:00:16. > :00:19.served. Mark Bridger will never be free again. We are relieved that
:00:19. > :00:24.Mark Bridger has today been found guilty of the murder of our
:00:24. > :00:27.beautiful daughter April. It's a crime which has traumatised a
:00:27. > :00:32.family, shocked the world and cast a shadow across the community. Mark
:00:32. > :00:37.Bridger was a man with a troubled past. He pushed his way in. He
:00:37. > :00:45.started beating me about the head. There are still more questions than
:00:45. > :00:48.answers. What was the trigger that's going to move a pretty typical
:00:49. > :00:54.offender into somebody that's capable of abducting a child and
:00:54. > :00:58.killing her? Tonight, as Bridger begins his life
:00:58. > :01:08.behind bars, we examine the man behind the crime that unfolded in
:01:08. > :01:23.
:01:23. > :01:29.one of the safest parts of rural If you were asked to find a town
:01:29. > :01:33.that was ideal to raise a family in a quiet country location, where the
:01:33. > :01:42.word "community" is still relevant, then Machynlleth would probably fit
:01:42. > :01:45.the bill. It's a town that seems to be tucked away from the troubles of
:01:45. > :01:55.the world, where it's still safe for children to play outside after
:01:55. > :02:01.
:02:01. > :02:07.children. On October 1 last year, she was out playing near her home on
:02:07. > :02:12.the Bryn-Y-Gog estate. There had been a parents' evening at her
:02:12. > :02:17.school. April received a glowing report. As a treat, she was allowed
:02:17. > :02:25.to stay out a little later than normal.
:02:25. > :02:28.This is the estate where April lived. The houses here overlook
:02:28. > :02:33.these communal greens and they look and feel like a safe place for
:02:33. > :02:39.children to play. April wasn't alone the night she disappeared. Other
:02:39. > :02:44.children were playing here too. But at 7. 7.30pm, the unthinkable
:02:44. > :02:54.happened, she was seen getting into an unidentified car. The alarm was
:02:54. > :03:02.
:03:02. > :03:07.Somebody's picked her up in the car. What's the name of the child?
:03:07. > :03:14.Jones. These are the last pictures of April seen alive. She'd been
:03:14. > :03:18.swimming with her friend at the town's Leisure Centre. A couple of
:03:18. > :03:27.hours later, police and the local community were out searching for
:03:27. > :03:34.her. I remember very well that I was sitting at home and I had Facebook
:03:34. > :03:43.open. I could see this string was happening. I just thought, it was
:03:43. > :03:50.like as if something hit you really hard. This was wrong. I said to my
:03:50. > :03:57.husband, " Let's take the dog and have a look. It can't hurt." I was
:03:57. > :04:02.sitting in my office at home, thinking how can I change our
:04:02. > :04:07.harvest Thanksgiving services. Then the phone went. " Mum, you'd better
:04:07. > :04:12.come over. There's something on Facebook. There's a little girl gone
:04:12. > :04:16.missing." As they searched, CCTV footage from
:04:16. > :04:26.a garage showed Mark Bridger's Land Rover already heading out of
:04:26. > :04:31.
:04:31. > :04:36.a statement saying they were increasingly concerned about April's
:04:36. > :04:41.safety and whereabouts. The town's Leisure Centre became the search
:04:41. > :04:50.headquarters. But the news was already spreading to the outside
:04:50. > :05:00.world through social media. Throughout the night, police and
:05:00. > :05:01.
:05:02. > :05:06.helicopter scanned the surrounding area. It caught sight of Mark
:05:06. > :05:16.Bridger walking his dog. At that point, he wasn't a suspect, but the
:05:16. > :05:23.
:05:23. > :05:32.police were soon released details Land Rover. Also, that April got
:05:32. > :05:35.into the driver's side. breakthrough came on the afternoon
:05:35. > :05:42.of October 2, when the police announced that they'd arrested a
:05:42. > :05:47.man, who they'd found walking on the road close to the Dyfi Bridge here a
:05:47. > :05:50.mile from the centre of Machynlleth. They said that they'd found his car
:05:50. > :05:57.which matched the description of the vehicle that was alleged to have
:05:57. > :06:02.been used in April's abduction. Mark Bridger was the man under arrest. He
:06:02. > :06:07.wasn't a stranger, but a local man and well known too. His arrest
:06:07. > :06:13.stunned the town. We were all still waiting down the Leisure Centre to
:06:13. > :06:18.be told whether we could go out searching again. A whisper started
:06:18. > :06:25.circulating, the rumour about who was arrested. Clair Owen was one of
:06:25. > :06:28.the search volunteers. She knew Mark Bridger. Mach is a close town.
:06:28. > :06:32.Everybody knows everybody. It would have been more unusual if somebody
:06:32. > :06:37.said they didn't know him. To have been told that he was arrested and
:06:37. > :06:44.as that went on, that surprise must have... Mind blowing.Turned to
:06:44. > :06:49.incredulity. Everybody was so upset. Unknown to the town, Mark Bridger
:06:49. > :06:54.was already telling police that April was dead. He'd killed her in a
:06:54. > :07:00.road accident. But the detective in charge had doubts. The story simply
:07:00. > :07:06.didn't add up. During the course of the interview, I think, Mark Bridger
:07:06. > :07:12.was someone who displayed various emotions. When he was talking about
:07:12. > :07:14.matters that he was comfortable with, he was very confident. He was
:07:14. > :07:23.very articulate. When he was challenged and asked about matters
:07:23. > :07:28.that he didn't want to be -- to discuss. He didn't want to talk
:07:28. > :07:32.about those areas, back into the areas he was comfortable with.
:07:32. > :07:42.during the process he was trying to hold onto some sort of control?
:07:42. > :07:46.was evident. Mark Bridger lived in Machynlleth for more than 20 years.
:07:47. > :07:52.He told people that before he came here, he had been a soldier in the
:07:52. > :07:56.Army. But tales of military action were just part of a trait of Mark
:07:56. > :08:02.Bridger's that made him stand out. He liked to tell tall stories about
:08:02. > :08:08.his past, very tall stories. liked to elaborate on the truth a
:08:08. > :08:14.little bit. Quite a lot. But everybody knew that. Maybe saying
:08:15. > :08:19.that he'd been in the Army or the SAS and things like this. You just
:08:19. > :08:22.didn't think anything of it. that a story that kept coming up,
:08:22. > :08:27.that he kept telling people that he'd been in the Army? We all
:08:27. > :08:31.believed he'd been in the Army. In fact there's no record that he'd
:08:31. > :08:36.ever been in the Army. But it's a story Mark Bridger would go to great
:08:36. > :08:40.lengths to protect. We've seen documents that show that Bridger was
:08:40. > :08:45.even prepared to lie to a court of law that he'd once been a soldier.
:08:45. > :08:50.In a dispute with a former landlord of his flat he made a statement in
:08:50. > :08:55.which he referred to his Army career to illustrate his strength and
:08:55. > :09:02.general fitness, which he said was being undermined by the fumes from a
:09:02. > :09:07.faulty boiler. Bridger consistently lied about his past, so often that a
:09:07. > :09:12.former friend believed he was a fantasist. Professor David Wilson is
:09:12. > :09:20.one of Britain's leading crim nol joists. It's his job to get into the
:09:20. > :09:24.minds of killers. In terms of what might have propelled Bridger from a
:09:24. > :09:28.fantasist into a murderer is the sense that some of these fantasies
:09:28. > :09:32.for Bridger weren't fantasies. They were part and parcel of his
:09:32. > :09:39.psychological make up. He thinks Mark Bridger's Army story helped
:09:39. > :09:46.tick a lot of boxes. The Army is almost a quintessential what
:09:46. > :09:49.sociologist would call hegemonic masculine construct. It's the ideal
:09:49. > :09:55.male type, the person capable of looking after himself, capable of
:09:55. > :10:01.defending himself, plus it allowed him to explain, I imagine, gaps in
:10:01. > :10:09.his own autobiography. It also made him quite a hero. That's - that
:10:09. > :10:13.comes across in terms of the types of jobs he chose. One of those much
:10:13. > :10:18.reported jobs was as a lifeguard, here at the brie Dyfi ledgeure
:10:18. > :10:22.centre. In 1990 Bridger was one of a group of trainees hoping to become a
:10:22. > :10:27.permanent member of staff. The manager at the time remembers him
:10:27. > :10:37.making a bright start. He said he'd come to the area from somewhere near
:10:37. > :10:38.
:10:38. > :10:40.London, I rae call, following an unfortunate incident in the fire
:10:40. > :10:44.brigade where he used to work. He told me that he'd been up a ladder
:10:45. > :10:49.rescuing someone from a burning building and something had gone
:10:49. > :10:51.wrong and he'd fallen off the ladder with the person he was rescuing and
:10:51. > :10:57.they'd died. At that point, he was so upset he left the fire brigade
:10:57. > :11:04.and moved to this area. But Bridger couldn't hold down the job. He'd
:11:04. > :11:10.gone from very capable and efficient to, I suppose, unreliable and also,
:11:10. > :11:16.I upon deared about the fire brigade incident, because although I had no
:11:16. > :11:20.reason to disbelieve it, it just seems improbable given his age.
:11:20. > :11:26.After just five months, Mark Bridger had left. He stayed in the area,
:11:26. > :11:29.drifting from one job to another. He'd most recently worked as a
:11:29. > :11:36.labourer after finishing as a slaughterman for three years. Before
:11:36. > :11:40.that, he worked for a plant hire company in Aberystwyth. Derek Waller
:11:40. > :11:45.worked with him and saw through his lies. We learned after a little
:11:45. > :11:49.while he had a tell. He would rub his head like this when he was kind
:11:49. > :11:53.of, almost as if he was thinking to embellish something or other. A
:11:53. > :12:01.little immature for his years. But nothing, nothing at all that would
:12:01. > :12:04.make you feel I need to steer clear of this person. That bit sticks in
:12:04. > :12:07.my mind about being on a second storey of a building. There was an
:12:07. > :12:13.explosion and he was blown backwards out of the window and landed on the
:12:13. > :12:17.floor on his breathing apparatus behind him. That hurt his back and
:12:17. > :12:22.he couldn't carry on with his job in the fire brigade. Mark Bridger's
:12:22. > :12:26.story of being a heroic firefighter was another fantasy. In 1984 he
:12:26. > :12:36.joined the London Fire Brigade, but never completed his training and
:12:36. > :12:43.
:12:43. > :12:49.disappearance, police had their man, but there was no sign of April. The
:12:49. > :12:52.truth was they were already too late to find her alive. What sort of man
:12:52. > :13:00.could commit such a crime? Was there anything in his upbringing that
:13:00. > :13:04.could explain how he could be capable of murdering a child? Mark
:13:04. > :13:09.Bridger was born in Sutton south London was railed in suburban
:13:09. > :13:16.Croydon. His father was a police officer and he attended mainstream
:13:16. > :13:21.schools. All in all, a respectable upbringing. This is the road where
:13:21. > :13:28.Mark Bridger grew up in the quiet, middle-class suburb of Croydon in
:13:28. > :13:32.south London. Neighbours remember a respectable, normal family. Mark
:13:32. > :13:38.Bridger was described as a boy who tended to keep himself to himself
:13:38. > :13:42.and he didn't play with other children on the street. By the time
:13:42. > :13:45.he was 19 Mark Bridger had a conviction for attempting an armed
:13:45. > :13:49.robbery of a grocer's shop in London. He now claims he had never
:13:50. > :13:54.intended any such robbery and his fake gun, just happened to be in the
:13:54. > :14:00.car. But we've found reports at the time that paint a more damning
:14:00. > :14:05.picture. The shop is long gone, but this is the street a couple of miles
:14:05. > :14:10.from Mark Bridger's home, where he'd gone to carry out his armed robbery.
:14:10. > :14:14.He was equipped with what was later described as a robber's kit,
:14:14. > :14:22.including a balaclava and a fake handgun. But before he could act, he
:14:22. > :14:30.was caught in a stolen car. He later confessed everything and in court,
:14:30. > :14:34.the judge decided to give him a second chance. It was probation
:14:34. > :14:39.rather than Princess Dianasen for Mark Bridger. -- rather than prison
:14:39. > :14:43.for Mark Bridger. Perhaps looking for a fresh start he moved to
:14:43. > :14:46.Machynlleth in 1990 and married a local girl. The marriage didn't last
:14:46. > :14:52.but he didn't seem to be single for long. He had a number of
:14:52. > :14:57.revelationships over the next 20 years. He wasn't sleazy or trying it
:14:57. > :15:04.on with anybody, he just always seemed to a female friend,
:15:04. > :15:08.companion. Yeah, just always seemed to be with someone. But detectives
:15:08. > :15:13.were uncovering a hidden side to Mark Bridger. His computer contained
:15:13. > :15:17.indecent images of children and revealed a fascination with child
:15:17. > :15:22.abduction and murder stories. think it is evident that in the time
:15:22. > :15:25.leading up to the incident, he is somebody who is losing control. His
:15:25. > :15:33.relationship has broken down. He appears to be struggling financially
:15:33. > :15:36.and I think that on the night in question, he clearly is someone who
:15:36. > :15:39.has got an unhealthy interest in children and I think the opportunity
:15:39. > :15:43.arose. It is unfortunate that April Jones was in the wrong place at the
:15:43. > :15:49.wrong time. The day Bridger took April, he'd
:15:49. > :15:54.been dumped by his latest girlfriend. Also that day, he'd
:15:54. > :16:01.approached two other girls, aged eight and ten, inviting them to a
:16:01. > :16:07.sleepover with hills daughter. -- his daughter. Day three, as the
:16:07. > :16:17.search continued April's distraught mother begged for help. April is
:16:17. > :16:23.
:16:23. > :16:28.only five years old. Please, please help find her. Pink ribbons appeared
:16:28. > :16:34.across Machynlleth as a symbol of solidarity and hope. An ordinary
:16:34. > :16:36.community showing its support for a family going through torment.
:16:36. > :16:44.Reverend Kathleen Rogers had only that year taken on the
:16:44. > :16:53.responsibility for the parish. a good community. It's a typical
:16:53. > :17:01.Welsh, small, country community. peaceful place? Yes. Yes.A happy
:17:01. > :17:06.place? Yes.Up to that night. Up to that night. Then?There was this
:17:06. > :17:13.big, black, heavy cloud over this town and over the community as well,
:17:13. > :17:17.over the villages around Machynlleth as well and this cloud, the longer
:17:17. > :17:24.it went on, this cloud was, felt as if it was pushing us into the
:17:24. > :17:30.ground. It was awful, that first week was awful. She found her
:17:31. > :17:33.self-trying to support a community -- her self-trying to support a
:17:34. > :17:36.community as the eyes of the world looked on. I had an e-mail of
:17:36. > :17:41.somebody who was in, I think Australia, and she said that I live
:17:41. > :17:51.in a Smallvilleage and we've put pink rib orns around the village and
:17:51. > :17:57.
:17:57. > :18:07.was was saying nothing. The search would continue for another seven
:18:07. > :18:15.
:18:15. > :18:18.village of Ceinws that the search moved on Thursday, October 4. Mark
:18:18. > :18:22.Bridger was known to have been living here most recently. Police
:18:22. > :18:28.searched the house from top to boss op and the evidence that they found
:18:28. > :18:32.here was sufficient to charge him with April's murder. Police found a
:18:32. > :18:38.trail of April's blood at the cottage, a burnt knife and fragments
:18:38. > :18:42.of skull in the log-burning stove. There were signs he had tried to
:18:42. > :18:47.clean up and burn any evidence that April had been in the house. The
:18:47. > :18:52.conclusion drawn by detectives was that Bridger had killed her. But
:18:52. > :18:58.still, he wouldn't say what he'd done with her body. It raises
:18:58. > :19:06.left left without closure. That puts him
:19:06. > :19:09.in the same category at Ian Brady doesn't it? It does, it does. What's
:19:09. > :19:14.interesting, though, about Bridger and his public statements, unlike
:19:14. > :19:19.Brady, is Brady is a paranoid schizophrenic and is clearly a
:19:19. > :19:26.psychopath and is mentally ill. Mark Bridger doesn't strike me in that
:19:27. > :19:33.way. Therefore, I think it would be not unexpected for Bridger, at some
:19:33. > :19:40.stage in the future, to be table to talk about actually what caused this
:19:40. > :19:46.particular crime and where April's body might be, hidden, buried or
:19:47. > :19:52.left. A week after April disappeared, Mark Bridger was
:19:52. > :20:02.formally charged with her murder. Until that point, everybody was
:20:02. > :20:06.
:20:06. > :20:13.looking for April. Not for April's body. It changed everything. That
:20:13. > :20:20.one event in the whole process changed everyone's way of thinking.
:20:20. > :20:23.The community struggled to come to terms with the news. Mark Bridger
:20:23. > :20:29.appeared to live quietly in his community but there were flashes of
:20:29. > :20:36.the darker side of his personality too. A violent and calculating side.
:20:36. > :20:43.One person who crossed his path was his former landlord. The two of them
:20:43. > :20:46.happened to be drinking in this pub that night. There was a history of
:20:46. > :20:53.bad blood between them, although nothing was said until Bridger's
:20:53. > :21:01.former landlord left and made a sarcastic aside. Bridger took huge
:21:01. > :21:07.offence and decided to wait to take his revenge later that night.
:21:07. > :21:10.At quarter to one... In the morning? In the morning, I heard this banging
:21:10. > :21:20.on the door, the back door. I got out. He was all dressed in his
:21:20. > :21:23.bovver boots and his jacket right up to his chin. He was shout shouting
:21:23. > :21:32.I'd belittled him in the pub. I couldn't believe it. He pushed his
:21:32. > :21:36.way in. He was mouthing off to me. He pushed me into my bike head
:21:36. > :21:40.first. He started beating me about the head. His former landlord, who
:21:40. > :21:48.didn't want his face on camera, is convinced that Bridger had carefully
:21:48. > :21:54.planned the attack. He's a crafty, connive conniving so-and-so. He knew
:21:54. > :22:04.with my arthritis I could hardly pick a cup up, you know, at that
:22:04. > :22:15.
:22:15. > :22:19.time. He knew that I was not in a good state. So your impression,
:22:19. > :22:20.then, when he came to the house was that it was quite calculating, was
:22:20. > :22:23.it? Definitely. Bridger pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual
:22:23. > :22:28.bodily harm and was sentenced to four months in prison suspended for
:22:28. > :22:30.18 months. There was a great deal of planning in relation to what he did.
:22:30. > :22:33.That does imply that he had quite a fragile ego, that maintaining his
:22:33. > :22:42.sense of self, maintaining his sense of face in the community was very
:22:42. > :22:46.important to him. Hundreds took part in a procession the Sunday after
:22:46. > :22:53.April's disappearance, which culminated in a church service in
:22:53. > :22:58.the town. Loving father, we thank you for your guidance during these
:22:58. > :23:04.past difficult days... She was just a sweet little thing with a
:23:04. > :23:09.beautiful smile. Smiling?Yeah, every time I saw her she was always
:23:09. > :23:16.smiling. Yeah, a sweet little child. Who would want to hurt a little
:23:16. > :23:20.child? There is no answer, is there? We can't have the answer. In the
:23:21. > :23:30.middle of this, the family had to cope with the loss of April and the
:23:30. > :23:35.eyes of the world were on them. For them, there was to be no respite
:23:35. > :23:43.from Bridger. Then in January, in a cruel twist, he admitted to probably
:23:43. > :23:47.being responsible for April's death. He's someone who at an earlier
:23:47. > :23:53.hearing admitted he was probably responsible for her death and yet,
:23:53. > :23:59.his plead pleading -- he's pleading not guilty. That tells me a great
:23:59. > :24:03.deal of how murderers are treated especially the murderers of children
:24:03. > :24:07.in prison. It might be to do with the way he can explain his behaviour
:24:07. > :24:12.to other prisoners so as to make his life slightly better inside than it
:24:12. > :24:20.would be if he simply came straight out and said - I murdered a very
:24:20. > :24:28.young child. He would be regarded as the lowest of the low in jail.
:24:28. > :24:30.Mark Bridger's trial began, the full horror of what might have happened
:24:30. > :24:34.was revealed by the prosecution. Sexual images of children, a
:24:34. > :24:41.fascination with child abduction, April's blood in Bridger's house.
:24:41. > :24:48.For the community, this was worse than they'd feared. It's the shock
:24:48. > :24:54.waves of realise realising what could have gone on in April's last
:24:54. > :24:57.moments, it's just something you want to run scream ago way from
:24:57. > :25:04.really. -- screaming away from really. I can hardly believe that
:25:04. > :25:11.such a monster could be acting as normal. It just was all there in
:25:11. > :25:21.stark reality that, no, bless her, she wasn't going to come back and
:25:21. > :25:24.
:25:24. > :25:29.it's hard. It's very hard. On the day April should have been
:25:29. > :25:39.celebrating her 6th birthday with her family, they took the brave
:25:39. > :25:39.
:25:39. > :25:49.decision to invite the community to come together to celebrate and
:25:49. > :26:02.
:26:02. > :26:06.Bridger, a man would told tall stories about his life. A man with a
:26:06. > :26:11.checkered love life, a series of failed jobs, a man with criminal
:26:11. > :26:21.convictions. Is this the profile of a man who would abduct and kill a
:26:21. > :26:26.child? What was the trigger that's going to move a pretty typical,
:26:26. > :26:30.anodyne offender into somebody who is capable of abducting a child and
:26:30. > :26:34.killing her? Usually when I deal with predatory paedophiles who have
:26:34. > :26:38.abducted children, I'm dealing with somebody whose record wouldn't be
:26:38. > :26:43.about seven offences, but would be about 70 offences dating back to
:26:43. > :26:46.their childhood, dating back to their teenage years. They will have
:26:46. > :26:52.had long periods of time in Young Offender Institutions and in
:26:53. > :26:57.prisons. I don't have that with Mark Bridger. You would have expected to
:26:57. > :27:02.have seen some previous offending that would have given an idea of the
:27:02. > :27:06.escalation. In this case, that hasn't bob the case. So o -- hasn't
:27:07. > :27:10.been the case. On that basis this case will now inform future research
:27:10. > :27:14.I guess. It is the first time I have ever come across an individual such
:27:14. > :27:20.as Mark Bridger and I hope that I don't have to come across anybody of
:27:20. > :27:21.don't have to come across anybody of don't have to come across anybody of
:27:21. > :27:26.the same make up again. Mark Bridger's lies have been
:27:26. > :27:29.exposed. The judge told him he's a paedophile who's harboured sexual
:27:29. > :27:35.and morbid fantasies about young girls. He's the man who broke the
:27:35. > :27:39.hearts of April's parents. In the moment that justice was done, they
:27:39. > :27:45.retained their composure and dignity just as they did later outside.
:27:45. > :27:48.We'd like to thank our family and friends and the community of
:27:48. > :27:52.Machynlleth. We would like to take this time to be with our family and
:27:52. > :27:57.try to come to terms with the loss of April. For her family, closure
:27:57. > :28:07.will only come when Bridger reveals one of his darkest secrets - where
:28:07. > :28:10.
:28:10. > :28:16.events of last October have left their mark, but this is a community
:28:16. > :28:22.determined not to be diminished. is the daughter of Machynlleth. And