April's Law: Parliament will debate petition after it reaches 100,000 signatures overnight
Parliament will debate a petition launched by the family of murdered schoolgirl April Jones, which topped the 100,000 signature threshold overnight.
Parliament considers all petitions that get more than 100,000 signatures for a debate and April's parents, Coral and Paul Jones, of Machynlleth, gained 110,000 signatures today backing April's Law, with around 60,000 to 70,000 people adding their names since yesterday.
Their petition calls for all sex offenders to remain on the register for life; for service providers and internet search engines to be better policed over images of child abuse; and for harsher sentences for those caught with indecent images of children.
The family took to Facebook saying how they had been heartbroken to watch a petition to prevent a state visit Donald Trump to the UK rise every second by hundreds of signatures, rising to 1.25 million, while their petition to protect children had been stuck at 37,249 signatures.
Their frustrating plight had been made worse after struggling to track down the author of a previous petition for April's Law, which received more than 70,000 signatures.
April's disappearance sparked the biggest search in UK police history, with officers and members of the public from across the country flocking to the town to offer help.
Coral, who was unavailable for comment today, previously said: "It's been four years and nothing has been done, we're still waiting for April's Law, a law which could help and protect other families and children.
"April was an innocent five-year-old girl who went through hell, we don't want other families to go through what we went through, that's why we want action now, for April."
Five-year-old April Jones was murdered by paedophile Mark Bridger after being abducted from outside her home in Machynlleth on October 1, 2012.
Before April's abduction he was looking at child pornography. He had more than 500 indecent imagines of children on his computer.
Bridger, who lived in nearby Ceinws, was given a whole life jail term at Mold Crown Court in May 2013, after being found guilty of the youngster's abduction and murder in what the judge said was a "sexually motivated" attack.
