April Jones: Court hears of mother’s panic

Coral Jones paced her house repeating the words as the first officer arrived and the massive search began for her five-year-old daughter, Mold Crown Court heard.

The youngster was allegedly snatched by Mark Bridger, 47, who denies her murder.

April, who had cerebral palsy, vanished while playing on her bike near her home in Machynlleth, mid-Wales, in the early evening of October 1.

Pc Fiona Evans told the jury today she was the first police officer called to the incident and went straight to April’s home, arriving at 7.37pm.

“At the house Coral was clearly distressed,” Pc Evans said.

“Pacing the corridor, repeating, ‘She’s been taken! She’s been taken!’.”

The officer took an initial account from another youngster, April’s best friend, who she had been playing out with and who witnessed the alleged abduction.

“Initially in my opinion she appeared nervous, stood still, staring straight ahead,” the officer said.

“I needed to get as much information as possible. At the same time I didn’t want to upset or frighten her.”

The officer told the court she said to the girl: “We need to find April. Do you know where she is?

“She said, ‘She’s gone in a van, a grey van’.

“I asked her what sort of van. She said, ‘I don’t know. Small in the front and big in the back’.

“I just asked who was in the van and she said it was a man.”

Pc Evans took the girl outside to see if any of the parked cars were the same vehicle or looked similar to it, but the girl could not answer.

News had spread and people were arriving at the house offering their help while the officer radioed information to police headquarters, the court heard.

Pc Evans then took the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to the scene where April went missing, near to her home in Machynlleth.

The prosecution claim Bridger snatched and murdered April in a sexually motivated attack.

The defendant claims he knocked her down by accident and through a mixture of panic, adrenaline and alcohol in the aftermath, cannot remember what he did with her body.

April’s body has never been found, though DNA matching the youngster was recovered from Bridger’s house, the court heard.

The officer continued: “She (the witness) told me the vehicle had been parked behind the BT van.”

Asked again about the vehicle April got into, the girl said she had seen the same one the day before.