Google and Microsoft last night faced demands to act over the shocking ease with which child killer Mark Bridger used the internet to fuel his perversion.
Bridger, sentenced yesterday to spend the rest of his life in jail for murdering five-year-old April Jones, had a sickening library of violent child pornography.
It follows the revelation that Stuart Hazell, the man convicted earlier this month of killing 12-year-old Tia Sharp, regularly downloaded child abuse images on his mobile phone.
Locked up: April Jones's killer Mark Bridger is pictured in drag. He had a sickening library of child pornography
Jailed: Sexual predator and murderer Mark Bridger is taken from court to start his whole life sentence in jail
Children’s charities and online protection experts are now calling for search sites to crack down on the way paedophiles can feed their fantasies with simple online searches.
The verdict on 47-year-old Bridger, a former slaughterman, was delivered as:
- April’s parents begged him to reveal where he dumped her body, adding they would forever live with guilt for allowing her out to play that night;
- The heartbroken family asked for the return of 17 fragments of skull from Bridger’s home, the only traces of April that have been found, so they can lay her remains to rest;
- The Mail reveals Bridger’s history of lies and deceit, taking on multiple identities, cross-dressing and using brute force during a series of violent relationships with vulnerable young women;
- The mother of one of Bridger’s six children tells how he punched her in the stomach when she was a pregnant 17-year-old to try to force a miscarriage;
- The financial cost of his lies is exposed, with his refusal to confess costing the public up to £9million to cover exhaustive police searches for April, as well as lawyers’ fees and court costs.
Bridger used the search engines Google and Bing, which is owned by Microsoft, to look up terms including ‘naked five-year-old girls’, ‘nudism five-year-olds’ and ‘pictures of naked virgin teens’.
Mother and daughter: Coral Jones cuddles smiling April tightly. She described how the family will never recover from her death
He also used Facebook to access photographs of local girls, including April and her half-sisters aged 13 and 16, and went online to save images of murdered Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
Child safety charities, including the NSPCC, demanded that the internet giants introduce immediate controls to stop paedophiles gaining access to child pornography.
John Carr of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety said: ‘If these images were not available on the internet then men like Hazell and Bridger might not go on to kill.
‘We cannot blame the internet for these people but it has opened pathways that lead them on to violent pornography and paedophile material.’
After five weeks of horrifying evidence at Mold Crown Court in North Wales, the jury of nine women and three men unanimously found Bridger guilty of abduction, murder and perverting the course of justice.
Mr Justice Griffith Williams told him: ‘You are a pathological and glib liar. There is no doubt in my mind that you are a paedophile who has for some time harboured sexual and morbid fantasies about young girls, storing on your laptop not only images of pre-pubescent and pubescent girls, but foul pornography of the gross sexual abuse of young children.’
Bridger stared ahead blankly and nodded as the judge imposed a whole life order, which condemns him to die behind bars. Only 47 other criminals in the UK have been handed such a sentence.
Fantasist: Mark Bridger, who is 'pathological liar and cold-blooded killer', will never leave jail and waiting people yelled 'b******' as he was taken in cuffs to the man
Brave: April Jones's mother Coral spoke outside court, beside her husband Paul, and said they were relieved that Mark Bridger was found guilty
Bridger abducted April on the evening of October 1 last year as she played on her pink bicycle with her best friend close to their homes on the Bryn-y-Gog estate in Machynlleth, Mid-Wales.
He lured April into his Land Rover Discovery and drove her to Mount Pleasant Cottage, the remote rented home where he had been living alone since his girlfriend dumped him.
There, police believe, Bridger murdered her, dismembering her body before disposing of it in different locations.
Despite a huge effort by police and volunteers, April has never been found. Tiny fragments of a child’s skull, however, were discovered in Bridger’s wood burning stove, alongside a boning knife.
On his Acer laptop, detectives found an incriminating library of vile images. He had found the violent child porn by searching on Google for simple terms, including: ‘France: British schoolgirl raped and murdered.’
Trial: Mark Bridger faces life in prison for the murder of April Jones, after the jury accepted compelling evidence he had abducted and murdered her in a 'sexually motivated' attack
Happier times: Paul and Coral Jones, hold April and their other children on their wedding day, before their 'beautiful daughter' was taken from them
Bridger saved photographs of various child murder victims, including ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, murdered by paedophile school caretaker Ian Huntley in 2002.
He had also downloaded numerous sadistic cartoons representing ‘extremely young girls’ suffering sexual abuse.
Facebook photographs of local young girls were also found on his laptop, with files specifically dedicated to April’s half-sisters aged 13 and 16.
Pictures of April, who had cerebral palsy and was born with a hole in her heart, were accessed just eight days before she was abducted.
Bridger admitted killing April, but insisted he accidentally ran her over before ‘blacking out’ and forgetting what he did with her body.
Brave: Paul and Coral Jones, the parents of April Jones arrive at Mold Crown Court, where they have been every day during their daughter's killer's murder trial
Tragic: April Jones was abducted while she played on her bike (pictured), probably lured by Bridger into his car with the promise of a sleepover with his daughter
Cold-blooded: Killer Mark Bridger had pictures of himself holding this gun on his Facebook profile
Grim discovery: Mark Bridger's burnt knife recovered from his property in Ceinws, where April may have died
But his despicable web of lies was destroyed by April’s best friend. The seven-year-old girl became the central witness in the case, bravely describing seeing April climb into Bridger’s car, ‘happy and smiling’. Yesterday, as the jury dismissed his pathetic cover story, experts spoke about how his obsession with online porn, and the ease with which he could access the vile images, contributed to his ‘sexually motivated’ attack on April.
Jon Brown of the NSPCC said: ‘Internet companies make millions and millions of pounds every year.
‘Google need to do more in terms of blocking searches for child abuse imagery but they also need to alert the authorities if someone is blatantly doing these searches.
Arrival: The media watch as Mark Bridger arrives in a prison before he is found guilty of killing the five-year-old
‘We are very concerned that the ease with which they can get child abuse images to fuel their fantasies.’
A report by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre has identified a link between viewing child porn online and ‘contact’ sexual offences against children.
Scott Rubin, director of communications and public affairs at Google, said: ‘Google has a zero-tolerance policy on child sexual abuse content. When we discover child abuse imagery or are made aware of it, we respond quickly to remove and report it to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.’
A spokesman for Microsoft added: ‘When we are made aware of any illegal content we remove it from our services, including our search engine, and report it to the police.’
Upsetting: April Jones was shown on CCTV inside her local leisure centre after going swimming. The time shows almost5.30pm and within two hours she had disappeared
Video: April is then seen heading through the doors after swimming with her sister and best friend - the last image that exists of the missing schoolgirl
Evil: The jury saw images of Bridger's Land Rover Discovery heading away from town - April would already have been in the passenger seat after being abducted near her home
Images: The jury were show Mark Bridger leaving his house and walking his dog on the day after he took April Jones
Lounge: This is Mark Bridger's living room, where forensics found blood and bone fragments, a room which was shown to jurors
MARK BRIDGER'S PATH TO MURDER: HOW APRIL'S ABDUCTION UNFOLDED
17.20 After spending morning watching child porn, Mark Bridger attends parents evening at Machynlleth Junior School. One teacher thinks he may have had a 'couple of drinks'
17:55 - 19:10 numerous sightings of Bridger on the Bryn-y-Gog estate in his car, including by a 10-year-old girl who was asked by Bridger if she wanted to go on a 'sleepover' at his house.
Around 19:00 April Jones is playing on her bike with friends near her home on the Bryn-Y-Gog estate when she goes missing. According to a child witness, she is taken away in a van or a four-wheel drive vehicle and there are no apparent signs of a struggle or an accident.
19:19 Camera sees what is believed to be Bridger's vehicle at the war memorial in Machynlleth and then past a nearby garage with April probably inside.
22:40 Dyfed-Powys Police issue a statement saying they are "increasingly concerned" for April.
08.42 Bridger spotted carrying a rolled up plastic binbag on a riverbank or in Ceinws.
10:42 Police helicopter footage shows him walking a dog. Footage also focuses on his house. There is smoke coming from his chimney. The jury was told that fragments from a 'juvenile skull' were found in his wood burner.
14.10 Bridger joins a group of 20 people who are searching for April telling them he had been searching all morning near his home for her.
15.00 Police search his house, finding it had been cleaned from 'top to bottom' and the heating cranked up
15:30 Bridger is arrested walking on the road between Ceinws and Machynlleth in connection with April's abduction and is later charged with her murder.
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