Sion Jenkins : "I observed someone at the back of the house"

Superintendent Jeremy Payne : "It was a scene of horror and devastation"

For some reason that is still unclear her foster father Sion Jenkins attacked her. He beat her severely on the head with a heavy and large metal bar. Superintendent Jeremy Payne said his officers were appalled.

Officers were appalled at the brutality of Billie Jo's murder

After a difficult childhood in East London, Billie-Jo had been living with her foster parents Sion and Lois Jenkins and their four daughters, since 1992. And shortly before she died, the Jenkins had become her legal guardians.

Sion Jenkins, a deputy headmaster at a local boys school, spoke at a news conference soon after the murder. He said he had seen a man acting suspiciously, near the house, only a few weeks before.

Bill Jenkins :"She said I love you dad and I'll call you tomorrow"

Billie-Jo had been fostered because her natural father, Bill Jenkins, no relation to Sion, was in prison and her mother could not cope. Yet they had kept in touch and Bill Jenkins had phoned her on St Valentine's Day - the day before she died.

But that was the last time that Bill Jenkins was to speak to his daughter.

Sion Jenkins - an accomplished liar

The next day, the police broke the dreadful news. It was a shocking crime, the more surprising because the man responsible was a church-going deputy headmaster, a family man who had welcomed Billie-Jo into his home and who treated her like one of his own children.

But as the police dug deeper they found a darker side, a man with a violent temper who had been seen lashing out at Billie-Jo and kicking her. They also realised he was an accomplished liar who kept changing his story in a very calculating way.

Jeremy Payne : "There were tiny spots of blood all over his clothing"

What, in the end, convicted him was the forensic evidence - in particular, Superintendent Payne says, the pattern of the blood on his blue fleece jacket. It was not a smearing that might have resulted from tending to Billie-Jo's body, but fine droplets that must only have come from a fierce spray of blood at the time of the killing.

Kenneth Ashmoore :" As the events unfolded we were devastated"

Billie-Jo's murder and the arrest of Sion Jenkins greatly shocked the pupils and staff at the William Parker school in Hastings. Kenneth Ashmoore, chairman of the governors at the school, described the turn of events as devastating.

Throughout the trial, Billie-Jo's father, Bill Jenkins, sat in the public gallery of the small wood-panelled courtroom and looked thunderously down upon Sion Jenkins, his hatred and distrust clear for all to see.

Bill Jenkins : "I don't think you can get worse than child murdering"

When Billie-Jo went to live with her foster family, it was supposed to help her build a better life. And, to all the world, it seemed that she had been extremely lucky.