In Britain, former slaughterhouse worker Mark Bridger will spend the rest of his life in prison for the abduction and murder of schoolgirl April Jones. The 5-year-old vanished while playing on her bike near her home on the Bryn y Gog estate in Machynlleth in Wales on October 1st last year.

Her body has never been found despite the biggest search in British policing history.

Bridger was given a whole life sentence by trial judge Mr. Justice Griffith Williams after he was convicted by a jury at Mold Crown Court of April's abduction and murder and of perverting the course of justice by unlawfully disposing, destroying or concealing her body.

The 47-year-old stood impassively as sentence was handed down but shook his head when the judge addressed his perverted interest in violent child abuse.

Calling him a "pathological and glib liar", the judge said "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."

The judge added that Bridger had stored on his laptop "not only images of pre-pubescent and pubescent girls but foul pornography of the gross sexual abuse of young children".

Bridger had denied the allegations and claimed he killed the youngster when he accidentally ran over her, but could not remember what he did with the body because he was drunk and panicking.

In his sentencing remarks, the judge said Bridger had abducted April "for a sexual purpose and then murdered her and disposed of her body to hide the evidence of your sexual abuse of her". He said it could not be inferred from the evidence where he murdered the schoolgirl "but if she was alive when you took her to the house, she died there".

"How you disposed of her body must remain a mystery. It will serve no purpose for me to speculate as to what happened but all the indications are that you burnt at least a part of her in the wood burner" he added.

The judge also said the "grief of April's parents cannot be over-stated" and that without knowledge of what happened to their daughter "her parents will probably never come to terms with their grievous loss".

Speaking outside court after the sentencing, April's mother Coral said the family were relieved by the verdict, adding "April will be forever in our hearts and we are so moved by the overwhelming support we have had from so many people all over the world."

The chief prosecutor said Bridger has "spun a relentless web of lies" and "refused to take responsibility for what he had done to April". He added that the former slaughterhouse worker had been "exposed as a violent, cold-hearted murdered" and brought to justice by the authorities.

The jury at Mold Crown Court returned the unanimous verdicts following 4 hours and 6 minutes of deliberations.

Bridger confessed that he may have disposed of April's body to a Catholic priest while on remand in Strangeways Prison in Manchester, it can be revealed.

Details of his cell-room conversation emerged during legal argument in the trial - but were never heard by the jury.

Elwen Evans QC, prosecuting, told the trial Bridger murdered 5-year-old April and then played a "cruel game" in an attempt to cover his tracks.

Drops of April's blood and fragments of bone, thought to have come from an adolescent human, were found by forensics officers at Bridger's rented cottage, Mount Pleasant, in Ceinws, Powys. It was visited by the jury in the first week of the trial.

Jurors were told that Bridger was a "fantasist" who had "a clear interest in child pornography and in child murder cases".

Images on his computer

He had been watching a brutal rape scene from the 2009 re-make of the slasher film, 'The Last House on the Left' "not long before" April was murdered, it can be reported for the first time. The jury was shown indecent images stored on a computer taken from the killer's home.

They included many extreme pictures of naked underage girls being sexually abused, as well as cartoon images featuring "monster sex" with "humanoids" abusing girls.

Bridger was also found to have images of April, her half-sisters, aged 13 and 16, and of the victims of "real-life" crimes including Soham victims Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in a folder labelled "Clothes".

On the day April was abducted, Bridger's girlfriend had ended their relationship and he had tried to ask out three different women on Facebook.

The youngster was playing near her home on the day disappeared with a seven-year-old friend, who told the court she had seen April get into Bridger's Land Rover. It is believed Bridger, who fathered six children with four different women, lured the schoolgirl into the vehicle with the false offer of a sleepover with his daughter.

"He isn't somebody that had been on our radar," Detective Superintendent Andy John, the senior investigating officer, said.

The next morning, unbeknown to him, Bridger was placed under police surveillance. He was spotted close to the River Dyfi, which runs through Machynlleth, carrying a plastic bag.

Police arrested him the same day close to the river, while he claimed to have been helping in the search of the missing schoolgirl.