UPDATE: Mark Bridger Sentenced To A Whole Life Term For The Murder Of 5 Year Old April Jones: "I’m Sorry I Ran Her Over but Can’t Remember What I Did With Her Body"

May 1,2013



The suspect in the April Jones murder trial told police he would like to apologise to her parents but repeatedly insisted that he could not help them locate their missing child because he could not remember what he had done with her body, a court heard today.

During lengthy questioning by detectives following his arrest the day after the five-year-old's disappearance, Mark Bridger, a self-confessed alcoholic, described how he "accidently" crushed the little girl to death in his Land Rover and claimed he made repeated attempts to resuscitate her.

Mold Crown Court heard that he told police: "There was a little girl under the wheels of the car. She had gone a funny colour. She was only a little thing."

He added: "I need to say sorry to her family. I can't believe I didn't just call an ambulance or the police. The intention was to head to the hospital. There was no life in her. No pulse. No breathing. No response in her eyes."

He said: "I wouldn't have dumped her. She is a human being. I wouldn't have done that." The 47-year-old former abattoir worker was arrested whilst he walked his dog on a country lane as hundreds of people searched in vain for the missing child who had disappeared whilst playing outside her home in Machynlleth, mid-Wales.

Video footage from a police helicopter revealed smoke billowing from the chimney of his whitewashed cottage - three miles from April's home. Fragments of bone thought to be from a child's skull, traces of April's blood as well as a burnt boning knife were found at the house, the prosecution said.

Officers who went inside looking for April described the cottage as "uncomfortably hot" and smelling strongly of detergent, air freshener and cleaning fluids, the prosecution said.  Clothes had recently been cleaned and Bridger - who denies abduction, murder and concealing the child's body   - had shaved his head and trimmed his beard.

On the second day of the prosecution opening Elwen Evans QC said "lies and tears appear to come easily to the defendant" who she said was "forensically aware" and "manipulative".

April's blood stains were found on the underneath of a carpet, on grouting on the floor tiles as well as on the washing machine.

He had earlier been seen carrying a black plastic bag and acting suspiciously in a layby near his home. When challenged over his behaviour he said he "had stopped for a wee". Miss Evans said it was an explanation he used again later.

He told police that it was possible that April's DNA was on his penis because he had carried her and later gone to the toilet. A swab of his penis did not find any forensic material from the missing girl. However, some DNA which might have come from April was found inside the front crotch area of the track suit trousers which he was wearing when he was arrested, it was claimed.

The prosecution also revealed details of the defendant's movements during the hours leading up to April's disappearance on October 1 last year sparking the largest search in British police history. Her body has never been found.

Bridger had spent part of the day looking at images of child abuse as well as viewing pictures of local girls downloaded from Facebook.
During the course of the afternoon he made contact with a number of women trying to arrange a date, it was claimed. He later went to April's school, which was attended by his daughter, for a parents' evening.

Shortly before April went missing, Bridger approached two girls aged eight and 10 as they were riding their bicycles on the Bryn y Gog estate where the Jones family lived.

"He wound the window down and there was a discussion during which the defendant invited one of the girls to a sleepover with his daughter," Miss Evans told the jury.

Miss Evans said there was evidence of “minor” injuries to Bridger's body and in days of police interviews “his repeated mantra was he could not remember and did not know what he had done.”

The prosecution said Bridger played a “cruel game” – telling police that he might have taken the body to a garden in town and then saying he would have sat her upright so that she would be discovered and covered her “out of respect”.

He said he would not have put her in a dustbin as this would have been “disgusting”, the court heard.

When questioned over his viewing of abuse images he said he did not believe it was right for “children to be put into pornography” and that he was searching for information on “breast development” because he did not want to “mistouch” his daughter.

Among the websites he had browsed was the FBI’s Most Wanted and he had read about US serial killer Ted Bundy whose victims included children.

He told police:  "All I want to say to Paul and Coral is that I'm sorry for what happened and if, in my heart of hearts if I knew where she was, then I would tell them because, first, I could help them lay her to rest.

"Two, it would assist me with these distasteful accusations I have been accused of and three, and my children would believe, okay, I killed a young child and I did things wrong but they would also not be victimised because I'm their dad, that's all."




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OMG that poor little girl!
That monster needs to fry!

May 2, 2013

Images have been released of the inside of the remote cottage where police found suspected juvenile skull fragments and blood belonging to schoolgirl April Jones.

The pictures show the wood burner close to which a number of blades including the charred remnants of a boning knife were recovered at the home of Mark Bridger, a 47-year-old former abattoir worker.

The jury in the murder and abduction trial at Mold Crown Court was taken to the property three miles from Machynlleth, mid-Wales where the five-year-old disappeared whilst out playing last October. Her body has never been found.

The pictures show a disorderly room at the whitewashed cottage. A pair of trousers appears thrown over a chair, papers and cardboard are strewn on the floor and cans of Strongbow cider - which the jury heard Bridger bought with his benefits on the day April went missing – are deposited by the stove where it is claimed concentrations of April’s blood was found.

Groups of four jurors took in turns to walk through Bridger's former home, Mount Pleasant, in Ceinws, where traces of blood were also found in the hallway and bathroom.

The prosecution has claimed the house was extensively cleaned shortly before Bridger’s arrest. He denies abduction, murder and concealing the child’s body insisting she died after being in collision with his Land Rover.

The nine women and three men on the jury panel were also shown Machynlleth Junior School, which April attended, and the nearby Bryn y Gog estate, where she was last seen.

As they arrived at Bridger’s house the group stopped briefly in the front garden, where three bunches of flowers and a pink and white teddy bear had recently been left for April, who would have celebrated her sixth birthday a few weeks ago.

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May 3,2013

The mother of the murdered schoolgirl April Jones has described her “frantic” search for her daughter in a heart-rending day in court that also saw the girl’s father reveal he has known the accused for more than 20 years.

The final moments Coral Jones spent with her daughter on 1 October last year – and the desperate search that followed her disappearance – were relived yesterday as her statement was read to Mold Crown Court in north Wales.

April had asked to go out and play on her bike with a friend, her mother testified in words read out by the prosecuting barrister, Elwen Evans QC.

Mrs Jones, 43, said the couple initially refused but gave in after “a little tantrum” from April.

Twenty minutes later, April’s older brother was sent out to collect his sister with darkness falling. “Within a very short time he came running home and he was in a hysterical state,” Mrs Jones said. “When I calmed him down he said that April’s friend had seen her getting into a car with a man and that she had gone.”

Mrs Jones immediately called the police and what was to become one of the UK’s biggest ever police search operations was under way. “I went out and searched around the estate, everywhere I could think of,” she said. “I even looked in the bins. I asked a friend to drive me around in my car. I was frantic, trying to find her.”

In another written statement read to the court, April’s father, Paul Jones, said he first met Mark Bridger in the early 1990s when the pair had been dating two sisters – when he had thought it strange that Mr Bridger, who was in his 30s at the time, had a 15-year-old girlfriend.

“I remember thinking that she was a little young for him – he was twice her age,” he said. Although remembering him to be “a pleasant bloke”, Mr Jones recalled Mr Bridger driving his rally car “like a maniac” and that he was “a risk taker”.

“I remember that he once went around a blind bend at speed and was not concerned at all,” he said.

The pair saw little of each other once their relationships with the sisters, which both resulted in children, ended. Mr Jones, 41, said: “I can’t think of any reason why Mark Bridger would take April – he is a father too. I don’t understand why he would do this to her.”

The jury also heard evidence from April’s 16-year-old half-sister, who cannot be named for legal reasons, describing persistent attempts by Mr Bridger, 47, to be her Facebook friend. Mr Bridger told her he knew her father but she refused to be friends with him following the advice of April’s mother.

The court later watched a series of CCTV clips tracking Mr Bridger’s movements in his Land Rover the day April went missing and the following morning when he walked his dog. Images of April running and skipping at a leisure centre moments before she disappeared were also viewed.

Mr Bridger, of Ceinws, mid-Wales, denies abduction, murder and intending to pervert the course of justice by disposing of, concealing or destroying April’s body.

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May 7,2013

A seven-year-old girl described how a smiling and happy-looking April Jones climbed into the back of a grey Land Rover on the night that she disappeared even though her parents had warned her about the dangers of going off in strangers’ vehicles.

Appearing via videolink, the child was seen clutching her teddy bear and was given juice and crisps as she recalled the events of the night her friend went missing whilst playing outside her home in Machynlleth, Powys, Mid Wales, in October last year.

A DVD of her police interviews was played to the jury at Mold Crown Court where former slaughterhouse worker Mark Bridger, 47, is on trial for abduction, murder and perverting the course of justice by hiding April’s remains.

Her disappearance sparked the biggest police search ever conducted in Britain although her body has never been fund. April’s blood and remnants of what is believed to be a child’s skull were found at Bridger’s cottage three miles from her home. He claims he accidentally killed April in a collision with his Land Rover and cannot remember what he did with the body

The child, who cannot be named because of her age, told investigators that she and her five-year-old friend had been playing together but it had started to get dark and called for her to come home.

She was asked to draw a picture of the vehicle she had seen and told police she saw her friend “by a Land Rover van” on the Bryn-Y-Gog estate” where April lived. She said: “I saw her by the person that was waiting by the van.” Bridger bowed his head as the jury listened to her evidence.

The child watched proceedings via the videolink from Aberystwyth, accompanied by an adult. Her evidence was recorded the day after April’s disappearance. The jury could see the youngster sitting on a sofa holding a toy rabbit as she was asked questions about what she had witnessed.

”She did not say she was going to go in it. I know they (April's parents) wouldn't let her go at that time. The man didn't take her in the van - she got into the van, having a happy face she had and she wasn't upset,“ she said.

The child told an officer that she saw the man climb out of the vehicle.

“He was waiting outside the van for someone, I don't know who. I don't think it would be April he would be waiting for. I don't know why April would want to get into the van because her mum and dad told her not to get into vans like that.

“She wasn't crying, she was happy. She got into the back of the van and it just drove off the way it came and parked,” she said.

The girl said the man was wearing a green jacket and “bluey/black jeans”. “I can definitely tell you he had brown hair,“ she added. “It wasn't that dark and I could see he had brown hair because the headlights were on.”

April got into the front door of the Land Rover after finding the rear entrances to be ”locked or broken”, she said.

“I told April's mum April had gone in someone's car and she hasn't came back,” the seven-year-old said.

During the special hearing Mr Justice Griffith-Williams, barristers and court officials discarded their wigs and robes to create a less formal setting for the child’s evidence. Proceedings were paused every 15 minutes so the youngster did not “tire or lose concentration”.

The judge warned her that it was important to tell the truth. Under cross examination by Brendan Kelly QC, who is defending Bridger, she was asked whether her mother had shown her pictures of Land Rovers before she spoke to police.

Answering questions through an intermediary she replied that she had drawn what she had seen.

Mr Kelly also suggested that she had misremembered certain details about the vehicle and challenged her over how April had got into the van.

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May 9, 2013

The man accused of murdering April Jones asked a 10-year-old girl to “come for a sleepover with his daughter” shortly before he snatched April, a jury has heard.

A recorded police interview with the youngster, who cannot be named because of her age, was shown at Mark Bridger's trial at Mold Crown Court.

Former slaughterhouse worker Bridger , 47, denies abducting and murdering five-year-old April as she played near her home in Machynlleth, mid-Wales, on the evening of October 1 last year.

In her interview, recorded on video two days after April disappeared, the ten-year-old said she was cycling on the Bryn-Y-Gog estate with a friend when Bridger pulled up alongside her in his car.

She said: “I saw Mark in his car and he offered me to have a sleepover with his daughter at his house.”

Questioned further by the interviewing officer, the girl, wearing a blue school jumper and yellow shirt, said it happened about two hours before April vanished.

She said: “I phoned my mum about fiveish and asked if I could go on a bike ride around Bryn-Y-Gog.

”I stopped on the pavement to speak to my mum and he parked up and spoke to me.

“He put his window down and started talking to me.”

Asked how she reacted, the girl, who said she knew one of Bridger's children, said: “It was odd that he offered me a sleepover and I answered back and said, well that would be good, and he said, 'that's sorted then'.”

She told the officer she then cycled off and Bridger drove away and there was no further discussion.

She said she next saw him about five or ten minutes later after she had cycled around the block with her friend.

The girl told the police he had parked up on the estate and was sitting in the driver's seat of his left-hand drive Land Rover and leaning to one side.

The witness, sitting on a sofa in the police interview room, then demonstrated the leaning and said Bridger had a newspaper across his lap and appeared to be speaking into a walkie talkie.

“I didn't speak to him. He put his hand up and put his thumb up towards me and I smiled and went on,” she added.

She said it was “odd” that Bridger would ask her to a sleepover as she had never been to a sleepover with any of his children before.

She described seeing April playing nearby with a friend at about the same time.

She said: “April was up the hill. I'm not quite sure if I saw her before or after I saw him.”

Later that night, the girl said she was at home when there was a knock at the door.

“Two boys came to the house and said April had been kidnapped and would we be able to come and help find her,” she said.

April's body was never found despite the largest search operation ever staged by British police.

The prosecution claims Bridger snatched and murdered the youngster, who had cerebral palsy, in a sexually motivated attack.

The defendant claims he knocked her down in his car by accident and cannot remember what he did with her body because he was drunk.

Elwen Evans QC, for the prosecution, read the statement of Eleanor Holt, deputy head at Machynlleth Junior School, who saw the defendant at a parents' evening hours before April was allegedly snatched.

She said she spoke to Bridger regarding his daughter, who was a pupil at the school.

She said: “I think something gave me the impression that he might have had a couple of drinks due to his manner but I couldn't be sure of this. I couldn't smell any alcohol on his breath.”

Another teacher, Sian Calben, said she saw Bridger talking to a teenage girl and two younger girls while he was at the parents' evening.

She said: “Mark seemed very chatty and full of himself on Monday - as if he wanted to make his presence felt more than usual.”

The court also heard from numerous witnesses who had seen Bridger and his car “to-ing and fro-ing” around the estate around the time that April disappeared.


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May 10, 2013

The man accused of murdering April Jones was an "emotional wreck" when he was arrested on suspicion of her abduction, a police officer told a jury today.

Mark Bridger allegedly told Pc Philip Saunders: "I know what this is all about," before "confessing" to killing the five-year-old in a car accident, Mold Crown Court was told.

In a conversation with police officers as he was taken to be interviewed, Bridger, 47, allegedly said he "crushed" April with his 4x4 and "there was no life in her, no pulse, no breathing, no response in her eyes".

The defendant wept throughout the evidence and, according to witnesses in the public gallery, April's mother Coral left the court room in tears.

Former slaughterhouse worker Bridger denies abducting and murdering April as she played near her home in Machynlleth, mid-Wales, on the evening of October 1 last year.

Giving evidence to the jury today, Pc Saunders read from the notes he made after he detained Bridger as he walked along the A487 at 3.30pm on the next day.

He said: "I was travelling down the A487 with my sergeant who instructed me that if we saw Mark Bridger, he was to be arrested on suspicion of the abduction of April Jones.

"At approximately 3.30pm, I saw a male who matched his description.

"I stopped the car and asked him what his name was. He confirmed to me he was Mark Bridger and at that point I arrested him on suspicion of abduction and cautioned him."

The officer said Bridger replied: "I know what this is all about."

He said the defendant went on: "It was an accident, I crushed her with the car.

"I don't know where she is.

"As I was going to drive away two girls on a bike came across me, I then got out and saw one girl lying under the car.

"I don't know where is. I picked her up and put her in my car, which is left hand drive, and put her on the front seat."

Pc Saunders said Bridger then told him "he needed to talk".

The officer said: "I interrupted Bridger and said he would be able to speak when we got to the police station at Aberystwyth, where he would be questioned."

But in the car, Bridger continued to talk, he said.

Reading again from his notes, Pc Saunders told the jury Bridger said: "I've been looking for her all night and today on foot because my car is in the garage.

"My car is in Rob's garage, this is in Machynlleth. It's a Land Rover Discovery. I didn't abduct her.

"I did my best to revive her. I panicked. The more I drove through the night, the more I got pissed.

"My son and daughter play at their house. I didn't even know until this morning who it was until I saw the TV.

"I just wish I knew what I've done with her, where I put her. I need to say sorry to the family.

"I can't believe I didn't just call an ambulance or the police.

"My intention was to head towards the hospital.

"There was no life in her, no pulse, no breathing, no response in her eyes.

"She was just on the seat.

"I tried to revive her using mouth and nose. When my hand went on her chest I knew there was a lot more to it.

"I did my best to revive her.

"I don't remember having her in the car when I went back.

"I looked in all my rooms in my house. I wouldn't have dumped her, she's a human being.

"I wouldn't have done that.

"The only place I haven't checked is down by my house. It's CJ Law yard. Caravans in there.

"I really don't know where she is.

"I just want to know what I've done.

"I had my daughter's school meeting last night at 5pm. I don't remember seeing girls play. I remember looking through my rear view window. I saw a girl with dark hair. I then felt the car rise up and down.

"My car was making a hell of a noise. When I looked there was a girl under the car.

"She had gone a funny colour, she was only a little thing.

"I remember being by the clock by Rob's garage. I went numb, I don't know what I was doing."

Pc Saunders said: "From the point of arrest, he was very emotional, crying.

"He seemed to be, what I would call, an emotional wreck."

Earlier the jury heard evidence from one of the first police officers to arrive at Bridger's home, Mount Pleasant in the hamlet of Ceinws, near Machynlleth.

Detective constable Sarah Totterdale said she and two colleagues were told to attend the address to search for April and arrest the defendant.

She said she arrived at the isolated cottage shortly after 3pm.

After trying the back door of the property and finding it locked and secured, the officers forced entry through the front door.

She said: "I walked into the porch area and into the living room and saw a log burner, glowing orange colour and the heat was noticeable.

"There was no sign of anybody at the address other than myself and my colleagues."

Walking upstairs she described the main bedroom as "very untidy", with a mattress and clothes and a duvet sitting on the floor.

She said she looked under the duvet and a colleague suggested she call out April's name.

"If April was hiding she may respond to a female voice," the officer said.

"I continued to call out April, April, April, but there was no response."

In the bathroom, she said she noticed a strong smell of washing powder. She could also smell Deep Heat and saw a bottle of the muscle treatment nearby.

Asked further about the smells, she said: "I can only describe it as washing powder and a chemical you would use to clean the floor.

"It was uncomfortably hot, I was perspiring and I only had a thin rain coat on.

"Whether the heat was making the smell stronger, I can't say."

The prosecution claims Bridger snatched and murdered April, who had cerebral palsy, in a sexually motivated attack.

Her body was never found despite the largest search operation ever staged by British police.

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May 14, 2013
A forensic scientist said there was “no physical evidence” to back up former lifeguard Mark Bridger's claims that he ran over schoolgirl April Jones, a court heard today.

April, who had cerebral palsy, vanished while playing on her bike near her home in Machynlleth, mid-Wales, on October 1 last year.

The trial of Bridger, 47, heard from forensic scientist Roderick Stewart who told the jury there was not a trace of “physical evidence” either on Bridger's Land Rover or on April's bike to back up Bridger's claim that there had been a collision.

The former abattoir worker denies abduction, murder and intending to pervert the course of justice by disposing of, concealing or destroying April's body.

He says he accidentally killed April when he ran her over and accepts that he must have got rid of her body.

But he says he cannot remember how he disposed of the body because he was suffering memory loss caused by alcohol and panic.

Mr Stewart told the jury at Mold Crown Court: “There was no physical evidence on that vehicle of a recent collision. If there had been a collision with a body or a bicycle I would have seen something. It always leaves a trace.”

The witness said there was also no trace of evidence of a collision on April's bike, adding: “This vehicle weighs two tonnes. It's going to do a lot of damage.”

Asked by Brendan Kelly QC, defending, why he did not examine the area around the garages in the Bryn-Y-Gog estate where the alleged collision took place, Mr Stewart responded: “There would not have been any point in examining that area because there had not been a collision. There would not have been anything to see.”

Mr Kelly asked if there had been checks for “microscopic fibres” on the tyres of the vehicle.

Mr Stewart said he did not use a microscope but said his examination had been “very thorough” adding: “I have been doing this for a very long time.”

Pc Gary Rees, a forensic collision investigator who assisted Mr Stewart also said there was “no evidence” that Bridger's car had struck a pedestrian.

He said: “Looking at the vehicle I could find no evidence of any obvious contact between a pedestrian and the vehicle.”

Bridger, wearing a blue shirt and tie and round glasses, appeared emotional and wept at times during the day's evidence.

The prosecution say Bridger, of Ceinws, snatched and murdered April in a “sexually motivated” attack.

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Thank you so much for updating this horrible case. What a darling girl she was. This is a very hard thread to read. I hope he gets, at the very least, LWOP.

October 2, 2013

A fellow prison inmate slashed April Jones's murderer from temple to chin, severing an artery, to try to get him to reveal where the child's body was, a court has heard.

Juvinal Ferreira attacked Mark Bridger – who claims he does not know what he did with April's body – with a weapon fashioned out of a prison-issue razor at the high security Wakefield prison in West Yorkshire.

Ferreira, 24, himself a murderer and sex attacker, was sentenced to a second life term and was told it will be 2036 before he can be considered for release.

Leeds crown court heard that Ferreira and other life prisoners had talked about attacking Bridger to make him reveal what he had done with the body of April, whom he abducted as she played near her home in Machynlleth, mid Wales, a year ago.

Jonathan Sharp, prosecuting, said: "He said that Bridger's crime had been discussed and he claimed people had suggested that if Bridger was attacked, rather than say befriended, Bridger would then be more likely to reveal where April Jones's body was."

The premeditated attack happened in July, a few weeks after Bridger was jailed and just three days after he was allowed to associate with other prisoners for the first time.

Ferreira fashioned a weapon out of a prison-issue razor with extra blades attached to the handle. Sharp said Ferreira strode up to Bridger with the blade held between thumb and forefinger. "He then slashed him down the face, causing a deep wound extending from temple to chin.

"He paused for a moment and looked Bridger directly in the eyes, in Bridger's own words 'as if to admire his work or show me who it was'."

Bridger also suffered a cut to his arm as he tried to defend himself.

He required more than 30 stitches to the face wound, which required surgery under general anaesthetic. He will be scarred for life.

Ferreira admitted wounding with intent. Mr Justice Coulson said: "Convicted murderers cannot appoint themselves as unpaid investigators of another crime, no matter how serious. They plainly cannot do that by themselves committing violent crime to do so."

Robin Frieze, defending, said Ferreira did not attack Bridger to enhance his own status in prison, for reward or because he was incited to do it.

"He does not suggest he was put up to it, but he listened to talk within the prison and he was under the impression that if he put the complainant in a state of fear then it was more likely it would achieve closure for the family of his victim," Frieze said. "He appreciates that was a wholly misguided and wrong thing to do."

In April 2008 Ferreira raped and murdered 47-year-old Elaine Walpole in Dereham, Norfolk, after befriending her. He stabbed her through the neck and there were bite marks on her face.

Bridger is serving a whole-life term for April's sexually-motivated abduction and murder on 1 October last year.April's funeral took place last week when the family buried a few burned bones found in Bridger's fireplace.

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