Jenna suspect 'ate sim card'

Mike Baldwin is accused of murdering his stepdaughter

A factory worker accused of murdering his stepdaughter ate a sim card from a secret mobile phone he used to send text messages to her mother, a court has heard.

Michael Baldwin, 36, denies murdering his 15-year-old stepdaughter Jenna between 3 September and 11 September last year.

The teenager was missing for 12 weeks before her body was discovered in a shallow grave on a mountainside near Blaenavon, south Wales, in November.

Cardiff Crown Court was told that Mr Baldwin bought a mobile phone to communicate with his family to pretend that Jenna was still alive during the period she was missing.

Prosecutor David Aubrey QC said that Mr Baldwin was arrested by police on 29 October.

"This is a man covering up what he knew he had done and that is to murder this girl"

Prosecutor David Aubrey

At the police station a chewed up sim card that Mr Baldwin had passed through his body was recovered, Mr Aubrey said.

A mobile phone's memory is held in a sim card.

The jury heard that Mr Baldwin, of Pontnewynydd, Pontypool, south Wales, "tortured" Jenna's mother Desiree to deflect suspicion from himself and feigned distress at Jenna's disappearance.

Appeals

Mr Baldwin took part in appeals for Jenna's return and even phoned his 10-year-old son pretending to be her.

But he was arrested when police became suspicious and after being charged with murder took them to where he had buried her, the jury was told.

Mr Aubrey said Mr Baldwin was monitored by covert surveillance and was spotted buying a mobile phone from a branch of Woolworth, which he registered giving false details.

Mr Aubrey said the fact that police told Mr Baldwin they were treating Jenna's disappearance as a murder investigation was the "catalyst" for him sending text messages from the mobile to his wife.

The court heard that Mr Baldwin used nicknames between Jenna and her mother such as "Queen Bee" in messages and used personal knowledge of the family to try to prove the messages were from the dead girl.

Jenna Baldwin was missing for 12 weeks before her body was found

Mr Aubrey said that in one message to Jenna's mother, Mr Baldwin said: "Mam, the police are not very good are they?

"Don't be worried, I'm OK, I saw it on TV.

"Tell the police to leave me alone, I'm OK."

Mr Aubrey said: "This was not the defendant trying to reassure Desiree Baldwin that her daughter had simply run off.

"It was Baldwin saying on his own behalf: 'Tell the police to leave me alone'.

"They were getting too close to him."

'Accident'

The prosecution added that Mr Baldwin claimed Jenna died after an accident at the family home in Abersychan, near Pontypool.

But Mr Aubrey said: "Baldwin sought to say that what happened was an accident when she fell down the stairs.

"But the actions are not those of a man covering up a terrible accident, this is a man covering up what he knew he had done and that is to murder this girl.

"That is why he didn't get help, call the police or get an ambulance.

"That is why he buried her in a secret place. That is why he tried to deflect the attentions of his wife and even more importantly the police."

'Trouble'

The prosecution said that during appeals for Jenna's return, Mr Baldwin had told a journalist: "Bloody teenager, she has always been trouble, causing problems in school.

"It's much quieter now she is not here. She really used to wind me up. Look what she's putting her mother through."

Mr Aubrey told the jury that in September last year, Baldwin's Ford Fiesta was seen with a duvet in the rear and appeared to have something inside it.

He said that a man was seen in the area where Jenna's body was found watching oncoming traffic, with a hatchback car in the lay-by.

Another witness who was travelling from Abergavenny to Pontypool saw a man in a lay-by carrying a shovel, Mr Aubrey said.

The trial continues.