Inside Mark Bridger's house: Murder trial jurors shown around rooms where police forensic team discovered April Jones's blood

Even in the brilliant sunshine it was a dark, depressing place to be.
The blood had long since dried, and everything connected to that night was 60 miles away in evidence bags or captured on police photographs.
The one thing everyone knew about Mount Pleasant Cottage was that this was where April Jones is said to have been taken when her innocent young life was snatched away.

The court-released photograph of the living room at Mark Bridger's retired cottage, Mount Pleasant, on a hillside near April's home town of Machynlleth

Bathroom tiles: The green arrows denote where police say they found April's blood following Mark Bridger's arrest

Investigation: The prosecution also allege that April's DNA was discovered in the hallway of the cottage

Bathroom: Police says blood was found on the inside of the door of this washing machine

Now 12 ordinary people with an extraordinary task would see for themselves the place that gave up the last known trace of the missing five-year-old.

In the spectacular Mid Wales countryside yesterday, nine women and three men on a murder trial jury visited the house which, the prosecution suggests, she was destined never to leave alive.
Precisely what happened here is something prosecuting lawyers say only one man must know. But Mark Bridger, the former lifeguard accused of April’s murder, insists he accidentally ran her over and has ‘no recollection’ of driving her here to his home as she lay ‘dead or dying’ beside him in his Land Rover.

Visit: Jurors arrive by coach at the home of Mark Bridger, Mount Pleasant in Ceinws, Mid Wales, on the third day of his trial for the abduction and murder of April Jones. it is surrounded by trees, outbuildings and a river runs down its left side

Trial: Mark Bridger says that he ran April down with his car but cannot remember what he did with her because he had been drinking heavily, claims which the prosecution refute

Poignant: Floral tributes and a single candle burns outside the white-washed cottage this morning,which the jurors stopped to look at

The Crown says he was already trying to clean April’s blood from the rooms as hundreds of volunteers were scouring streets and countryside in the hope of finding her alive.
Bridger, 47, says he wishes only that he could remember where he put her.
The strong smell of cleaning products that originally greeted detectives had evaporated, the jury were told earlier, but otherwise it was much the same as it would have been that night seven months ago.
Twelve pairs of feet paced quietly around the house; twelve sombre faces came out, some visibly shaken.
Three bouquets and a teddy bear had been left beneath the Mount Pleasant sign.

Case: The prosecution say DNA and bone was uncovered in and around the fire and the bathroom door (right) despite a huge cleaning operation by the suspect, Mark Bridger

Home: Around his possessions blood was also allegedly found on and surrounding this white leather sofa

From photographs released by the court, it was possible yesterday to take a virtual tour of the tiny cottage perched on a hillside a short drive from Machynlleth, the small market town where April lived.
At first glance it looks little different from any rural home a middle-aged man might be renting, and certainly just as untidy. Cans of strong cider that Bridger bought with that day’s benefit cheque are on the floor beneath a mounted rifle; snapshots are framed on the walls; clothes spill from a laundry basket.

Cottage: The property is in an isolated location, where witnesses say they saw Bridger pull up there in his Land Rover on the day of her disappearance

What is not immediately apparent is the significance of the wood-burning stove in the lounge, a typical feature of homes such as this. But this is where fragments of juvenile skull were recovered from the ashes, and where nearby specks of April’s blood were found.
Not visible on the stove is the former abattoir worker’s boning knife, which, the jury heard, had a charred handle. More blood spots were found in the hallway and bathroom, highlighted with green arrows placed by forensic experts who searched the cottage.
Prosecuting counsel Miss Elwen Evans QC has told the jury that Bridger was ‘forensically aware’ and went to extensive lengths to remove potentially incriminating evidence before or after disposing of the body. If that was the case, the jury would have seen at first hand the evidence that the attempt did not quite work.
Later they were taken to the roadside layby near where Bridger was seen carrying a black bin bag some 13 hours after April disappeared.
The jury’s day trip from Mold Crown Court began with the same chronology that unfolded on October 1 last year, with a visit to the spot where April was playing on the street outside her home that evening with a friend. The last anyone saw of her, according to the prosecution, was when she got into the passenger seat of Bridger’s distinctive Land Rover Discovery parked nearby.
Back then, almost the entire town took to the streets to search for April. Now the same streets were virtually deserted as the jurors, plus a small battalion of court officials, held open-air sessions and a guided tour by coach. One face was missing, though – Bridger, who denies abduction, murder and perverting the course of justice, did not join the tour.

In the dock: Mark Bridger drawn in court yesterday, as the jury heard he claimed he had searched for April Jones all night, but was seen with a black bin bag by a river the next day

Had it not been for the police escort, the group might easily have passed as geography field trip enthusiasts of the kind sometimes seen in these parts.
But the man in an anonymous grey suit was the judge, Mr Justice Griffith-Williams, and the coach party included barristers from both sides of the case.
Each time one of them gestured with an arm towards some significant piece of evidence, twelve pairs of eyes followed it.
Among the sights were April’s school, where Bridger went on October 1 to his daughter’s open evening; the clock tower, where he claims to have ‘panicked’ before allegedly losing all recollection of what happened next, and the CCTV cameras that picked up Bridger’s various movements that day until he drove off with April, allegedly to commit what the prosecution claims was a ‘sexually motivated’ crime.
Thus, the coach party effectively traced his known route to the point at which he has said his memory now fails him. On everyone’s account, it was April’s final journey.
The trial continues.

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