Sion Jenkins

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Billie-Jo Jenkins. (Discuss)

Sion David Charles Jenkins (born September, 1957, Deptford, South East London) is a former deputy headmaster of William Parker School who was jailed for life in 1998 for the murder of his 13-year-old foster-daughter Billie-Jo Jenkins in February 1997, but later acquitted.

An initial appeal against conviction failed in 1999 but a second appeal was successful, and in August 2004 the Court of Appeal quashed his original conviction as unsafe and ordered a retrial, with Jenkins being released on bail. The jury in the first retrial, which lasted for three months in 2005, was unable to reach a verdict and a second retrial was held. The second retrial at the Old Bailey in London ended on February 9, 2006, when the jury was also unable to reach a verdict after 39 hours of deliberations over eight days. [1] The Crown Prosecution Service indicated that no further retrials would be sought, and Jenkins was formally acquitted.

1 The case
2 Costs
3 References
4 Further reading

[edit] The case

Jenkins had always denied murdering Billie-Jo, who was battered over the head at least ten times with an iron tent peg while painting patio doors at the family home in Hastings, East Sussex. He had told police that he found her in a pool of blood on the patio when he returned from a shopping trip with two of his natural daughters, but he became the prime suspect given the time line of events and size and layout of the property. As the Jenkins home was set back from the road by several rising steps, and being semi detached with houses at the back, the only entry/exit for an intruder was up the steps and around the side of the house. For the amount of time Jenkins claims to have been out of the house it was unlikely anybody would have attempted to go up the steps, get over the side gate, go around the perimeter of the house leading to the patio, attack Billie-Jo with a tool they did not know would be there to hand, and leave again.

The shopping trip itself was called into question, as he claimed to have gone to buy a product of which there was already sufficient in the house, and in fact returned empty-handed, claiming he had forgotten to take any money. (His wife had told him about having done the same thing earlier that same day.) His actions after discovering Billie-Jo were peculiar, as records show he telephoned a neighbour instead of calling the emergency services. He waited for the neighbour to arrive and it was only when she urged him he made the 999 call. He also apparently answered the door to a colleague after discovering what had happened but did not mention anything was wrong. Furthermore he curiously took the time to go out to the street and put the roof down on his car. All these actions were defended by his "being in a state of shock". He did not follow the emergency services telephone advice to move her into the recovery position, which he defends by saying he knew she was already dead, although the 999 telephone conversation reveals he told them he did not know whether she was breathing or not.

Police discovered during the crime investigation that he had falsified some of the qualifications which secured his school job, and with which he was applying to be headmaster of a local secondary school. His wife at the time gave evidence claiming he was abusive to her and the children. Friends of family have given evidence to this effect, although the courts ruled that despite the shadow cast on his character, this did not prove him a murderer or have relevance to the case in hand.

In his appeal, Jenkins argued that the case against him was built on 150 tiny blood spots on his clothing which he said were caused by air being released from Billie-Jo's lungs as he moved her after finding her lying bleeding on the patio. In the original trial it was shown that this was caused by his attacking her, but in the later retrial it was shown that it would have been possible at the right angle for the blood to have been blown at him.

The police investigation has been criticised of being badly handled, and Jenkins claims he was "blindly" accused. It seems an unfortunate case where very little "hard evidence" was found, so the prosecution relied on the blood spots, together with a myriad of circumstancial evidence, a lot of which was not made known to the general public. The evidence given by the two daughters who were at the house and with Jenkins that day was not used in court as apparently they gave "conflicting accounts" of the day's events.

In the final appeal, when it was proven that the blood spots could have been caused from Jenkins' aiding Billie-Jo, the jury were unable to come to a verdict after 39 hours of deliberating and the original sentence was quashed, freeing Jenkins from prison. Due to human rights, Jenkins cannot be brought to trial again for this crime.

[edit] Costs

The police investigation and series of trials is estimated to have cost £10m. Seven hundred witness statements were taken by the police, jurors spent 36 days deliberating in three trials, and Jenkins spent 11 days in the witness box giving evidence. [2]

Following his arrest Jenkins remarried and lives in Lymington, Hampshire. His former wife, Lois, and their four natural daughters, now live in Tasmania. During the retrials Lois Jenkins gave evidence against Sion, accusing him of violent behaviour to her and their daughters during their marriage. In each case, the judge ruled this evidence inadmissible as it had no direct bearing on the murder of Billie-Jo.