April Jones – Police search to end

The search for missing schoolgirl April Jones will come to an end, police have announced.

April’s disappearance on October 1 made headlines around the world and sparked what’s believed to be the UK’s biggest police search.

Less than 24 hours after April vanished, Mark Bridger, 47, was arrested.

He denies abducting and murdering the child, as well as perverting the course of justice. His trial is due to start on April 29.

At a previous hearing he conceded he was “probably responsible” for her death.

Six months on, reporter Robert Wight pays a visit to April’s home, Machynlleth, to see how the small town in mid-Wales has coped with the most terrible of tragedies.

Winter arrived shortly after April Jones disappeared.

Six months on, it still holds the tiny market town of Machynlleth in its icy grip.

A cutting wind blows in from the wilds of nearby Snowdonia. Residents pull coats tighter and turn up collars as they brave its biting blast.

This far into the year and there’s no sign of Spring.

Just as there’s no sign that the body of little April will ever be found.

Machynlleth or Mach to locals is home to just 2,000.

Less than a year ago it was best known for its bustling weekly market and as the place Welsh rebels held parliament in the Middle Ages.

That was before April was kidnapped and Mach was thrust into the media spotlight. Millions around the world were captivated by the story of the frantic search for the youngster and the arrest of murder suspect Mark Bridger.

Camera crews from as far as the US and Japan descended on the town as reeling residents struggled to deal not just with the likely death of one of their youngest, but for a full week last October being the centre of the world’s attention.

The TV cameras, satellite vans and journalists soon moved on there’s always a new tragedy to devour, a new horror to relish.

In Mach, however, the searching and the suffering went on.

Parents Coral and Paul kept attention on April’s plight by urging people to wear pink ribbons in a show of support.

In Mach, they were tied to railings and displayed in windows. Many remain but they’re now dusty and tattered.

To most of us, April Jones is just a name, a picture in the paper or on the news.

In this mid-Wales town she was a flesh and blood little girl who laughed as she ran through the streets, cried when she fell and scraped her knees.

One young mum I spoke to said: “She was a wonderful child so happy and giggly. There was a real sense of fun about her.

“To think she no longer exists, that she’s been taken from us in such awful circumstances, is quite unbearable.

“At first we hoped against hope she’d be found alive but, as the days went on, we knew there’d be no happy ending.

“While now we’re accepting of her fate, the thought that her little body’s out there somewhere all alone in the cold and the dark is horrible.

“It’s always at the back of your mind, no matter how much time has passed.”

The quiet, picturesque town of Mach is a popular destination for walkers and cyclists. The sea lies just a few miles to the west. It’s surrounded on the remaining three sides by craggy hills.

The nearest big town, Aberystwyth, is 20 miles away.

Mach can be covered on foot in little over 10 minutes. It feels remote, cut off from the real world, innocent in its isolation.

It makes the horror of April’s disappearance all the harder for locals to comprehend.

They describe the media attention the town received in the days immediately after as “crazy”.

It was a “double-edged sword”, they say, in that they completely understand the importance of the media in highlighting the search but, as hundreds of reporters descended on the town, it still felt like an invasion.

The constant search for new angles, the incessant questioning and probing, has left locals wary of the media.

Many are reluctant to talk. The young mum I chat to only agrees to do so on the condition that her name is not revealed.

She explains: “Everybody really does know everyone else.

“We all know April’s family well. We all know Mark Bridger too.

“Nobody would want to be seen in the papers talking about their friends and neighbours. We all have to live here together.”

One of the woman’s children attends school with April’s brother. She told me about the evening the girl disappeared.

“Word went round shortly after 7pm that she was missing,” she says. “There were calls for help to look for her.

“To be honest, at first I wondered what the fuss was about. Kids are a bit late home all the time. I imagined she’d lost track of time and was with pals.

“A short time later though, we saw all the police and knew something must be badly wrong.”

Agonisingly for Coral and Paul, they’d allowed April to stay out later than usual as a special treat after she got a glowing report card from school.

The mum says: “This is the last place in the world you’d think something like this would happen.

“I moved back here specifically because it’s a wonderful, safe place to raise a family.

“That feeling has gone now. Rationally, I know perfectly well something similar is very unlikely to happen here again.

“But when it comes to your children, rationality goes out the window.

“People are reluctant to let them out to play like they once did.

“They used to be free to roam now we keep a closer eye on them.

“When I see Coral, the agony she’s going though, the unending nightmare, I thank God it happened to her and not me.

“I hate myself for feeling like that but it’s the truth and I can’t help it.

“Everyone says they just want answers now. I felt like that, too but as the trial gets closer I realise I don’t anymore.

“As a mum, I’m scared the horror of what happened to April is just too much.

“It might be better not to know.”