'Mark Bridger beat me when I was pregnant with his child and kept photos of my injuries', says killer's ex-lover

Keeley Reynolds was a happy-go-lucky teenager when she caught Mark Bridger’s roving eye.
She was just 17 and saw him as her ‘first love’. He would go on to subject her to years of physical abuse – punching her in the stomach whilst she was pregnant with their child.
Almost 26 years later, she described how the man she thought was a ‘gentleman’ isolated her from her family and friends before regularly beating her.

Battered and bruised: Mark Bridger's ex-partner Keeley Reynolds pictured with the couple's baby Bobby, was subjected to years of physical abuse at the killer's hands

Guilty: Mark Bridger is pictured being led off to prison yesterday after he was found guilty of killing schoolgirl April Jones

After his violent attacks Bridger would take pictures of Miss Reynolds with a bruised face and place them in the family album as mementoes of his abuse.
Miss Reynolds became a shadow of her former self and for years was unable to escape from Bridger’s systematic cruelty.
She was devastated by her experience and went on to have years of therapy after suffering flashbacks and panic attacks.

Now 43 and a mother of four, she says she has finally managed to close the door on her past.
It was in 1987 that Bridger, then 21, moved to North Wales after leaving his Surrey home in disgrace following a conviction for firearms offences.
He first lived on a beach when he moved to North Wales after buying survival equipment and camping gear. He then moved into a B&B near Miss Reynolds’s home in the tight-knit community of Blaenau Ffestiniog.
‘He was a very good looking lad and there were lots of ladies’ eyes on him,’ she said.

Monster: Keeley Reynolds met killer Mark Bridger, pictured in a police mugshot, when she was just 17

‘He was a charmer and gentlemanly. He always made me feel safe around him.
‘We started dating two months after we met and he was my first boyfriend. I naively believed everything he said even when he told me he’d had a vasectomy.’
Six months later she realised Bridger had lied to her when she became pregnant with their son, Bobby, now 24.
This marked a turning point in their relationship, with Bridger refusing to accept impending fatherhood and becoming increasingly aggressive.
‘He must have thought he was being trapped and losing control so he became volatile,’ said Miss Reynolds.
‘He started having arguments with me, regularly disappearing to the pub and it became common knowledge that he was sleeping with local married women behind my back.
‘He would speak to me through clenched teeth and I knew that things were going to take a turn for the worse.’
Despite her fears, Miss Reynolds left her family home to be with Bridger after he argued with her mother, Derry.
‘I was in love with him and thought he felt the same about me. His plan had worked. He had managed to get me on my own and completely isolate me.’
The young homeless couple moved into a caravan, where Bridger attacked a seven-months-pregnant Miss Reynolds.
‘He just flipped, grabbing me by the hair and punching me in the stomach before forcing me on to the floor and kicking me. I was so terrified I froze.
‘He did this a couple of times and every time he lost his temper he wouldn’t scream or shout. He was very cold and calculated and seemed to know exactly what he was up to.’
The couple moved into a council house. Bridger was now working in a hotel.

Victim: Five-year-old April Jones was kidnapped while she played outside her home in Wales last year

‘For a short while in our new home the beatings stopped.
'I secretly hoped he had changed. I was wrong and he started hitting me again but this time he focused on my face and would punch me until I was black and blue.
‘My mother would visit but he had just beat me so he would tell her that I wasn’t in. He would make me sit on a step for hours on end, sometimes for six hours at a time and he would feed me.

‘He would smack me in the face until it was blue and then make me pose for a photograph with Bobby on my lap and put them in the family album.’

Keeley Reynolds

'It was almost as if he was treating me like a child or animal.’
Bobby was born in August 1988.
‘Mark became this loving father helping me with the feeds and bringing us home from hospital. But it only lasted a short while and then he was back to his old tricks.
‘He would smack me in the face until it was blue and then make me pose for a photograph with Bobby on my lap and put them in the family album.’
Bridger would parade Miss Reynolds in front of his friends showing them the injuries he had inflicted on her. In 1989 he subjected her to one of his most horrific attacks leaving her lying on the floor in a pool of blood.
‘He had smacked my head against the fireplace and just left me lying on the floor for ages.
‘I really thought he was going to kill me that day. But after he did it he just coldly walked over my body and then left. Bobby saw the whole thing.’

Tragic: The schoolgirl's body has never been recovered despite an extensive police search

Miss Reynolds’s stepfather Denys and mother heard about the attack and cowardly Bridger fled to Machynlleth. He tried to establish contact with Miss Reynolds but she refused to see him.
He made maintenance payments of £5 per week for two years before he completely lost contact with his young family until Miss Reynolds heard of his arrest over April’s murder.
‘It was a complete shock seeing him on the TV and it has been particularly hard for Bobby,’ she said.

'I always had this feeling that he would do something bad. It’s hard to accept that someone I had a child with has done this to someone else’s little girl.'

Keeley Reynolds

‘But he hasn’t seen him since he was a child and he never wants to see him again.
‘To this day I still don’t understand why Mark turned out like he did. I met his family and they were very nice.
'I always got the impression that he was the black sheep of the family but they loved him.
‘But I always had this feeling that he would do something bad. It’s hard to accept that someone I had a child with has done this to someone else’s little girl.
‘He is a manipulative and controlling man with a unique ability to detach himself after doing awful things to other people. I will never forget his cold, evil eyes after he beat me.
‘He was incredibly methodical about his actions and had this way of disconnecting himself and I feel that’s exactly what he has done in this situation.’

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