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mark bridger

The home of April Jones's killer has been torn down

The five-year-old is believed to have been murdered at the cottage.

The home of April Jones's killer has been torn down
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  • Demolition

    The family of April Jones approach the site of the house.Source: PA Wire/Press Association Images
  • Demolition

    Source: PA Wire/Press Association Images
  • Demolition

    Source: PA Wire/Press Association Images
  • Demolition

    Source: PA Wire/Press Association Images
  • Demolition

    Photo from 2012 of a billboard showing missing girl April Jones.
  • Demolition

    The house before it was demolished.Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images

THE FORMER HOME of the man found guilty of murdering April Jones has been demolished.

Mark Bridger was jailed for life last year for the abduction and murder of the five-year-old Welsh girl.

He had claimed that he accidentally ran over April, who had cerebral palsy, as she played near her home in October 2012 and could not remember what he did with the body.

Her father, Paul, said the demolition of the house today was “closure”.

“It’s a closure, and the end of a chapter, and perhaps we can move on a bit,” he told BBC News.

His wife, Coral, added that the past two years have been tough, but that the family “just remember the happy times, not the nightmare”.

She said that they had been to the scene before, but today ‘opened up a wound’.

Police found a huge cache of pornographic images of young children on Bridger’s computer, his trial heard. He also had images downloaded from Facebook of April’s teenage half-sisters.

April’s body has never been found despite hundreds of members of the public joining the police search of the mountainous area criss-crossed by rivers near her hometown of Machynlleth in mid-Wales.

Blood and tiny bone fragments found at Bridger’s cottage were a near-perfect match with April’s DNA.

The house was later bought by the Welsh government.

Additional reporting by AFP.

Read: April Jones’s killer attacked in prison >

More: Man found guilty of murdering 5-year-old April Jones >

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