The mother of April Jones has joined a campaign calling for two new laws to punish killers who desecrate murder victims’ bodies.

The campaign, called Stop the Desecration, was launched by Marie McCourt, the founder of the successful Helen’s Law campaign which denied parole to killers who do not disclose where their victims’ bodies are, this week.

Stop the Desecration, which Marie considers part two of Helen’s Law, calls for two new criminal offences, ‘desecration of a corpse’ and ‘concealing a body’.

April Jones was murdered by paedophile Mark Bridger after being abducted from outside her home in Machynlleth in October 2012, when she was just five-years-old.

April’s mother, Coral, has backed the Stop the Desecration campaign.

Speaking to a nation newspaper this week, Coral said: “My little girl is ‘still missing’ in the eyes of the law. “We were able to have a funeral but the coffin was empty apart from a few little bits of bones and personal items.

“The offences Bridger was convicted of don’t reflect the true horror of what he did. The law needs to be changed.”

Part one of Helen’s Law, or the Prisoners Act, received Royal Assent on 4 November 2020. It was passed after the “tireless campaigning of Marie McCourt, mother of Helen McCourt who was murdered in 1988 but whose killer has never revealed her body’s location”.

As well as denying parole, the new law also applied to paedophiles who make indecent images of children but do not identify their victims.

Marie, 78, told the Mirror: “As forensic detective methods become more sophisticated, killers are resorting to ever more desperate measures to hide evidence of their crimes. There has been a significant rise in cases of homicide victims being dismembered and burned.

“The distress that this causes to the victim’s family is untold.

“Yet all too often the killer receives no further punishment for these acts which are committed after the initial homicide.

“Other countries such as the United States of America, Australia, Germany and France all have crimes in place to address these appalling offences. The UK doesn’t. Without a change in the law cases will continue to rise.”

The only remains of April that were recovered were spots of her blood found at Bridger’s cottage and tiny bone fragments discovered in his log burner that the police believe are pieces of her skull.

On 1 October 2021, Demi Duncan marked the nine year anniversary of April’s abduction on the Facebook page Our Little Welsh Princess April Jones: “I’m sure April’s family would agree that let us today remember little April in happiness.

“Remember April today for her love, her cheeky smile and her joy for outdoors and fun. Think of her learning to ride her bicycle with her Father or baking cupcakes with her sister Jazmin. Think of April enjoying riding horses with her mother and running free on a beach with her brother Harley watched over by her grandparents.”