Missing Welsh schoolgirl April Jones had a “happy face” when she got in to a vehicle on the day she disappeared, the jury in Mark Bridger’s trial heard on Tuesday.
A seven-year-old child who was playing with April at the time gave a statement to police which was recorded the day after April disappeared last October.
This witness statement was played to the jury in Mold as the girl watched on a video-link.
Bridger, 47, denies abducting and murdering April, who vanished from near her home in Machynlleth, mid-Wales. He also denies intending to pervert the course of justice by disposing of, concealing or destroying April’s body.
Her disappearance triggered one of Britain’s biggest-ever police searches, but her body has not been found.
In the recorded interview, the girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, sat on a sofa playing with a brown rabbit cuddly toy.
She told police the children had been playing on the Bryn-Y-Gog estate when she saw April “by a Land Rover van”.
The child added: “She did not say she was going to go in it. I know they (April’s parents) wouldn’t let her go at that time.
“The man didn’t take her in the van — she got into the van, having a happy face she had and she wasn’t upset.”
The prosecution alleges April was abducted by Bridger, who drove her away in his Land Rover Discovery and killed her in a sexually-motivated murder.
Prosecutors say he was seen in a field with a black bin bag the following morning and that bone fragments from a child and blood matching April’s DNA were later found at his home.
Bridger says he accidentally killed April, who had cerebral palsy, by running her over and cannot remember what he did with her body because of memory loss caused by alcohol and panic.
April Jones had a 'happy face' when she got in to car
