April Jones: Special Service In Her Honour

Hundreds of people have turned out to pay their respects as an emotional service took place for missing five-year-old April Jones.

It is almost a week since the five-year-old, who suffers from cerebral palsy, disappeared while playing near her home in Machynlleth.

A procession of more than 700 people, many wearing pink ribbons symbolising the faith that April remains alive, walked slowly through the Welsh town towards the St Peter's Church.

The town's residents gathered at the Bryn-y-Gog estate from where April was abducted on Monday evening.

Reverend Kathleen Rogers opened the service, offering prayers for April's parents Coral, 40, and Paul, 44, who did not attend the ceremony.

She said: "We cannot bring little April, our sweet and innocent little girl, home as we had hoped. But our hope has now been moved on to sure and certain hope that she is in the arms of Jesus.

"Coral and Paul may not be with us this morning, but we hold them very close in our hearts as we pray for them.

"There are hundreds of people today searching our town, our countryside, our river. Many hundreds more have been searching this last week.

"We thank them and we pray for them as they came to us in our hour of need and they continue to be with us."

There was a moment of silence before the congregation sang the Welsh hymn Morning Has Broken and Reverend Rogers read a touching poem on behalf of April's mother called "Mum".

The Bishop of Bangor, the Right Reverend Andrew John, also led the prayers.

He said: "It's all designed to understand and make sense of what's happening, give an outlet for anguish, for grief, but at the same time collect people together and provide a focus for continued hope - that's our main aim.

"We are going to use pink. There will be a book of hope, which has prayers and thoughts all for April, that will be processed down the church and placed on the altar. A pink candle, her favourite colour, will be lit."

There have been daily vigils at the church.

"It does give them lots of strength, we hope it does anyway. It's certainly helping us, it's testing our faith isn't it, but it's bringing a lot of people into the church," said Joyce Price, a church warden.

"We were hoping there would be a conclusion today, but there still isn't. We're just hoping and praying hard, and can't imagine what her parents are going through."

The service came as the search for April entered its sixth day. Dozens more police officers are now expected to be drafted in but Mountain Rescue teams are pulling out.

Superintendent Ian John told Sky News: "It's fair to say that we'll see a scaling back of the mountain rescue effort. But a doubling of the effort really within the police element, we've got 10 teams here today (Sunday).

"If we don't find April today we've got 18 teams coming tomorrow (Monday) and continue that search with the same momentum and the same element of rigour that we've had since day one."

At the Dfyi Bridge, on the road out of town, water search units took to the river again where levels dropped by around a foot overnight. The search is now focused downriver from Machynlleth.

Two underwater cameras were mounted on poles to scour the deeper parts of the River Dfyi. Ian Marshall and his search dog Barra travelled from Loch Lomond to help.

"This is such an important thing to do now. We have to find April wherever she is. My heart goes out to the family," he said.

Mark Bridger, 46, was charged on Saturday with April's abduction and murder, as well as perverting the course of justice.

He will appear before Aberystwyth Magistrates' Court on Monday.