Coral Jones Will Mark Her Daughter April's Birthday With Chocolate Cake And Balloons

Coral Jones Will Mark Her Daughter April's Birthday With Chocolate Cake And Balloons
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April Jones's mum Coral will bake a chocolate cake and take balloons to her daughter's graveside to mark her eighth birthday on April 4.

Coral, 43, told Closer magazine : "I'll make a chocolate sparkly cake because that was her favourite.

"We'll take balloons to her graveside and release lanterns into the sky in our garden in her memory.

"April loved birthdays and would get so excited. On her fifth birthday we had a children's entertainer and she was singing and dancing – we had no idea that would be her last party."

Coral said she still can't go out alone or eat and sleep properly since the death of her daughter, who was just five when she vanished in Machynlleth on October 1, 2012, while playing on her bike.

After a huge police operation, Mark Bridger was found guilty of April's murder.

Her body was never recovered, despite the biggest search in UK police history, but Bridger was given a whole life sentence after fragments of April's skull were found in his fireplace.

Coral told the magazine: "I miss April every day. She was such a kind-natured girl.

"She wanted to swim with dolphins but she'll never fulfil that dream now.

"I wish April were here to celebrate her birthday. She will never grow up into the beautiful young woman I know she would have been.

"I hope Bridger rots in his cell."

A funeral was held for April in September 2013 after her remains were released to the family and she was buried in a graveyard just yards from where she was last seen alive.

The house owned by Bridger, where April was believed to have been murdered, was torn down by bulldozers in November last year.

Coral said: "We don't know exactly what happened in there but it was a horrible reminder every time we walked past.

"Watching it being demolished felt like her spirit being set free.

"I want to know where he body is, as it is difficult to have closure, but I would never give him the satisfaction of asking."

Talking about her daughter's birthday, the mum added: "April is a hard month for us. I still can't go out alone and I can't eat properly.

"I look out the window and watch April's friends playing thinking she should be there with in her pink Peppa Pig wellies, jumping in puddles.

"I despise Bridger with every bone in my body for taking away my little girl."

A campaign to stop indecent images of children being allowed on the internet has been set up by Coral and her family, which saw her and husband Paul meet with Prime Minister David Cameron and the launch of an online petition.

Coral said: "I am really overprotective towards April's brother (Harley, 13) and sister. Jazmin is 19 and has a boyfriend but I need to know where she is all the time.

"We want a new law to stop people being able to access online child pornography.

"We also want longer sentences for paedophiles and think they should be on the sex offenders' register for life."