had spent so many happy afternoons picking flowers and eating fruit. I’d been told that a few local women – we are still not sure of their identities – had erected their own memorial to our daughter on her favourite hill. They’d knitted lots of little pink squares and covered one of the trees in them. It had affectionately become known as the hugging tree.
I’d been putting off visiting the hugging tree, as walking up Penrach was very painful. Not only did it hold so many cherished memories of April, it was where I’d walked with Autumn and Storm on the morning of the day she disappeared, unaware of the nightmare that was about to unfold. However, both Coral and I were deeply touched that people could take the time to fashion such an elaborate tribute to our little girl and I decided the time had come for me to see it for myself.
The hugging tree was near the summit of the hill, where I’d often carried April on my shoulders when her legs grew tired. I’d managed to hold back the tears as I chatted to the little girl from Welshpool and her mum but now I couldn’t stop them as the tree slowly came into focus in a blaze of pink. All of the branches were adorned with intricately crafted squares of wool, each in different shades of my daughter’s favourite colour. There were also Hello Kitty toys and ribbons, which she would have loved. Not a spot of the tree had been missed. I couldn’t begin to imagine how much work had gone into making it look so lovely. It must have taken days, if not weeks, but these people had never drawn any attention to themselves, or asked for any thanks or recognition for their efforts. It was truly humbling.
I thought of April and how much she would have liked it. Now I was alone, I sobbed with abandon. As I looked down on Machynlleth and the white terraced houses of Bryn-y-Gog, I was crying so much I had to stop and catch my breath. I leaned against the hugging tree as the hot, salty tears streamed down my face. Even with Bridger locked away in jail, the agony would never truly be over.
I thought of the children who’d climb Penrach in the coming years, hand in hand with their parents. Perhaps they would sit at the top like April and I had, eating fruit an
d making up stories. I hoped the hugging tree would still be there to greet them – a symbol of love and hope in a town which in the eyes of the world was now overshadowed by evil and suffering.
As I walked down the hill and back into Machynlleth, I got upset again. The town looked so bare without the pink bows. When we had received the original letter saying that the council planned to remove them, the police had managed to persuade the councillors to leave them up until the end of the trial. But almost as soon as the verdict had been announced, they’d been taken down. Coral and I understood that Machynlleth had to move on and the town couldn’t remain in a permanent state of mourning – but given how much April’s disappearance had affected so many people, we felt that the councillors could have given us a few weeks’ grace. The bows had been a symbol of hope for April and now it looked like she’d been forgotten. We knew that the vast majority of people in the town would have had no objection if the council had waited a little while before removing them. What hurt the most was that no one from the council seemed able to explain the decision to us personally. Coral played bingo with some of the councillors, yet they acted like nothing had happened.
‘Give them an hour in my shoes and they’d feel differently,’ she’d sobbed to me a few nights previously.
Eventually, we managed to come to a compromise and one large pink bow was allowed to remain by the town clock. In time, a metal bow will be galvanised in pink on the clock tower itself and a plaque will be erected in April’s name. The bows provided such comfort to us during the most terrible time of our lives. We’re glad they will never disappear completely from the town.
To add to our distress, I came home to find Coral in tears again. She’d received an anonymous letter which blamed us for April’s disappearance. Her hands shaking, she handed it to me. My eye condition means I can only read with the aid of a special magnifying glass and it’s generally a long, laboured process. But as I slowly picked over the words, I couldn’t believe what I was reading.