April Jones, who was abducted and murdered by Mark Bridger last October. Photograph: Dyfed-Powys police/Reuters
Mark Bridger has been jailed for the rest of his life for the abduction and murder of April Jones, the five-year-old girl who disappeared last year while playing near her home in Machynlleth, mid-Wales.
The trial judge, Mr Justice Griffith Williams, imposed a life sentence with a whole-life tariff on the 47-year-old, describing him as "a pathological and glib liar".
Williams said: "There is no doubt in my mind that you are a paedophile who has for some time harboured sexual and morbid fantasies about young girls, storing on your laptop not only images of pre-pubescent and pubescent girls, but foul pornography of the gross sexual abuse of young children."
It did not seem April was specifically targeted, the judge said, telling Bridger he was seemingly "on the prowl for a young girl". The five-year-old knew Bridger, Williams told him, and would have got into his Land Rover "smiling and happy".
"What followed is known only to you but this much is certain – you abducted her for a sexual purpose and then murdered her and disposed of her body to hide the evidence of your sexual abuse of her, which probably occurred on the way from the estate to your home because there is some 60 minutes of your time which cannot be accounted for.
"I cannot infer from the evidence where you murdered her but if she was alive when you took her to the house, she died there.
"How you disposed of her body must remain a mystery. It will serve no purpose for me to speculate as to what happened but all the indications are that you burned at least a part of her in the wood burner."
April's family had to endure the "spectacle of your hypocritical sympathy for their loss and of your tears", the judge told Bridger, saying any tears were motivated purely by self-pity.
Bridger nodded as the sentence was passed but gave little other reaction to the comments.
Speaking outside the court, April's mother, Coral, said the family was relieved Bridger had been convicted: "However, we still do not know where she is, and this will always be a very painful thing for us to deal with. April will be forever in our hearts and we are so moved by the overwhelming support we have had from so many people all over the world."
Standing next to April's father, Paul, she thanked the police and said the family had been particularly supported by the people of Machynlleth. "Without their support we do not know how we would have got through the last seven months since April was taken from us."
A victim impact statement from Coral Jones, read just before the sentence was passed on Thursday, explained the family's devastation. It said: "Words alone cannot describe how we are feeling or how we manage to function on a daily basis, and I would never ever want any other family to go through what we are, and will go through for the rest of our lives." She added: "I still cannot go into her bedroom to sort out her clothes, because the pain of her not being there is indescribable."
She said she would live forever with "the guilt of letting her go out to play on the estate that night". The statement ended: "I will never see her smile again or hear her stomping around upstairs and on to the landing. We will never see her bring home her first boyfriend and [her father] Paul will never walk her down the aisle. How will we ever get over it?"
Earlier in the day the jury at Mold crown court found Bridger guilty of murder, abduction and unlawfully disposing of and concealing April's body, after just over four hours of deliberation. The former abattoir worker seized April as she played on her bicycle and murdered her before concealing, disposing of or destroying her body, which has never been found despite one of the most intensive police searches in British history.
Bridger, who has six children by four women, is set to spend his entire term in prison being protected from other inmates.
April disappeared on the evening of 1 October from the Bryn-y-Gog estate. Police believe she was taken into Bridger's cottage alive and may have been sexually assaulted there.
Detective Superintendent Andy John, the senior investigating officer, said: "I think the body has been dismembered and various parts have been placed in different areas. Possibly those remains would have been small and damaged. That's why we've had such difficulty locating them."
John said he thought the abduction of a child was premeditated, though he did not believe April was a specific target. He said images found on Bridger's laptop, including pictures of sadistic child sexual abuse, suggested the killer was building up to the crime.
Though he had convictions for violence and deception dating back to when he was a teenager, Bridger had no convictions for sexual offences against children or for having indecent images. Since his arrest no other allegations have been made against Bridger. Nor is there any evidence that he has abused any of his children.
The discovery of explicit images of child sex abuse on Bridger's laptop is also bound to prompt a fresh debate on possible links between the viewing of such images and sex killings.
During the trial it emerged that Bridger had viewed a cartoon image of a bound girl being sexually abused by an adult just hours before April was abducted.
It can also be revealed that a tape found in Bridger's video player when police raided his home was paused at the point of a rape and murder scene from the slasher film The Last House on the Left. He had recorded the same scene – but nothing more of the film – twice on one videotape.
The discovery opens the possibility that Bridger viewed the film just before or even as he was abusing or murdering April. Culled from Guardian
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