For the community, the abduction of April as she played near her home after school on Monday was barely comprehensible, and her friends and neighbours said they would not rest until they had found her.
But by last night, with the announcement that police had arrested 46-year-old Mark Bridger on suspicion of abduction without any sign of the schoolgirl, there was more of an air of desperation. Police coastguards gathered on the banks of the River Dyfi to the north of the town, searching the water, and despite requests to the public for further inspections of outbuildings in the hope of finding April alive, hope was fading quickly.
Less than 24 hours earlier, April had been playing on her bike with her next-door neighbour Milly May Parker between a row of lock-up garages near their homes on the Bryn-y-Gog estate.
April’s parents, Paul and Coral Jones, had been at a parents’ evening at her primary school and were expecting her home shortly after 7pm. Their daughter was born with mild cerebral palsy and irritable bowel syndrome, and was due to take her regular dose of painkillers for her bowel conditionBut after several other children playing with the two girls had gone home, a man in a light-coloured vehicle - said to be either a Land Rover or a van - pulled up at the garages and said something to April, who climbed willingly into the driver’s door.
When April failed to return home as expected, her parents are understood to have gone looking for her, and Milly told them what had happened.
Mr Jones, 43, and his 40-year-old wife, who married two months ago after many years together, dialled 999 to report their daughter missing, and told police they had their suspicions about who the kidnapper might be.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Seems like they had an idea who took April from the get go
