April

by Paul

  ‘I love you, April. Dad xxx.’

  16

  Neverending Battles

  As our first year without April ended, Machynlleth slowly began to get back to some sort of normality. Our daughter’s death meant our little town would never be the same again. However, slowly but surely, the local people tentatively began their attempt to pick up the pieces of a world that had been shattered beyond comprehension.

  The visits from the television cameras and newspaper reporters slowed to the extent that they became infrequent. We still took the occasional phone call from the media about the campaign, and we were happy to give any interviews which might help our cause. Now, however, things were much more on our terms. The press would never again camp out on Bryn-y-Gog en masse or try to sneak pictures of us as we left the house. The headlines had changed and other tragedies had begun to fill the column inches.

  Gradually more and more children started to appear on Bryn-y-Gog in the evenings. For months, their parents hadn’t let them wander far from the front door, terrified of what might happen if they lost sight of them for just a second. But, in time, the same parents began to rationalise what had happened. The odds against another child being taken were so slim as to be almost impossible. If we all lived in fear, we’d be letting the evil that led to April’s abduction claim another victory. Coral and I were glad these children were being allowed to run around on the estate, chasing after each other on their bikes after the school day had finished.

  But while a sense of routine returned to most lives in town, our pain didn’t lessen as time went on. All we could do was attempt to live with it.

  Even though April was gone, some of her friends still called round from time to time. Their visits were bittersweet for Coral and me. On the one hand, we revelled in their childlike innocence. They didn’t tiptoe around us and they talked unreservedly about April, so it was lovely to see how fondly our daughter was remembered by the other children on the estate, but it was also a stark reminder of what we’d lost.

  ‘Do you know I’m six now?’ Louise, one of the girls who had played with April on the night she vanished, asked, as she sat in our back garden one afternoon. I had to swallow hard to stop a lump forming in my throat. April never saw her sixth birthday; neither would she see her seventh, eighth or any birthday ever again. Yet we’d watch Louise and the rest of her peers grow into young women, getting their first jobs and bringing home their first boyfriends, perhaps one day becoming mothers themselves. The pain was indescribable.

  Amy had always been fairly shy, but she still smiled and waved to us on the estate. We could only hope that she hadn’t been too affected by the horror of what she’d witnessed. Only time will truly tell.

  Some of April’s friends asked where her pink bike was. It was understandable, as she never went out to play without it, but this also made me tearful. Almost as soon as April had gone missing, the police had removed her bike for examination by the forensic teams, and later by scientists such as Roderick Stewart. It was key to dismantling Bridger’s defence, as the various experts who looked at it were able to conclude that the bike hadn’t been involved in a collision with a car, as Bridger had claimed. After the trial, Dave and Hayley had told us that we could have the bike back if we wanted. Coral and I weren’t sure what to do, but in the end we told the police to keep it. Having it in the house would be a permanent reminder of that awful night and it was more than we could bear.

  We tentatively began clearing out some of April’s toys, putting them in bags to send to charity shops where we hoped they’d go to other children who’d love them as much as she had. There were some things we couldn’t bear to let go of, however, like a little Jack and Jill house she’d played with for hours on end. We also kept her first bike. For me, it held such precious memories of the many hours I’d spent on the grass outside our house, teaching her to ride it. Unlike her second bike, it wasn’t tainted by the nightmare that was October 2012. Every time I looked at it, I remembered the look of sheer determination I’d seen in those big, brown eyes, that fighting spirit she’d inherited from her mum.

  At times, the hole in our lives seemed so huge that Coral and I even discussed trying for a fourth child. Coral thought it might give us a focus, something besides our grief to concentrate on. But we soon decided this was not a good idea. We were both in our forties and I quickly calculated that, even if we managed to conceive within the year, I’d be approaching sixty-five by the time the baby was Jazmin’s age. After all we’d been through we just didn’t have the energy for more sleepless nights. Besides, April had been our world. Because of our various health problems, we’d devoted so much of our time to caring for her, as we’d been unable to work. There was no doubt that we’d love another child with all our hearts, but it would be so hard not to draw comparisons with the little girl we’d lost, and that wasn’t fair on anyone.

  Behind closed doors, we also still wrestled with the agony of not knowing exactly what had happened to April. This was something we’d never fully come to terms with. One evening in early November, Coral disappeared in the car and texted to say she was at Bridger’s old house in Ceinws. Delirious with anguish, she’d gone to find the rest of April’s remains. After some persuasion, I managed to calm her down and she returned home a short while later. It was hard to think about things logically, but if the highly trained, professional search teams had found nothing after seven months of searching, there was very little chance of us having any success.

  A few days later, it was Jazmin’s eighteenth birthday. We tried our very best to make this a happy occasion. I put up banners and balloons and Coral invited friends over for a party. Jazmin seemed to have fun and even Coral and I found ourselves enjoying the day. Still, April was always at the forefront of our minds, and the next day we felt crushed knowing she hadn’t been there to celebrate with us.

  As we struggled with our personal demons, we still had a very public battle to fight. Neither Coral nor I was prepared to give up on our fight against child pornography. The need to devote greater resources to policing the internet was only hammered home more when someone claiming to be Bridger appeared on a Facebook site we’d made in April’s name, leaving comments and ‘liking’ our updates.

  At first, we were terrified he’d managed to gain access to the sites whilst in prison and was taunting us from behind bars. We spoke to Dave, who investigated on our behalf and concluded that the most likely explanation was that the comments had been made by online trolls pretending to be our daughter’s killer. How anyone could think this was appropriate or acceptable we’ll never know, but we’d come to realise that there were a lot of things about the human race that we’d never truly understand.

  On 18 November 2013, we did have a bit of a breakthrough. Government ministers had held a summit with some of the major internet companies, who agreed to a number of measures which would hopefully reduce child abuse online.

  We received a phone call from Claire Perry that morning to advise us of some of the changes that had been implemented by these companies. Google and Microsoft both had agreed to make changes to their search engines to help prevent paedophiles from accessing videos or images depicting child abuse.

  Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, told the government that his firm had taken steps to prevent child abuse images being returned from over 100,000 unique search terms. The changes were to be rolled out in 159 different languages over a six-month period, meaning paedophiles all over the world would be targeted.

  Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said his company had taken advice on blacklist search terms from the National Crime Agency and banned all child abuse images, videos and pathways from these keywords.

  Both companies had agreed, as we had suggested, to display clear warning messages to people who used any of the blacklisted search terms, telling them of the consequences of their actions and redirecting them to the pages of charities set up to help prevent the sexual abuse of children.

>   Together, Microsoft and Google accounted for around 95 per cent of the searches made on the internet, so this was definitely a step in the right direction and proof that our hard work had, at least in part, paid off. David Cameron called this ‘huge progress’.

  However, we couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t quite enough. It had taken the deaths of April and Tia Sharp to prompt these companies into taking action and we’d really hoped for legislation to underpin these changes. Without a proper legal and financial deterrent we feared – and still do fear – that images and videos would slip through the cracks. How many more children would have to be abused or killed before the government would really crack down on the companies allowing people to access these images?

  Coral, Jazmin and I decided to give an interview to Channel 5 News later that night. It was the first time we had allowed Jazmin to appear on television with us, but now she was eighteen, we felt she was capable of making her own decision about media appearances.

  ‘These companies could have stepped up a little earlier,’ I said. ‘I’m not saying it would have saved April but it would definitely slow paedophiles down. We do need a group, a unit, that will go out there and search these people out.’

  ‘I’m happy the government is starting to take action,’ Coral added. ‘But I don’t think it’s enough.’

  Jazmin had been shocked when she’d found an explicit picture on one of the Facebook pages we’d created in April’s memory. As a young person who had grown up in the digital age, she perhaps understood the perils of the internet even more than we did.

  ‘I don’t think the internet is a safe place at all,’ she admitted. ‘You can’t trust anything that’s on there and you’ve got to be really, really careful especially with Facebook and YouTube and things like that. It’s not a safe place for children to be at all.’

  ‘It’s good that the Prime Minister and the internet providers are now acting on the public’s wishes,’ I wrote in my diary that night. ‘It’s a shame that kids have to be murdered and raped before anyone takes any notice. There were people out there saying this needed to be addressed years ago – it was a disaster waiting to happen.

  ‘I love you, April. Dad xxx.’

  The following week, we were invited to London to a special awards ceremony organised by Best magazine to honour Britain’s bravest women. Coral had been nominated on account of the campaign.

  The train journey to Birmingham from Machynlleth was a little fraught. There were only two carriages, which were extremely crowded, and this made Coral anxious. Thankfully our connection to Euston was far more comfortable and when we arrived we were taken by taxi to a very nice four-star hotel in Central London called the Crowne Plaza.

  The magazine gave us a chaperone called Tracey, who couldn’t do enough for us – so much so I nicknamed her seren bach, Welsh for ‘little star’. Coral was one of nine women who had been nominated for an award and she was truly humbled to be included. All of the women had unique and inspirational stories. One woman, Jane Plume, had been left devastated after her best friend Gina had been tragically killed in a car accident. Shortly afterwards, Gina’s husband Shaun had died of cancer and Jane had taken in their two sons, Lewis and Ashton. Another winner, Jane Gates, had built a holiday home for seriously ill children because it was the last thing her nine-year-old son Sebastian had asked her to do before he succumbed to a rare form of childhood cancer.

  The evening before the awards, we were all taken to a performance of the West End musical Dirty Dancing. We had some of the best seats in the house and we were treated like royalty. Coral bonded quickly with all of the other women and it was really nice to see her enjoying herself for once.

  The next day all of the winners were treated to a makeover before the ceremony. I couldn’t believe my eyes when Coral emerged in a gorgeous purple designer dress, with styled hair and perfect make-up. She looked so stunning she almost took my breath away. For the first time in over a year, I saw the woman I’d fallen in love with – but not just because she so looked so beautiful. As I watched her laughing and joking with the other girls I saw just a tiny hint of the sparkle that had been missing from her eyes for a long, long time.

  The awards themselves were held in a private residence at Buckingham Gate, located in a swish part of London that is home to many international embassies. The evening was to be hosted by television presenters Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes. I lost count of how many celebrities we saw. It was a little surreal when we were sat at a table next to Coleen Nolan and her husband, Ray, but throughout the night one thing was made very clear: the real stars were the ordinary women whom everyone had come to honour.

  It took an hour and a half to give out all of the awards and each of the women made a short speech. I accompanied Coral to collect hers and she managed to say a few words about the campaign, which was very brave and made me incredibly proud. We were both in tears as we listened to all of the other winners speak. Everyone had overcome unbelievable adversity to get to where they were and it was an honour to be invited to sit amongst them.

  That evening I let Coral rest while I wrote in my diary, which I’d brought along in my suitcase.

  ‘Tonight I was so emotional listening to everyone’s stories,’ I said. ‘I cried most of the evening at the various things that were said – what a softie. But it was great to see Coral relax and beam with a big smile. This did remind me of April.

  ‘I love you, April. Dad xxx.’

  In the months after April’s death, local people had begun raising money in April’s name through various fundraising activities. Some of this money would be distributed to nearby charities but they also wanted to give us a donation for a family holiday, given everything we’d been through.

  We decided that we would use these funds to visit Coral’s brother, Ian, and his wife, Carol, in Adelaide, South Australia. Ian and Carol had emigrated in 2007, shortly after April was born, and hadn’t seen her since she was baby. However, Coral and Ian were very close and regularly kept in touch on Skype and Facebook.

  We made the difficult decision to travel to Australia for Christmas and New Year. Both Coral and I felt a pang of sadness and couldn’t shake the feeling that we were leaving April behind, as we wouldn’t be there to tend to her grave on Christmas Day. But the memories of the awful, empty Christmas of 2012 came flooding back and we realised we weren’t quite ready to face another festive season in our little home if April wasn’t in it.

  We left Machynlleth on Monday 9 December. My mum and Dai gave us a lift to Manchester Airport, as Dai’s van could accommodate all of our luggage. From there we flew to Dubai where we caught our connection to Australia.

  More than twenty-four hours later, Ian met us at Adelaide Airport. It was a very emotional reunion for him and Coral and there were a lot of tears. It was only then that I realised how difficult things must have been for Ian and Carol, being stuck on the other side of the world while their family went through the worst trauma imaginable. They must have felt so lost and helpless. While Carol liked to talk about April and share memories of her, Ian found this very difficult.

  They were fantastic hosts and took us on lots of exciting trips. Harley, in particular, was captivated by the kangaroos and wallabies. Ian also took Harley and me on a fishing trip to Lake Alexandrina, which lies around sixty miles south-east of Adelaide. Harley was over the moon when he caught the first fish, a carp weighing almost 10lb. Both Ian and I were in hysterics as he started wiggling his bum and doing a little dance in celebration. It was the happiest I’d seen him in months. We went on to catch thirty-four different fish that day and, by the end of the trip, Harley was so full of excitement that he was speaking so fast we could hardly understand a word he was saying. As soon as he got home to Machynlleth, he began putting coins in a piggy bank and told us he was saving to go back.

  However, while we were in Australia we also got a call from Hayley, who told us that Bridger planned to appeal against his whole life sentence.


  Coral recalls:

  When Hayley’s number flashed up on my phone I felt that familiar sense of dread grip me. I knew she wouldn’t trouble us on holiday unless it was absolutely necessary but I didn’t know why she would be calling.

  ‘I’m so sorry to interrupt your break, Coral,’ she said. ‘But we didn’t want you to see this in the newspapers.’

  She explained that Bridger had launched an appeal against the whole life term handed out. It was almost too much to bear, especially when we heard he’d be given £20,000 in legal aid to do so. His legal bills had already cost the taxpayer £150,000 and I was at a loss as to why honest, hardworking people were continually being forced to foot the bill for his lies.

  ‘It’s like he wants to torture us even more,’ Paul sighed, when I relayed the news to him. ‘He’s always got the upper hand.’

  Hayley had explained that an initial hearing on Bridger’s sentence would take place at the Court of Appeal in London in January, a few days after we got back from our holiday. Both Paul and I were determined we wanted to attend. If Bridger was going to put us through the mill, then he was going to have to face us while he did so.

  I tried not to let the news put a dampener on our time in Australia. I was determined to give Jazmin and Harley the best Christmas I possibly could, as last year’s had been so awful. I’d always dreamed of visiting Ian and Carol, but I’d never dreamed we’d be here without April.

  It was lovely to see my brother, but I could see how much he was hurting about April. The pain was evident in his eyes. He was obviously at a very different point in the grieving process from the rest of us, having been separated from us all while the nightmare unfolded.