Town's final farewell to April Jones at funeral
[gallery] April Jones was was laid to rest following a funeral that will start the "long and painful journey of healing".
Reverend Kathleen Rogers told mourners she hoped today's service will be the start of a return to normality for the traumatised town of Machynlleth.
The town came to a standstill this afternoon as thousands of people dressed in pink lined the streets to paid their respects.
April's coffin was taken by a white horse-drawn hearse from her home in the town's Bryn y Gog estate to St Peter's Church.
Parents Coral and Paul Jones and April's sister and brother, Jazmin and Harley followed, joined by a long line of mourners on foot.
The church minister said today: "A funeral plays a significant part in the grieving process. Our prayer is that it will be a starting point for the family as they travel the long and painful journey of healing. It will also, I think, give the community permission to bring some sort of normality back to our town."
Search teams who spent months looking for the murdered five-year-old were today among mourners paying their last respects. Most wore pink, April's favourite colour.
A poem called April - written by a local man, Jim Marshall, at the time of April's disappearance - was read out at the funeral service by Sian Calban, a teacher at April's school.
Senior police detectives and police search officers who took part in the biggest missing person hunt in UK policing history joined April's parents Coral and Paul Jones and family and friends inside the church.
The search covered 32sq km of land around the town and many volunteer searchers stayed in Machynlleth for weeks following April's abduction on October 1 last year.
Just 17 tiny pieces of bone, fragments of her skull, were recovered by detectives from the fireplace of Mark Bridger's cottage but no body has ever been found. An inquest into her death, which concluded on September 16, allowed a death certificate to be issued so April's funeral could take place. Bridger, 47, from Ceinws, is serving a life sentence for April's murder.
Today's funeral was kept simple, with hymns and prayers but no eulogies. Balloons were released at the end of the service and a private burial followed.
Mr and Mrs Jones said their hurt has been made worse because they do not know what happened to April's remains.
Mrs Jones said: "Our hell this past year has been made worse because we did not have April's body."
Star comment: Town united in grief for little April Jones
