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Britain's Most Evil Killers S02E02 Mark Bridger
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00:00On the 3rd of October, 2012, Coral Jones gave an emotional
00:07televised appeal for the safe return of her daughter, April.
00:11The five-year-old had been missing for 36 hours.
00:14She'd vanished while playing outside her home
00:17in the rural Welsh town of Mahanclath.
00:20There must be someone out there who knows where she is
00:25and can't help the police find her.
00:29We are desperate for any news.
00:33April is only five years old.
00:36Please, please help find her.
00:40The entire community came together to help the police search
00:44for the missing girl.
00:45There was a real hope that April would be found alive.
00:49They were all thinking, and of course her parents were thinking,
00:52she is going to be found.
00:53There's no doubt in my mind that she is going to be found.
00:57But the search would be in vain.
00:59A local 46-year-old man named Mark Bridger, who was known to the family,
01:04had abducted and murdered April.
01:06I said, I love you. I'll see you later.
01:08I'll come take you into bed and she'll deliver you back.
01:10And that was the last I was aware.
01:12Mark Bridger had undeniably become one of Britain's most evil killers.
01:18It was a crime that shocked the nation and left a family heartbroken.
01:47In October 2012, five-year-old April Jones was abducted whilst playing outside her home
01:54on the Brinigog estate in the small town of Mahankleth in mid-Wales.
01:59As news of April's disappearance spread through the media, police and volunteers scoured the town
02:06and countryside, kick-starting what was to become the biggest search for a missing person
02:12in the history of British policing.
02:15She's got to be around here somewhere. She's got to be.
02:17We will search. We'll go miles. We will travel miles to find her.
02:21But April's body would never be found.
02:25She'd been abducted and murdered by 46-year-old Mark Bridger,
02:30a local man and well-known member of the community.
02:33April's sister, Jasmine, was just 16 years old at the time.
02:38I kind of just knew him. Mum and Dad knew him and said,
02:42Hi, you all right? And quick sort of chat in the street about cars and bikes and that.
02:47When I was walking past, just kind of quick hello, and off he went.
02:50After Bridger's arrest, police searched his laptop and found indecent pictures
02:55of children and screenshots of young girls from the area taken from their social media accounts.
03:01Local reporter Kieran Jones reported on the case.
03:06When you look at what was found on Bridger's laptop,
03:08there are a few ways that this case could have been more troubling.
03:12When you see images of April Jones, it's clear that Bridger had this grotesque fascination
03:17with young girls, with those type of scenarios where young girls were abducted and killed,
03:22and that absolutely is something that is condemning, condemning evidence.
03:27This killer's story begins over 50 years ago.
03:32Mark Bridger was born in Karsholton, Surrey on the 6th of November, 1965.
03:39He grew up in a happy family environment with his parents and two siblings.
03:44There weren't any indications for me in terms of Mark Bridger's childhood or his adolescence
03:50that would indicate that he'd go on to do something horrendous.
03:53He did seem to be an altogether very average young lad, and there were no red flags.
03:59His childhood was normal compared to most people.
04:02He came from a middle-class, um, family.
04:06His father was a police officer, which he actually looked up to.
04:09But by 1984, 18-year-old Bridger had gone off the rails.
04:15He dropped out of college and struggled to hold a job down.
04:19All the jobs he got, he was a bit of a failure.
04:22So by the age of 20, this guy is like, he failed in school, he failed in college,
04:26he failed on whatever he wanted to do.
04:28In 1984, Bridger had his first brush with the law.
04:32He was convicted of theft and a firearms offense.
04:36And basically, the story that he concocted around this was that he planned to go and fire
04:42an old pistol at a friend's farm, and he'd stolen a car because it was too far for him to walk,
04:48which does seem to be rather ludicrous.
04:50And the prosecution thought that actually something altogether different had gone on.
04:54He was planning to actually carry out an armed robbery with this weapon and this stolen car.
04:59So what Mark Bridger is doing from this point is he's getting used to lying,
05:04to being comfortable in a lie, to maintaining a lie.
05:07And this is something he'll do throughout his life.
05:09Bridger was placed on probation for two years, and he struggled to find work.
05:15He lived in a fantasy world, often telling people he had a military background.
05:20There were tales that he'd been a soldier, that he'd been a lifeguard,
05:24that he might have worked in a meat factory.
05:26And when you boiled it down, you realized that nobody really knew.
05:29He was wearing military fatigues, wearing a camouflage jacket and camouflage trousers,
05:34waterproof over trousers, almost like he was thought he was some kind of action man figure.
05:39You know, driving about in his Land Rover, projecting this image of himself as,
05:43I don't know, a brave father, as someone who'd done his duty for his country.
05:49And that wasn't a reality whatsoever.
05:51This is a very common thing that happened, not only with killers,
05:54but it happens with other people as well.
05:57You tend to make up for your failings by creating things that will impress other people.
06:03You want people to not look at you like, okay, dude, you're a loser, get out.
06:07So he starts making these stories to try to bring himself up in front of others.
06:13Like, I've been to the army, I did a tour of Vietnam, or I did a tour of Iraq.
06:18Mark Bridger and secrecy do go hands in hands.
06:22You've got the Mark Bridger that he's presenting to the outside world,
06:26who's this kind of heroic figure, who's traveled the world, who's this alpha male.
06:31But actually, on the inside, you've got somebody who is fundamentally ashamed of themselves,
06:36and that's something that they want to keep secret.
06:38He doesn't like who he is.
06:40He isn't the kind of man that he thinks he should be,
06:43but he's become so comfortable in lying and elaborating and exaggerating,
06:47that he just continues to do that.
06:50In 1990, Bridger moved away from his home in the south of England
06:55and relocated to Mahanthleth, a market town near the Welsh coast.
06:59Mahanthleth in North Wales, in Powys, is that it's a tiny rural community
07:06where everyone knows pretty much everybody else, where no one would appear to be threatening in the least.
07:14Bridger moved from job to job, including working as a lifeguard and in an abattoir.
07:20I think Mark Bridger was somebody who had a significant history of failing at things,
07:24of failing at jobs, of failing at relationships,
07:27and of developing a bit of a reputation in the local community.
07:31And I think what he was doing by moving to Mahanthleth was basically starting over,
07:36wiping the slate clean and trying to control the amount of information
07:40that people had about him and his life.
07:43By the age of 20, Bridger had fathered his first child,
07:47but he'd left his partner before the birth to start another relationship.
07:52It was a pattern that would repeat itself.
07:55He has a total of six children with four different women,
07:58but none of those relationships seems to stick around.
08:00It was always there, gone, often with the women not really knowing a great deal about him.
08:06He doesn't manage to hold down a relationship in the same way he doesn't manage to hold down a job,
08:10and when he doesn't get what he wants, he tends to start using violence.
08:15In 2004, Bridger was charged with battery against his girlfriend,
08:20and just three years later, he was convicted of assault after punching a man in the face.
08:25By October 2012, Bridger was living alone.
08:29So he now didn't have a job, didn't have the girlfriend with the baby,
08:35and now got away from his father and mother.
08:38So it's a triple wham there.
08:40My guess is that he was feeling extremely low.
08:44So it could be that his interest for little kids started then.
08:49He does start to kind of withdraw and spend a lot of time on his own,
08:54spends a lot of time on his laptop computer, and on that computer,
08:59there are images of children in the local community who are known to him.
09:03There are pictures of child abuse imagery on his laptop.
09:08He's pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable and what's not acceptable,
09:11of what's legal and what's illegal, and it's all becoming incredibly blurred.
09:15Just a few miles across town from Mark Bridger's cottage,
09:20five-year-old April Jones could often be seen playing on the street
09:24in front of her family home.
09:26April's character is really bubbly, really happy,
09:31constantly smiling, constantly laughing.
09:33So if you're ever feeling sad or down, she'd basically be there,
09:37and she'd make you laugh in an instant.
09:39And she's got, like, a really contagious smile, like, you just see her smile,
09:44so you'd want to smile.
09:45She was just a happy, fun, bubbly little girl.
09:49April's bike was a constant companion.
09:52For a young girl who had cerebral palsy,
09:54she didn't let her disability slow her down.
09:58We taught her to ride the bike from a young age,
10:00so she'd be on a bike constantly, so she'd never, ever be without a bike.
10:03If she was just to go out or if we were going to go down the street to the shop,
10:06it was on her bike.
10:08You couldn't get her to walk.
10:09It was on her bike, and that was that.
10:11On Monday, October the 1st, 2012,
10:16the two sisters were together at the local swimming pool with their mum, Coral.
10:22Every Monday, April used to go to swimming lessons,
10:24so I'd always meet mum and April in the national centre when I got off the bus.
10:29Take April in to get changed, send her into a swimming lesson,
10:31and I'd meet her afterwards.
10:34So she'd finished swimming lessons for about half an hour.
10:37Went in, got a change, come back out, she's walking out, um, went back home.
10:42I went to the youth club, and I said, um, I love you.
10:45I'll see you later, and I'll come take you into bed and everything.
10:47And she said, I love you back, and that was the last time I saw her.
10:51Just two hours later, April Jones would vanish, never to be seen again.
10:57What would follow was one of the biggest police searches in British history,
11:02which would ultimately end in tragedy.
11:05On the evening of October the 1st, 2012,
11:21five-year-old April Jones was playing outside the front of her family home
11:26on the Brinigog estate in Marhanclath, Mid Wales.
11:29April's mum and dad, Coral and Paul, had just returned from her parents' evening
11:35at the local school.
11:38It was still light that day.
11:40So I wanted to let April out a little bit longer, um, because of the good school report.
11:44And there was three of their friends, and her and her own friend
11:48cycled their own friend back home, and then it was just her and her friend,
11:52they were coming back.
11:52At around 7.20pm, Coral grew concerned that her daughter had been out a little too long.
12:01She sent April's younger brother out to look for her.
12:04And then Harley came running back with the bike, saying she's gone, she's not there,
12:10um, she's been taken, and then that's when it kind of all escalated.
12:14And what makes you think, um, the daughter's been kidnapped?
12:27Apparently, um, she's gone off in a car with somebody.
12:30Somebody's picked her up in a car or something.
12:32Okay, what's the name of the child that's gone missing?
12:34April Jones.
12:35April, how old is she?
12:37Five.
12:37Detective Superintendent Reg Bevan was part of the investigation team.
12:44When the call first comes in, it's a crime in action, in effect.
12:49So April's mum makes the initial call to say that her daughter's gone off in a vehicle.
12:55That is treated as a abduction, kidnap, and the initial response is very much to
13:01secure the area, try to identify the last person to see her,
13:05and identifying people who were in the area at the time.
13:09Detectives immediately questioned April's young friends,
13:12who'd seen her get into a car with a stranger.
13:15And they gave this basic description of a small front and a large rear to a vehicle,
13:21and we, they couldn't be more specific.
13:23But these are children, young children, and, but it was a key piece of evidence,
13:27particularly when they talk about how she got into the right-hand side,
13:31and they were quite, um, sure of that.
13:34I think the real crucial detail that they were able to drill down very, very quickly
13:38was that April may have got into what would ordinarily appear to be the driver's side,
13:42which indicated perhaps that it was a left-hand drive vehicle.
13:46I think that was very, very quickly seized upon us, something that was unusual,
13:51something that could perhaps be decisive in the investigation.
13:55Because other than that, initially, there didn't seem to be a great deal for the police to go on,
14:01because she'd been seized very, very quickly, very, very discreetly,
14:06with only children as witnesses.
14:07Meanwhile, the local community in Mahankleth rallied round the Jones family
14:13and assisted the police in their search for April.
14:16News of her disappearance quickly spread on social media.
14:21Mahankleth is such a small town, you just wouldn't think of it.
14:24I think we have a population of about 2,500, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less.
14:29Five, six, seven...
14:31The amount of people that came out of the houses and just started searching,
14:35of all sorts of ages, all sorts of ages, it was just incredible to even see.
14:40Like, they've all kind of come out just to look for my little sister.
14:43And it's kind of breathtaking in a way to see the amount of people
14:47and how close Mahk is, how close community is.
14:50From the very first day, I think the police were using the word unprecedented
14:55in terms of the scale of the search, and that was certainly true.
14:58I remember arriving in Mahankleth and immediately hearing
15:02the constant swashing of rotor blades, seeing boat teams coming in
15:06from mountain rescue, seeing cavers.
15:08Every conceivable emergency service, every conceivable specialism
15:12was there very, very quickly.
15:15And then you had the public element of the search,
15:17where people were splitting into small teams, dividing up an area on a map,
15:22and going out and fanning out and covering what area they could.
15:26People, at the most rudimentary level, going out with torches
15:29and calling April's name.
15:31So you had an unprecedented police search involving, I think,
15:34in the end, dozens and dozens of forces,
15:37covering dozens and dozens of square kilometers.
15:39Despite an exhaustive search by police and volunteers,
15:43stretching into the early hours, April could not be found.
15:47The small town was in shock.
15:49I remember one of the people I spoke to said,
15:54it can't have been somebody from the area,
15:56because we all know one another, we all trust one another.
15:59It almost defies belief when that sort of thing happens
16:04in a small rural community, because somehow you immediately think
16:08that everybody knows everybody else's business, and that it's impossible.
16:12How can a child disappear into thin air in a tiny Welsh village
16:17in which everybody pretty much knows everybody else?
16:21But that's the devil in plain sight, isn't it?
16:24Witness reports of a distinctive blue Land Rover on the Brynagog estate
16:31gave the police a crucial lead in their investigation.
16:34It was said on the night that she got into a car that was on the wrong side
16:40and straightaway everyone knew we'd be looking for a left-hand drive.
16:44And there's only one person in mental health who had a left-hand drive,
16:48and that was Mark Bridger.
16:51Where we used to live, he kind of lived, like, at the end,
16:54sort of just a bit further on, and he was kind of,
16:58oh, hiya, you all right in the street, sort of thing.
17:00I didn't know his name. I just knew his face.
17:03He's always in Humbach Houses, always.
17:06Mark Bridger was named by some of the residents living locally
17:10in the House Towers investigation.
17:13And then once he's been named, and when you compare the description
17:18given by the children of the vehicle that April Jones got into,
17:23and then some work that we were able to do behind the scenes with the analysts,
17:27we were able to link at Land Rover Discovery to Mark Bridger,
17:30and then all of a sudden, things start to fall into place.
17:37The following morning, Tuesday, October the 2nd,
17:40the small market town of Mahankleth awoke to a media swarm.
17:46April had now been missing for 12 hours.
17:49I've been saying this from the very beginning, we still have hope.
17:54It was a fast-moving, very emotional place.
17:59People were desperate, people were filled with hope,
18:03and people were galvanized to go out there and to find someone.
18:07And those people that were there, generally, beyond perhaps knowing the family,
18:11or knowing the area, or knowing them in passing, had no personal connection in a lot of cases.
18:16They wanted to go out and find a vulnerable child, and there was lots and lots of hope
18:21and just sheer determination, people saying, I can't sleep, I can't go home, I can't rest,
18:28I can't do anything while I know that somebody is out there.
18:30And that was incredibly stark and incredibly moving.
18:33The police were desperate to find Mark Bridger, and they soon had a major breakthrough.
18:41His distinctive blue Land Rover had been found at a local garage.
18:46It had been dropped off that same morning.
18:51They didn't really disclose too much about his demeanor, other than he dropped it off,
18:55suggesting it had been involved in an accident, and they were quite happy to have a look at it.
19:00And from what they'd seen, it didn't appear to have been involved in any kind of road accident.
19:05The police continued their manhunt.
19:07They hoped that finding Bridger would lead them directly to April.
19:13We were still hoping that she'd be alive, so it was very much speeders of the essence.
19:18So you had to ensure that you were doing as much as you could, as quickly as you could,
19:23in an effort to identify where she was.
19:25Having dropped off his car the morning after April's disappearance,
19:29Bridger met a search party looking for the five-year-old.
19:32He was hiding in plain sight.
19:35Mark Bridger had effectively stumbled upon a search party and wished them good luck
19:39and claimed to have been out searching all night, which was, when you reflect on that,
19:44deeply, deeply troubling, um, deeply shocking.
19:48Despite it being a small town, detectives had discovered multiple addresses linked to Bridger,
19:54whose transient lifestyle had made finding him extremely difficult.
19:59We had some previous addresses that we knew he'd lived at or we may still be living at,
20:04and we were sending teams of officers around to those addresses to try to locate April,
20:09and on some occasions, there was no answer.
20:11We were forcing entry into these properties with quickly searching in a hope to finding us.
20:17So it was a very fast-paced, fast-moving investigation, um, to try to locate him.
20:23As the search for April entered its 19th hour,
20:26her older sister Jasmine began to fear the worst.
20:30I knew we were never going to get her back alive.
20:33Something in me just said, she's not going to come home alive.
20:36The police approached a cottage on the outskirts of town just before 3 p.m.
20:42All hope of finding the missing five-year-old was about to fade away in devastating fashion.
20:48Inside the house, detectives would discover evidence suggesting that April Jones had been murdered.
21:04By 3 p.m. on Tuesday, October the 2nd, 2012,
21:08five-year-old April Jones had been missing for almost 20 hours.
21:13The number one suspect in her abduction was 46-year-old Mark Bridger.
21:19April had been seen getting into his car the previous evening.
21:24The police had finally traced Bridger to a cottage called Mount Pleasant on the outskirts of Mahancliff.
21:32They forced their way through the door.
21:34So when the first officers arrive at Bridger's home, his fire is lit.
21:39It is very hot in there.
21:41There is a strong smell of detergent, bleach, cleaning fluid.
21:46And the initial forensic examination then starts at that point.
21:51But it's clearly looking more and more suspicious
21:55that something has happened at that address.
21:57Just half an hour later at 3.30 p.m., Mark Bridger was spotted by a patrol car
22:03on the A487 road heading back into Mahancliff on foot.
22:09So when he is seen walking down the road, officers pull up alongside him and speak to him,
22:14confirm that it is Mark Bridger, and he immediately makes a disclosure to the officers
22:19that April is dead and that he's run over her by accident.
22:23I think Mark Bridger's selfishness really did come out when he was picked up by the police
22:29and he said to them, I need to talk.
22:31And the police said, OK, but can you wait until we get to the station?
22:35And he didn't.
22:36He just proceeded to basically engage in this lengthy monologue about what had gone on,
22:41about how he felt.
22:43And basically, when he was saying, I need to talk, he wasn't just saying that.
22:47He was saying, you need to listen to me.
22:49It was another way of him trying to exert control over other people.
22:52It's something he's always doing all of the time.
22:55In the police car on the way to the station,
22:57Bridger continued to tell officers his side of the story.
23:02He gave a very strange, fantastical description of what had really happened to April.
23:08I ran over her with my Land Rover, and she was underneath the wheels,
23:12and I didn't know what to do, and there was no pulse and no sign,
23:17and she wasn't moving.
23:19And, um, well, any normal person, surely, would have rung the police or the hospital at 999
23:24at that instant, wouldn't they?
23:27Well, you see, I didn't know, and I didn't mean to.
23:29I mean, I was going to just lean her up against something.
23:33Well, she wasn't lent up against something.
23:35She disappeared.
23:36He created the stories in his head.
23:39Maybe he even believed it himself.
23:41You know, some people will do.
23:42Some people, they are so desperate to be accepted by others and in life that they
23:49will create the stories.
23:50And they are so into it and so desperate that they will believe those stories themselves.
23:54And that's where you get the compulsive liars.
23:57So he might have even believed himself that he...
23:59Because, yeah, he was actually telling those stories to the police.
24:03He seems to think that what's happened is quite blurry, but what he does remember
24:08is that he drove off with her body somewhere.
24:11But after that, he says, it's all blank.
24:13I can't remember what happened.
24:15Bridger's bizarre account of events led detectives to believe he might be lying
24:21and that April may still be alive somewhere.
24:24So although when Markbridge is first detained, he says that he's killed her,
24:30he's run over her, we obviously hadn't found a body, so there's still some hope
24:35that you may be able to find her alive.
24:37So the thrust of searching as many places as possible and continuing to search
24:43the countryside didn't stop.
24:46The following day, the 3rd of October, 2012, April's mother, Coral Jones,
24:52appeared in front of the world's press.
24:54Her daughter had been missing for over 36 hours.
24:59And so the atmosphere in the room awaiting that was quite extraordinary.
25:04And when the door opened, there was the briefest sense, I remember even now,
25:07of complete silence, complete shock, complete captivation almost.
25:16And as Coral walked into the room then, obviously, the noise began,
25:20the shutters of the cameras began to click.
25:24To see up close, merely a few feet away, somebody going through what Coral
25:29and her family were going through was astonishingly painful.
25:33It's been 36 hours since April was taken from us.
25:41There must be someone out there who knows where she is and can help the police find her.
25:50We are desperate for any news. April is only five years old.
25:57Please, please help find her.
26:01When you see firsthand the impact it has on the family,
26:05you can only imagine what Coral and the rest of the family have gone through.
26:10But it's when you see them face to face and you're sitting next to them
26:13in some of those press conferences, it is heartbreaking.
26:16And, you know, it just makes you more resolved to try to do all you can.
26:20But as police forensic teams began an intricate search at Bridger's home,
26:26it soon became clear that April Jones would never be found alive.
26:34We do know from the detailed forensic examination of his home
26:40is that she probably died there.
26:42We found her blood at that address, significant amounts of her blood.
26:48Clearly, he'd attempted to clean the place, which is part of the reason
26:52the initial officers found that overwhelming smell of bleach.
26:55He'd tried to clean up several parts of the house.
26:58There was blood in the lounge and in the bathrooms.
27:01And the wood burner was lit, we believe, because he was looking to dispose
27:06of incriminating evidence.
27:09From a policing and prosecution perspective,
27:11the key piece of evidence in a murder inquiry is almost certainly going to be
27:16having a body, and they didn't have that in this instance.
27:20So they were very, very reliant on not just on the human witnesses that they had,
27:25which were, in many cases, friends of April's who'd seen the abduction take place,
27:30but incredibly up-to-date forensic technology,
27:33which enabled them to pinpoint fragments of bone found in the wood burner
27:37at Mark Bridger's house.
27:39Although there was bone, it was burned to such a degree
27:42that we weren't able to match it forensically through any DNA profile,
27:47albeit we know it is human from the pathologist
27:50and the scientists that examined it subsequently.
27:52Forensic teams also found a burnt boning knife in Bridger's home.
27:57The disturbing discovery at Mount Pleasant Cottage shocked the entire community.
28:03There almost certainly was no longer any chance of a happy ending to this story,
28:08a positive outcome of April coming home to her family.
28:11And that was very, very powerful.
28:15And when you saw the tiredness that people understandably felt,
28:19two, three days of hardworking, searching, not going to sleep,
28:23to have everything that they'd worked for crushed in that way was deeply,
28:27deeply dispiriting for everybody.
28:29And it was clear quite quickly that there needed to be then
28:34that further little bit of perspective and of rowing back a little bit from the media
28:38and from everybody that was there just to give people, not just the family,
28:41but the people in the town that had been so affected,
28:43that little bit of space and that little bit of freedom to grieve
28:47and to process everything that had happened.
28:49For a while they were searching for April and they were hoping she'd come back alive.
28:56And I think it was a couple of days later or something or other that it turned into
29:00a search for the body.
29:02And I kind of knew that it must have been some horrific crime for them to search a body.
29:08And then in the sort of town we live in where there's rovers flowing through,
29:13there's forestry everywhere. I kind of knew it must have been something quite bad,
29:18otherwise you kind of would have found a child's body around the sort of area straight away.
29:26After three days of questioning, on October the 5th, 2012,
29:31Mark Bridger was arrested on suspicion of murder,
29:35but the 46-year-old continued to protest his innocence.
29:39In an interview, he's very matter-of-fact in his answers,
29:42and he says that he's run over her accidentally,
29:45and that he gets out of his vehicle and sees that he's run over her,
29:49and he picks her up, and he believes she's dead.
29:52He does try resuscitating her.
29:54But at each stage, when you're then able to rebut some of his story by saying,
29:59well, there's no forensic evidence to show that she's come to any harm in your vehicle,
30:04albeit we could put her inside the vehicle with fingerprints,
30:09he would always suggest, well, she wasn't bleeding, so when you're asking,
30:13well, how do you know that she's dead then, you know, he was saying,
30:16well, I knew she was dead. His story didn't make sense.
30:19The reason why people hold back information about murder can vary from one case to the next,
30:25but for me, the central element is often control. When somebody has been convicted of murder,
30:32when somebody has been sentenced to a very lengthy term in prison,
30:36they don't have control over many things at all. The one thing that they do have control over
30:41is the knowledge of what happened, of what they did to their victim,
30:45of where their victim is, and often that's something that people won't want to part with very easily.
30:50Nothing that he said we could back up with any evidence or forensic recoveries.
30:56In fact, everything led quite the contrary.
30:59He had abducted April from outside near to her home and had driven her back to his house immediately,
31:07and she probably met her in very soon after that.
31:11He could have been curbing it for a long time, but on that day, he overpowered him,
31:17and once she was in the car, then that was it. Then he goes into a different state of mind,
31:21and then he can't stop it anymore. It will be very hard for him to stop.
31:24The following day, October the 6th, Mark Bridger was charged with the abduction
31:30and murder of five-year-old April Jones.
31:33It's an absolute shock with that, and you don't know what to think.
31:37And then you start, in your mind, questioning, do you really know someone?
31:41You know, you could have known this person, like, 15, 20 years.
31:47But then you come to the fact of, do you really know them?
31:50And so the shock to the community and, of course, to April's parents
31:58to realize that not only were they living with, but they knew the man
32:03who'd abducted their daughter is even more terrifying.
32:07The search for April's body continued for seven months
32:11until the police called it off in April 2013.
32:15The fact that no body was found didn't alter the course of the investigation.
32:20You know, we're still treating it as a murder.
32:22There's a huge impact on the family, obviously.
32:25But the search continued for months and months afterwards,
32:29because we had to be sure, in that area, that we'd searched everywhere
32:33that we possibly could in an effort to find her.
32:37So although we're confident that she probably died in his house,
32:43what he's done with her body after that, um, only he knows.
32:48Even though they hadn't found her body, investigators were confident
32:52they had enough evidence against Bridger to convict him of April's murder.
32:58As the trial approached, the entire country wanted to see justice
33:01for the Mahankleth community and especially for the Jones family.
33:16On April the 29th, 2013, the trial of Mark Bridger began at Mould Crown Court.
33:22The 47-year-old was charged with the abduction and murder
33:26of five-year-old schoolgirl April Jones.
33:30Seven months after her disappearance, her body had still not been found.
33:35There was real hope that the truth of what happened to her
33:38would emerge during proceedings.
33:44I think from the very first moment that Mark Bridger appeared in court,
33:47he was a pathetic figure, somebody that appeared to be feeling sorry for himself,
33:51that almost couldn't realize the gravity of the situation in which he found himself.
33:56As though he somehow was the victim, when absolutely he wasn't.
34:01He was the offender, he was the person that had done this barbaric, inhuman thing.
34:06He just kind of hung his head in shame.
34:09He never once looked over, ever, like, not even a slight glance of his eyes.
34:13Didn't move his head, just kind of hung his head in shame.
34:17Bridger pleaded not guilty.
34:19He was sticking to the same story he'd told police back in October 2012,
34:24claiming that April's death was an accident.
34:27Mark Bridger used this cloak of amnesia, almost, to say that he couldn't account for what had happened.
34:35He accepted, um, that he was behind April's death, but not that he intended in some way to kill her,
34:43and it concocted this fanciful story about potentially having knocked her over with his car,
34:48something that was never borne out in any of the evidence.
34:51Somehow claiming that he then couldn't recall what he'd done with her body,
34:55that he was drinking lots and that the whole thing could have been a nightmare.
35:00This was someone that was prepared to go as low as they possibly could,
35:04desperately trying to save their own skin in view of all evidence to the contrary.
35:09So, at the beginning, I was kind of shocked, like, oh, he'd hit her off the bike.
35:14But she knows well, too well, not to go near the road when there's a car.
35:19She knows this really well, and she knows to look left and right and everything.
35:22We've always, always taught her from a young age.
35:25And then he started saying he panicked, and he just drove off with her.
35:29And you've kind of... He's got kids around her age, around April's age,
35:33so you kind of think, you wouldn't panic.
35:35You'd kind of, in a sense, as a parent, you'd know what to do.
35:39So, towards the end of it, you're just like, oh, shut up.
35:42Just... Just shut up, really. You're just making yourself look a fool.
35:46During the trial, police helicopter footage emerged
35:50from the morning after April's abduction.
35:53It showed a calm-looking Bridger.
35:57He's seen kind of casually out walking his dog as if nothing had happened.
36:02And I think what we've got here is somebody who's struggling
36:05to figure out what is the appropriate way to behave here.
36:08What are people going to be looking out for?
36:10What are they going to be expecting to see?
36:12Most normal people would look up at the helicopter
36:15and wonder what was going on.
36:16He knew exactly what was going on.
36:19He knew exactly what he'd done with April.
36:21And at that stage, you know, the net was closing in on him,
36:24and he was trying to blend in.
36:27On the 15th of May, the jury was shown evidence
36:30from Mark Bridger's laptop.
36:33It was a key moment in the trial.
36:35Bridger had begun to assemble a collection of particularly nasty
36:40child pornography, as well as photographs of local children,
36:46including April and her elder sister.
36:49At his trial, the prosecution made a considerable play of the fact
36:54that these images were on his computer
36:57and suggested that he may not have been seeking specifically to groom April.
37:03It could have been another member of the family
37:05or another of the girls that were on his computer,
37:09but that he was certainly seeking to groom someone, some young girl.
37:15There are two types of people or offenders that would look at different kinds of things
37:19on the internet, pornography, for example.
37:21The first type is the people who will be satisfied by the photographs,
37:26by the films, by reading stories, maybe.
37:28But at the end of it, that's it.
37:30It's like, that's good enough.
37:32They turn off the computer and they forget about it.
37:34But there are certain other types, and Bridger falls into this category,
37:38is that at the end, that is not enough.
37:41He'd also been looking at website reports of previous child abductions,
37:47and you're starting to build a picture now of a paedophile,
37:51a dangerous, evil man who, for whatever reason,
37:55has gone from minor offending and tipped over into, you know,
38:01the most serious crime.
38:02On May the 30th, 2013, the jury took just four hours to unanimously find
38:08Mark Bridger guilty of murdering April Jones.
38:12Judge Mr. Justice Griffith Williams sentenced him to life imprisonment
38:17with a whole life order.
38:19He was immediately sent to Wakefield Prison.
38:22He will never be free again.
38:25For them to turn around and say life and never to be released from prison,
38:29it's like, wow.
38:31It's just, you can't explain the feeling of it,
38:36because it's good that he's never going to be released from prison,
38:40and he's never going to be able to hurt anyone again.
38:43Well, when Bridger was sentenced, the judge referred to him as a pathological liar
38:47and a paedophile, and I think both of those descriptions are accurate.
38:51Mark Bridger was somebody who was very comfortable in a lie.
38:54He would lie as easily as he would breathe.
38:57And if you look at some of his behavior in the final months before April's death,
39:02he was collecting images of children on his laptop.
39:06He was engaging in behavior that was incredibly bizarre.
39:10So he was a pathological liar.
39:12He was a paedophile.
39:13He was a very dangerous man.
39:14The murder of April Jones ruined the lives of not just her family,
39:20but an entire community.
39:21The Jones family were very clearly a respectable family,
39:26people that were well-known in their community,
39:28and there was that shock element.
39:31This could be anyone's child.
39:33It wasn't somebody that was put in harm's way.
39:36It was a girl that was playing on her bike outside her home,
39:39with her parents' blessing, like she would every day.
39:43They would call her in for her dinner.
39:44She would sit at home and tell them about her day at school
39:47and how well she was doing.
39:49Everyone can identify with that, whether they have children or not.
39:51It's a brutal thing that rips out a family's heart,
39:57and that really, really touches people.
40:02There was people that we hadn't spoken to
40:05who had little kids around the sort of same age,
40:07and they were really affected.
40:09On the estate we live, kids were outside all the time playing,
40:12and then you didn't see a kid for about two years outside playing.
40:15In a final cruel act, Mark Bridger has never revealed
40:21the location of April's body.
40:23I think the key question for many people in this case is,
40:26will Mark Bridger ever give up the information
40:29about what happened to April Jones, about where she is,
40:33to enable her parents to basically say goodbye to her properly?
40:37And unfortunately, I don't think he will.
40:40I think Mark Bridger is somebody who will always have self-preservation
40:45as his number-one priority, and he's just simply not going to put himself
40:50in a position where he's got no power left.
40:52It's difficult not getting a body back,
40:57because when you have a body back, you can lay them to rest,
41:01you can say your goodbyes.
41:02But when you've got bone fragments and ash, it's not the same at all,
41:09because you can't say your final goodbyes.
41:13And Mark Bridger is such a pathological liar,
41:17and he believes his own lies.
41:18He believes he's telling the truth that he's never going to tell you.
41:22He's never going to say what really happened that day, that evening,
41:27and what he's done with the body.
41:29And you kind of have to come to terms with that,
41:31and you kind of have to accept that you're never going to be able
41:34to fully say goodbye, and you're never going to be able to fully lay April to rest.
41:41On November the 17th, 2014, Jasmine Jones stood alongside her parents
41:48and watched as the probable site of April's murder, Mount Pleasant Cottage,
41:54was bulldozed to the ground.
41:56You've changed.
41:59You've completely changed.
42:01You're never going to be who you were.
42:02I mean, when I have kids, I could be completely different to what I thought I was going to be,
42:06because of this event.
42:08You've just completely changed.
42:09You're never going to be who you were.
42:11And the demons you've had to fight along the way is they've changed you,
42:14be it for the better, be it for the worse.
42:17But the positive thing is we've come out stronger.
42:20We've come out, we've stood together through it all.
42:22Because the community have gathered around and been so positive in the face of such a
42:28grotesque crime, it's not been something that's been allowed to define them.
42:32April Jones is not remembered for how she died, but for being a beautiful young girl who was
42:37happiest in her community and in her family.
42:40So what happened to her will always be a part of the history of McUncliffe.
42:44That will never be laid to rest or put to one side.
42:47But the fact that people do not want to be defined by this, do not want to be remembered
42:53purely as the place where this act of evil happened, will mean that they can go on and
42:57they can grow and they can develop.
43:00Mark Bridger is a perverted killer who selfishly snatched and killed an innocent
43:06five-year-old for his own gratification.
43:09He has constantly lied and still refuses to admit where April is buried.
43:15Bridger has shown no remorse for his actions or explained the reasons for the murder.
43:21We should forget his name and instead remember the smiling face of April Jones,
43:27the girl whose life he cruelly took away at such a young age.
43:40But if you were sick, I assume you might think that we cannot be inspired any further,
43:43possibly from that.
43:45Then even later, you might be sad to be sadistic injuries.
43:47I believe that we actually have great interest in the course of years.
43:50Get rid of his cult, and it's all about vulnerability.
43:53Over all life changes in your