Please let April come home to us by NADIA GILANI

THE parents of missing five-year-old April Jones last night pleaded for her kidnapper to let her go.

Coral Jones, 40, and her husband Paul, 43, issued their heartfelt plea as police questioned a suspect over their daughter’s disappearance.

They said: ‘Last night our lives were shattered when our beautiful little girl, April, who was playing with friends, was taken from us.

‘We are devastated and our lives have stopped. Please, please if you have our little girl, let her come home to us.’

The appeal came hours after officers detained a 46-year-old man, thought to be Mark Bridger, as they patrolled the north of the Powys town of Machynlleth.

He was said to be a person they were looking for in connection with April’s disappearance on Monday evening. A vehicle, which he ‘had use of and which is of interest to the inquiry’, was also being examined by forensic officers last night.

Bridger was said to be well known in the town and to April’s family but was not a relative.

Det Supt Reg Bevan said officers were ‘hopeful the suspect will assist us in locating April’ and that the hunt was continuing ‘with the view that she is still alive’.

April was last seen getting willingly into a van while playing with friends near her home.

Hundreds of people joined the hunt for the five-year-old yesterday, while the armed forces and specialist teams equipped with thermal imaging cameras were drafted in.

Police are also checking for links to another attempted abduction in the area a week ago. They are investigating the movements of registered sex offenders living in the area.