AT LAST: JENKINS FREE

See post of June 21, 2005 for background. Jenkins was initially convicted on subsequently discredited "scientific" evidence and two people gave him an alibi but were not asked to testify in court

Sion Jenkins walked free from court yesterday when the jury in a third murder trial failed to decide whether he was guilty of killing his foster daughter, Billie-Jo. Detectives are now faced with an unsolved murder, no new suspects and the prospect of Mr Jenkins, 48, suing Sussex Police for wrongful arrest and imprisonment. The Crown Prosecution Service said it would not pursue a fourth trial.

Moments after the formal verdict of not guilty was delivered, the former deputy headmaster was kicked and punched in the court corridor by members of the dead girl's natural family who remain convinced that he was guilty of the murder.

None of the juries sitting on the trials over the last nine years was allowed to hear evidence from Mr Jenkins's first wife, Lois, claiming that he had repeatedly attacked her during their 16-year marriage. Mrs Jenkins, 44, told the Court of Appeal that her husband, a strict disciplinarian, lashed out at her a number of times at their home. Mr Jenkins has denied the allegations.

Mr Jenkins was jailed for life in 1998 after being convicted of bludgeoning Billie-Jo, 13, as she painted patio doors at the family home in Hastings, East Sussex, in February 1997. He was freed in 2004 after new scientific evidence cast doubt on his conviction.

As the father of four emerged from the Old Bailey yesterday he was attacked by Billie-Jo's aunts Maggie Coster and Bev Williams. Mr Jenkins, who was visibly shocked, did not react as the women rained blows on him, leaving him with blood on his chin. Court staff, lawyers and police seized the women, who continued to shout obscenities as they were removed from the building. The two families were meant to have been kept separate during the three-month trial. Outside court the women simply said: "Revenge is sweet," before chanting: "Justice for Billie."

Mr Jenkins's eyes had filled with tears when the judge recorded the not guilty verdict. Meanwhile, Billie-Jo's natural father, Bill Jenkins, glowered at him from the public gallery. As Sion Jenkins made a brief speech under a large police presence outside court, he declared that he had been the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice and called on police to reopen the investigation with a new team of detectives. He said: "It has taken nine years of struggle and faith for me to be standing here. "It has been a terrible ordeal and I find it difficult to actually take it in."

He condemned Sussex Police for being "wilfully blind and incompetent" in their investigation. Mr Jenkins has always insisted that Billie-Jo was murdered by a passer-by, who was probably a mentally ill man named only as Mr B.
She was struck up to ten times with an 18in iron tent peg while she was left alone at the house for 15 minutes.

The case has left Mr Jenkins's reputation severely damaged. It emerged that he had made up much of his CV to get a job as a teacher and that he had been accused of having an affair with a 17-year-old "Billie-Jo lookalike". In a newspaper article the girl said that Mr Jenkins became "besotted" after meeting her at a colleague's house.

The jury was told that a family friend saw Mr Jenkins kick Billie-Jo during a family holiday in France a year before the teenager's death. It also heard hearsay evidence from two of the schoolgirl's best friends who said that they saw her turn up to school with scratches on her face, said to have been caused by her foster father.

Mr Jenkins has always vehemently denied being violent to his family, apart from slapping Billie-Jo across the face when she once behaved badly. He insisted that he had had a good relationship with the girl.

Questions will now undoubtedly be asked whether Mrs Jenkins's allegations of serious domestic violence should have gone before the jury. These were made subject to a contempt order which meant that neither of the retrials was told about them in detail. Changes under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 allow evidence of a defendant's bad character to be adduced in court in certain circumstances and it is possible that, had the offence occurred after that date, the allegations would have been heard.

Source



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