How can you make sense of this?

Children all across Bury returned to school after the half-term break on Monday, February 27 and the big news of the week was the controversial plans for school closures.

Emotions were running high after the council's executive committee voted to close Broad Oak and Prestwich Arts College, and the story was covered in time to meet the Wednesday afternoon deadline and was splashed across the front page of the Bury Times.

After most staff had left our office on Wednesday, Greater Manchester Police issued a press release on the disappearance of a schoolboy - 11-year-old Joe Geeling. At first glance, the case seemed like many other missing-from-home, with expectations that the youngster would soon turn up safe and well.

Joe was described as being approximately 4 feet tall, of slim build with short, dark blonde hair and a pale complexion.

He was believed to be wearing his school uniform - a blue blazer, dark grey trousers, black Timberland boots and a blue overcoat with a hood. He was carrying a dark coloured drawstring Nike bag with silver cords and a green stripe.

He had been dropped off at school that morning by his mum Gwen and had failed to return home afterwards. He usually walked home to Devon Street with a friend but the friend was absent from school that day.

The unusual aspect in Joe's case, was that the St Gabriel's pupil had cystic fibrosis and needed his medication. He had never been missing before and his disappearance was completely out of character.

Emergency services spent the night searching and by Thursday morning the police were growing increasingly concerned.

Due to his illness, Joe required daily treatment.

A press conference was arranged for 11.30am on Thursday at Whitefield Police Station and deputy news editor Dave Thomson was requested to attend, along with other representatives from the media.

Even at this stage, the general feeling and hope was that Joe would soon be reunited with his family.

And when I took a call from the Greater Manchester Police press office to say the press conference had been cancelled, we hoped for the best and that Joe had been found.

At 1.27pm on Thursday March 2, the dreaded news that a body had been found in Whitehead Park at 11am that morning filtered through to newsrooms all over the region.

The discovery was being treated as suspicious.

At this stage no formal identification had taken place and for the next 36 hours at least, it would be a waiting game. But by the end of the day there had been a number of ominous developments.

The country's media, including television, radio, local and national press, had started to converge on Whitehead Park, where Joe's body had been found; a 14-year-old boy had been arrested in Bury on suspicion of murder; and Dave had managed to compile a front page story for the Radcliffe Times based on the breaking news.

As we left the office on Thursday evening, we expected to wake the next morning to the news that the body had been identified as Joe's and maybe his death had been an accident.

As events unfolded, the weather in Bury turned colder and by Friday, March 3 the air was bitter.

Soon after I arrived at work on the Friday I was asked to go to the crime scene with photographer Paul Sterritt.

Paul and I arrived in Cameron Street, which provided a good view of the park, and I will never forget the scene that greeted us. The normally quiet cul-de-sac, with a few terraced houses and an old folk's home, was packed with television trucks, equipment, cars, journalists, technicians and uniformed police.

We joined the media throng that had set up television cameras and microphones in the far corner of the street, overlooking the spot where Joe had been found.

It was freezing cold and all I could think about was the possibility that Joe had been outside since Wednesday evening, cold and alone. My heart went out to Tom and Gwen.

It is always difficult knowing that you have a job to do in reporting the facts and yet feeling emotionally involved in the story. No one could fail to be affected by what happened to Joe, whether they had children of their own or not.

Throughout the day forensic teams and Home Office pathologists carried out a painstaking search of the area, dressed in white, hooded overalls with blue protectors over their shoes.

Yellow police tape criss-crossed the parkland surrounding the gulley and yellow flags formed a pathway across the grass, recreating the route the killer had taken with Joe's body.

Unofficial details filtered through to the media at various stages and we learned that Joe had been transported to his makeshift grave in a household wheelie bin. At around lunchtime on Friday, Superintendent Peter Scofield gave a statement to the press and revealed that rocks and leaves had been used to conceal Joe's body in the wooded gulley where he lay. This, he said, was the reason it was taking so long for his body to be removed and identified.

Officers were still questioning a 14-year-old boy on suspicion of murder and a house "nearby" was also being searched as part of the investigation.

Paul and I discovered that the house was just a few streets away from the park and when we arrived in Dalton Street, more overall-clad officials were quietly working away at a semi-detached house.

Before long the rest of the media were also in the street, knocking on doors and asking questions about the inhabitants of the house.

"They kept themselves to themselves" was the general view of the mother and son who lived in the house, and the boy was not the type to "hang around on street corners".

Like everyone else, the residents of Dalton Street were shocked at the news of a little boy's death in such tragic circumstances.

Twenty four hours after Joe's body was discovered, and as the news began to sink in, the community of Bury felt drawn to Whitehead Park to pay their respects.

Craig Dewhurst, the vice-chairman of the board of governors at Tottington High School, visited.

Fighting back tears that day, he said: "This is a sad day for the school community of Bury.

"We said prayers this morning and prayers were said at St Gabriel's all day yesterday. As a father myself, to hear of something like this is terrifying."

While the search continued in the park, uniformed officers carried out door-to-door enquiries, trying to establish the details of Joe's final hours.

Floral tributes began to arrive in nearby Lonsdale Street, a quiet, cobbled street which became an unofficial shrine to the youngster as bunches of flowers and teddy bears were fastened to a gate leading into the park.

One card summed up the feelings of many: "Rest in peace xxx. What kind of society do we live in?" Another read: "To Joe, Missing you, from Jonathan Barlow 7B."

Staff at Tesco Express in Bolton Road left a bunch of flowers and wrote: "In all our thoughts x. The Thursday night crew."

Another tribute read: "Joe, you can only be in a better place. God bless you. Our hearts and prayers go out to you and your family. Love Connor, your little friend from Booth Hall and family."

Close friends of the Geeling family also went to lay flowers and tied a large pink and white teddy bear to railings. Their card read: "An angel stolen from us. We will miss you forever. All our love, Cammy, Pam, Toni, Gino and Eme." The teddy also bore the message "angel" set in a pink heart.

Later that afternoon as heavy snow began to fall, schoolchildren began to arrive to pay their own tributes to their little friend.

Katherine Wilson (13), a Tottington High pupil, laid a bunch of tulips.

Her mother Liz Wilson said she did not know Joe but felt she wanted to do something to pay her respects.

The mood was sombre and, despite the activity, a mournful silence hung in the air. Large snowflakes swirled to the ground and the sky darkened As dusk fell and the media retreated for the evening, Joe's body was finally moved from the park.

Having returned home exhausted and cold to the core, I hugged my daughter for longer than normal. How could anyone make sense of something as awful as this?

Later that evening, when I met up with a group of friends for a meal, we took a few moments of silence for Joe and said a prayer for him and his family.

I was back on duty on Saturday and, after a Home Office post mortem examination, the inevitable news came through which confirmed that the body was Joe's. Michael Hamer was not charged with Joe's murder until Saturday evening and he made his first appearance at Bury Youth Court on Monday morning.