Hazel Jones, who was 18 at the time of her little sister’s abduction and murder, has revealed the devastating affects of the tragedy on her family
April Jones was just five years-old when she was snatched off the street in her hometown of Machynlleth, Wales in October 2012, yards away from her family home.
The tragic case caught the attention of the world’s media and prompted one of the largest missing person’s search operations ever carried out by the UK authorities which involved numerous police resources including sniffer dogs and helicopters as well as thousands of selfless volunteers.
Unfortunately, it was soon discovered that little April had been abducted and murdered by Mark Bridger who is currently serving a life sentence for his horrific crimes.
Now, April’s older sister Hazel Jones has revealed the devastation the tragic case wreaked on her family as well as how she truly feels about the man who took the life of her little sister, reports the Daily Mail.
The now 31-year-old, who was 18 and pregnant with her own child at the time of April’s murder, admitted that she believes Bridger, who was attacked in prison for the second time last year, deserves to “suffer”.
READ MORE: Man arrested as several people rushed to hospital after taking Zopiclone
The trauma that Hazel experienced from her sister’s tragic death, she says, shaped her life and she now fears it could go onto affect her own children’s futures too.
It has been fourteen years since April was abducted while playing her pink bike with a friend near her home on October 1 2012. Her friend, just seven years old at the time, told police that April has got into Land Rover with a man on the Bryn-Y-Gog estate. Her detailed description of the vehicle lead police to its owner, local man Mark Bridger, who was arrested the day after the kidnaping.
Traces of April’s blood and bone fragments found in his residence, as well as a huge catalogue of child abuse images on his computer, lead to his charge.
In May the next year, a jury unanimously convicted him of sexually motivated murder, abduction, and perverting the course of justice. Despite a huge and enduring search effort, April’s body was never found.
Hazel, who shares a father with April, says she still remembers how the fateful day of her sister’s disappearance unfolded and the moment she raced to Machynlleth to be with their dad, Paul, and the rest of the family after hearing the news.
Just a few weeks after her little sister’s death, Hazel welcomed her own daughter, Amelia, into the world -a bittersweet experience for the teen and her grieving family.
She said: ‘It was surreal because when Dad and Coral came to see her in the hospital when she was first born, they were just shocked because she looked like April.
‘It was so difficult because I had just lost my sister and just given birth. I was trying to mourn my sister but also love my new daughter.”
Now a mother of three – with Amelia 12, Ethan, nine, and Hefin, six, Hazel admits the anxiety caused by the tragedy has never fully left her and now affects how she raised her children.
“My daughter is coming to the age of 13, she’ll be going into year eight this year and she wants to go and do stuff with her friends,” she said.
‘I don’t know how I’m meant to let her grow up. Because I am quite scared of who is even around, who can you actually trust? Is there anyone watching you? Is there anyone following you? And it’s scary. The world we live in is literally so scary.”
She added: “After April I’m petrified to let my kids go out and grow up and start having their own lives.When my daughter was younger, when she was at the age of five, I was like oh my god this is the age April was when she went.”
April had a striking resemblance to her daughter Amelia at that age – something that made the mother’s grief even harder to bear.
Hazel explained: “She had only been on this earth for five years and I remember looking at her thinking you have not even experienced life yet, and that was taken away from April.”
“I do want my daughter to see the world and have everything that April couldn’t.”
Hazel has never hidden April’s story from her children and keeps a memory box of items from their childhood together which she hopes to show them when they feel ready.
Sadly, April and Hazel’s father, Paul Jones, died last year after a long battle with brain disease. Hazel believes that her father was “never right” after the loss of April.
The tragedy also affected the wider family who were left struggling to cope with what had happened. As a result, relationships broke down and to this day, some members of the family still do not speak.
Over ten years later and the impact on April’s untimely death is still strong.
Hazel said: ‘It’s been 13 years now and it’s still not actually sunk in. I still don’t believe it. I don’t know whether I don’t want to believe it but I just don’t believe it happened to us.
“I’m still waiting to wake up from this nightmare.”
