Emotion marks daughter's evidence

By Danny Shaw BBC home affairs correspondent

"Can I call Charlotte Jenkins, please?" - six words that signalled one of the most emotionally-charged court moments in this extraordinary case.

A young woman, wearing a white jacket and black trousers, was led into Court Number 4.

She passed behind the press benches and into the witness box. She was shaking and breathing heavily as she prepared to give evidence in the appeal of her father Sion Jenkins.

Jenkins was jailed for murdering his teenage foster daughter

Jenkins, a former deputy head teacher, was convicted of murdering his foster daughter 13-year-old Billie-Jo Jenkins in 1997.

In the courtroom, Charlotte sat next to three judges, in whose hands the destiny of this legal saga lies.

Below her sat rows of court officials, barristers, lawyers and police officers. Friends and family lined the seats at the back.

High above her, leaning over the public gallery, sat Billie-Jo's natural father, Bill, and his relatives.

And opposite - at the far side of the court - seated behind the rails of the dock was her father, a convicted murderer.

The last time she saw him was a year ago, on a prison visit. This time she hardly looked at him.

Tears

Charlotte, or Lottie as she's frequently referred to, had flown to London for the hearing from Tasmania, where she now lives with her mother and sisters.

When, falteringly, she began to speak, in a marked Australian accent, her father looked towards the floor and wiped tears from his eyes.

But, for the hour-and-a-half that she gave evidence, Lottie had even greater trouble maintaining her composure.

Her father will have taken comfort from replies suggesting that he couldn't have been in the house long enough to kill Billie-Jo

She broke down, crying, several times, and proceedings had to be adjourned while she took a break.

There were lots of questions for her to answer.

Questions about what she was doing on the day of Billie-Jo's murder. Questions about where her dad was.

And questions about what her mum may have said to her in the months that followed.

Some of the questions she couldn't answer - "I don't remember", or "I can't remember", or "I may have said that."

Surprise move

Her father will have taken comfort from replies suggesting that he couldn't have been in the house long enough to kill Billie-Jo.

Blood spots were found on a fleece worn by Sion Jenkins on the day

But her mother will also be relieved that there was no hint that she'd tried to turn Lottie against her father.

Lottie's courtroom ordeal ended when counsel for the Crown decided, unexpectedly, not to cross-examine her.

The motives for that decision may have been tactical, but it was surely also influenced by concerns for her welfare.

To put an 18-year-old through another round of questions about how, as a child, she discovered the blood-soaked body of her foster-sister and whether she'd believed her dad was a killer and her mum a liar would have been too much for anyone to bear.