Updated at 1.25pm

THE MAN WHO killed 5-year-old April Jones in Wales in 2012 has dropped his application for permission to appeal against the whole-life sentence he was handed last year.

The 47-year-old had been due to face a hearing on the appeal later this month.

But the Judicial Office for England and Wales confirmed via a Tweet this morning that Bridger had dropped the application:

Bridger was sentenced last May for the abduction and murder of the five-year-old, from the market town of Machynlleth in Powys, Wales.

The young girl’s disappearance in October of 2012 sparked one of the biggest searches in Britain’s history after she vanished while playing near her home.

Bridger, a former slaughterhouse worker, had denied murdering April, but claimed he had accidentally ran her over with his Land Rover and then could not remember what he had done with the body.

But a jury convicted him of abducting and murdering the 5-year-old, and of unlawfully disposing of and concealing her body with intent to pervert the course of justice.

April’s body has never been found.

First posted at 1.13pm.

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