Jenkins speaks of Billie-Jo death

Sion Jenkins is giving evidence at his retrial

Sion Jenkins has spoken of the "horrendous" scene he found when he returned home to find his foster daughter lying dead on the patio.

Giving evidence at his Old Bailey retrial, Mr Jenkins, 47, said his daughter Lottie screamed when she saw Billie-Jo lying in a pool of blood.

And he said he could not believe it when he realised police suspected him.

The prosecution claims he battered her with an 18-inch iron tent peg at their Hastings home. He denies murder.

Mr Jenkins, of Aberystwyth, told the court that when he first found 13-year-old Billie-Jo on 15 February 1997 he thought she had had an accident.

'Horrible chilling sound'

"I thought she had got up on the roof and had fallen and smashed her head," he said.

"The scene was horrendous.

"Because Billie was on the patio and the girls were screaming in the playroom and the phone was ringing it seemed to neutralise me."

The former deputy headmaster said Billie-Jo was lying face down when he found her.

Billie-Jo had been in the family's garden painting patio doors

He moved her shoulder to see her face but "it just made a horrible chilling sound and made me recoil.

"Her face was bloody and her forehead was totally misshapen and her eye was swollen.

"There was so much blood everywhere that I could not take in what I was seeing."

He told the court he left Billie-Jo painting the patio doors while he went with one of his natural daughters, Annie, to pick up another, Lottie, from a clarinet lesson.

Mr Jenkins said they returned home for three minutes before going out again, in which time he did not see Billie-Jo, but Annie spoke to her.

'Distressing and tiring'

Defence barrister Christopher Sallon QC asked Jenkins: "The suggestion is that in that period you went out on the patio and murdered Billie-Jo. Is there any truth in that?"

Mr Jenkins replied: "Absolutely no truth".

He said he was unable to ring for an ambulance because the phone was ringing and would not stop even when he picked up the receiver.

Mr Jenkins said when police and ambulance crews arrived they went outside before coming back in to tell him Billie-Jo was dead.

Sion Jenkins said his wife Lois was 'rigid and white' when he saw her

He told the court he had not wanted to make statements to the police, saying it was "distressing and tiring".

He said he had expected to be spoken to as he had found the body but could not understand why he was arrested on suspicion of killing Billie-Jo.

Mr Jenkins said: "I could not believe what the police were actually doing."

He denied prosecution claims he had tried to influence what his daughters said to the police.

Mr Jenkins told the jury how he became separated from his wife Lois and their daughters after he was arrested, only getting to see them three weeks later with police and social workers, when he noticed a change in his wife.

He said: "She was a shadow of the person she had been. She was rigid and very white.

"I tried to put my arm round her and she froze."

Mr Jenkins said six weeks later his wife wrote to him saying "my faith has been shattered and I do not believe we will be able to live together as a family".

He told the jury he had wanted to stay with her.

The trial was adjourned until Tuesday.