THE family of murdered Jenna Brookfield were marking the anniversary of the last sighting of the Abersychan teenager by laying flowers at her grave today.

Jenna's grandmother, Olive Brookfield, 80, said members of the family were making a pilgrimage to the 15-year-old's grave at Panteg cemetery. Jenna was last seen on September 4 last year.

In the 12 months that have passed since Jenna's disappearance, family and friends have been on a rollercoaster of emotions as what began as a missing persons' enquiry turned into a murder investigation.

Then, at the end of October, her stepfather Mike Baldwin, 36, of Limekiln Road, Pontnewynydd, was arrested and charged on suspicion of her murder.

He was in custody for three weeks before he confessed to burying her in a shallow grave in a lay-by between Fiddler's Elbow and the Cordell Country Inn on Blorenge Mountain.

In July, a jury at Cardiff crown court found Baldwin unanimously guilty of Jenna's murder and he was jailed for life.

Following the painstaking recovery of her body, Jenna was allowed a dignified burial at Panteg cemetery in December after an emotional funeral service at Trinity Methodist Church, Aber-sychan.

Last night, Mrs Brookfield, of Waunddu, Pontnew-ynydd, said Jenna was very much in her mind last month when pupils her age across the country collected their GCSE results.

Mrs Brookfield said: "I think Jenna would have done very well.

"When I saw all the girls on television going to school to get their results I was wishing she could have been one of them.

"She will never leave us and what happened is something you will never forget.

"I think about her every day and if I see a girl with a blonde ponytail I sometimes think it is Jenna, but it is just wishful thinking."

She added: "There are days when I can't even get it through my head that she is gone and I'm expecting her to walk through the door.

"You see things like this in the papers or on the television but you never expect it to come to you. I never thought I would get to 80 and my only granddaughter would be murdered."

Jenna's school, Abersychan Comprehensive, will pay tribute to her next month by holding a minute's silence during a presentation evening for former Year 11 pupils.