Jenna jury visits 'murder' site

Mike Baldwin is accused of murdering his stepdaughter

Jurors in the trial of a man accused of murdering his stepdaughter are visiting the family's home.

The body of schoolgirl Jenna Baldwin, 15, was found buried in mountainside woodland in November after a lengthy police hunt.

Stepfather Mike Baldwin denies murder and instead claims she fell down stairs and died accidentally during a heated argument at the house in Abersychan, near Pontypool.

Escorted by police, the jury was taken to the house which it is believed was scene of the teenager's death.

Members also visit the Fiddler's Elbow beauty spot on Blaenavon Mountain, where her buried body was unearthed by police.

Relationship

On Thursday, Jenna's mother Desiree took the stand at Cardiff Crown Court to tell of the uneasy relationship between her husband and her late daughter.

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

Close to tears whilst giving evidence, she said that GCSE student Jenna "loved him as a father", but the relationship had deteriorated.

She added that her daughter teased night-shift factory worker Mr Baldwin about his bald head - just weeks before her death.

That annoyed him, she said.

Meanwhile, Jenna's loud music and late-sleeping during summer would aggravate her stepfather, who would switch television channels when the girl was watching a programme.

Mrs Baldwin thought that behaviour toward her daughter was "spiteful".

Buried

Earlier, the trial - which began on Tuesday - heard how Mr Baldwin knocked Jenna down the stairs during an argument at the family home between 3 September and 11 September.

Desiree Baldwin took the stand at her husband's murder trial

Panicking, he considered driving her to hospital. Instead, he wrapped her in a duvet and buried her with a shovel kept in his car, it was claimed.

Mr Baldwin is then said to have waged a "callous and cynical" campaign to distract his wife from the real truth about his daughter.

He allegedly sought to convince the family the 15-year-old had merely run away from home - when, in fact, she was buried in remote woodland near Blaenavon.

Messages

He appeared alongside Desiree Baldwin during interviews for emotional television and newspaper appeals.

Mr Baldwin is claimed to have bought and falsely registered a mobile phone to send reassuring text messages to Jenna's mother Desiree, purporting to come from her daughter.

Jurors also heard how he made silent phone calls which family members thought had come from the schoolgirl.

But he was "cruelly deceiving and torturing his wife further", David Aubrey QC said, prosecuting.

'Accident'

Mr Baldwin later told his wife he had killed his daughter during an argument, it was said.

"Baldwin persuaded himself that if he said her death had been an accident and showed police where the body was things would be easier for him," Mr Aubrey said.

"He took police to the grave and Jenna's body was recovered some 12 weeks after her death."

The prosecution added 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 Baldwin denies murder and the trial continues.