My daughter was killed by her uncle – never finding her body is a daily torment that haunts me

Danielle Jones was 15 when she disappeared on her way to school in East Tilbury in Essex 18 years ago.

Her uncle Stuart Campbell was given a life sentence for the teenager’s murder – but he has never revealed where her body is.

After it was announced that murderers will be refused parole if they refuse to reveal the location of their victims’ remains, Danielle’s mother Linda Jones tells Sky News why she hopes Helen’s Law will help end the pain of never knowing where her daughter’s body is.

When anyone loses someone close to them, there is the period before the funeral when you’re in limbo and there is unbelievable pain.

I’ve had that limbo for 18 years. Our family has never had closure.

The grief of losing a daughter has been compounded by the fact that we’ve never been able to put her body to rest.

It’s a constant aching feeling.

If you lose a child under any circumstances, that feeling would be there. But we’ve never had a chance to say goodbye to Danielle. That’s a daily torment.

She’s been discarded as far as we’re concerned. Knowing that is an unbearable pain because she’s just been thrown wherever.

We’ve never said goodbye to her and we’ve never given her a place of peace. That disturbs me and I’m haunted by it.

You put on a brave face when you go out and people think everything’s fine but inside there is constant turmoil.

A big part of me has accepted that we will probably never know where Danielle is but there is now hope.

Helen’s Law is a bit like dangling a carrot. Campbell has the option to either admit what he’s done, tell us where Danielle is and give us the final peace we need as a family – or he can choose to stay where he is in jail.

Whether, in the next couple of years, he’ll think that through seriously and do the right thing, I don’t know. But it gives us the best chance to get him to reveal what he did.

I believe murderers who refuse to reveal the location of the bodies of victims should never be released.

The old saying of “lock them up and throw away the key” was something we’d gone along with in the past.

As much as part of me doesn’t want him to be released, I also need my daughter back.

If Campbell is prepared to give us that one thing we desperately need then we have to be gracious enough to say: “Okay you’ve done what was asked of you, you’ve served your time, you can come out” – not that I particularly want him to do.

I understand that the process of wanting something also means giving something.

Finding out what happened to Danielle and where she is would mean the world to me.

It would mean she can be laid to rest where she is safe, where we know where she is and we can go and visit.

I believe Campbell hasn’t told us where Danielle’s body is because he wants to be in control. I think he’s the sort of person that needs that control.

He supposedly loved her – well, why would he not want her to be somewhere where her family can go?

Campbell is due to be released in two years. I only hope Helen’s Law is in place in time to help us finally learn where our daughter is and get the closure we so desperately need.

(c) Sky News 2019: My daughter was killed by her uncle – never finding her body is a daily torment that haunts me