‘There are no words to bring her back’

FOR Linda and Tony Jones, the trial of Stuart Campbell has not provided closure.

The man who murdered their daughter Danielle is now behind bars, beginning a life sentence.

But for the teenager’s parents, the pain of their loss is heightened by the fact that her body has never been found. Only Campbell, the girl’s uncle, knows what happened and where she is buried.

But he has so far refused to acknowledge his guilt, and the secret is still locked in his head.

“There will never be any closure until Danielle is found,” says Tony Jones.

“The trial is just a small part of it.”

His wife Linda agrees that the biggest problem is simply not knowing what happened to Danielle.

“I drive past fields and wonder if she is lying there,” she says.

“I can’t bear the thought of her lying all alone in the dark. Danielle didn’t like the dark.”

Mrs Jones says that when Danielle went missing, on 18 June last year, it was difficult to accept what had happened.

“It was totally unthinkable that she was dead.

“For the first couple of weeks I couldn’t go to sleep. I wouldn’t leave home and we didn’t lock the front door just in case Danielle returned.

“It all seemed like a bad dream. It wasn’t real; it wasn’t happening to us.

“I think after a couple of weeks I knew she wouldn’t be coming home.”

For Tony, it took longer.

“I didn’t want to accept it,” he says.

Looking back over the past year, Linda Jones describes the strain on herself and her husband.

“Tony is a very private man and he has found it difficult to talk to people outside the family about Danielle.

“We are both angry, and those feelings of anger sometimes bubble up and cause turmoil in our relationship.

“The whole thing has knocked the stuffing out of us.”

In the weeks before the trial, Mr and Mrs Jones were reluctant to discuss their feelings towards the man who killed their daughter.

But the sense of betrayal over the actions of Danielle’s uncle is obvious.

Mrs Jones said: “It is the fact that a close, trusted member of the family has done this to us. It has caused severe problems. There are days when you are getting up and you wonder what the point is,” she says.

“Until she is found, I don’t know that it will change.

“Everything is still too raw to contemplate the future.

“The boys are our purpose for carrying on.

“If Danielle had been an only child, I think I might not be here now.”

The anniversary of Danielle’s disappearance, 18 June, was a painful day.

“It was particularly hard to accept that it was a year since we had last seen our daughter,” says Linda.

“Friends phoned us on the day of the anniversary, but there are no words of comfort. There are no words to bring Danielle back.”