Aftermath

That is our future, just the four of us. Not the five of us.

After seven months of searching for April’s body, the police ended the operation.  

On 26 September 2013, just five days short of the anniversary of the day April went missing, the community of Machynlleth gathered for the funeral of April Jones.

A horse drawn carriage carries her coffin - though it contains little of April. Her final resting place still a mystery known only to Mark Bridger.  

So that other parents may be spared their fate, Paul and Coral Jones have called for internet providers to restrict access to images of child abuse on the web. They have also asked for longer sentences for those convicted of sex offences against children.

They’re campaigning for new legislation which they hope will be called April’s Law.

“Once they’re put on the sex offender list they’re on it for life not come off it in like 6 years time or 5 years time they need to be put on it for life.” Coral Jones

“The way I see it is the internet sites are a big playground for paedophiles.”

Paul Jones

Paul and Coral have even met with the Prime Minister, David Cameron.But as yet, little has changed.

One small consolation for them was that in November 2014, Mark Bridger’s cottage, Mount Pleasant, was bought by the Welsh government - and demolished.

But it is a small token for parents who still feel grief even when simply seeing other children play.

“You see them out playing and you think…

...She should be there. She should be playing”

                                                                                          Coral and Paul Jones

April’s sister, Jazmin, has to face a similar sadness in the everyday.

“I shared a room with April, so obviously in the morning you get up and you’re thinking, for that split second, you’re like, ‘Oh normal.’ And then you turn around and you’re like ‘Ah, no, she’s not there.’ You know, she’s not in her bed or waking you up, she’s not in everything you do so you do think of her because you could be watching a film and you’re thinking ‘Aw yeah, April would like this,’ so she’s constantly in your thoughts of everything you do.”

And, despite one of the biggest search operations in police history, April’s body has never been found.

Mark Bridger has refused to reveal what he knows.

Every 4 April, on what was April’s birthday, Paul places a pink ribbon on the mountains overlooking their home, in memory of her.

“The lasting image for me was only a few weeks before there was a double rainbow just outside the back of our house, and as she came out the door she squealed “enfys, enfys!” Enfys is Welsh for rainbow...she jumped up and down and pointed, two rainbows, “enfys, enfys”. I mean it was just the sheer joy she jumped up and down on the spot squealing it...and that’s the kind of girl she was.