Three inmates tried to drown me, says Jenkins
By David Sapsted
Last Updated: 2:05am BST 18/04/2007
Three inmates tried to drown Sion Jenkins in a prison bath after he was convicted of murdering his 13-year-old foster daughter, the former teacher revealed yesterday.
Mr Jenkins, who was eventually cleared of killing Billie-Jo Jenkins last year after hung juries at two re-trials, said that he reached his "lowest point" and contemplated suicide after being sent to Belmarsh Prison in south London.
But he said he rejected killing himself for the sake of his four daughters. "I knew that if I simply gave way and folded, if I took my own life, it would be Annie, Charlotte, Esther and Maya that would suffer."
Billie-Jo died from head injuries inflicted by a metal tent peg on the patio of the family home in Hastings in 1997. Mr Jenkins, 49, was headmaster-designate of a boys' school in Hastings at the time and maintained throughout that Billie-Jo must have been killed by an intruder while he was at a DIY store.
In his interview on Radio 4's On the Ropes programme, Mr Jenkins said that he could deal "comfortably" with the fact that many people still regarded him as the killer.
He said that he had been shocked when he was arrested for the murder and flatly rejected subsequent claims by his former wife Lois that he had been violent towards her.
But he said his worst moment came when he was sent to Belmarsh. "When I was dumped in one particular cell I had prisoners staring at me and leering at me because I was a convicted child killer," he told John Humphrys.
"I had hundreds of prisoners shouting abuse and saying what they were going to do to me when I went on to the wing. And when eventually I did go on the wing, on my third day, I went for a bath and three men came in and tried to drown me.
"After that incident when I felt totally wretched, I felt very alone and I felt that I was crumbling. It was at that point that I think I reached my lowest point."
Mr Jenkins, who now lives in Lymington, Hants, said that he was writing a book of his experiences for the sake of his daughters, who now live in Australia with their mother.
"I haven't been able to speak to them, to say why our family was torn in two," he said. "The book is, in a sense, a letter for my daughters so they can understand what has happened to me and what has happened to us."
Mr Jenkins, who has always protested his innocence and has sworn to help bring the real killer to justice, also revealed that he had befriended Michael Stone in prison, the man jailed for life for murdering Lin Russell, 45, and her six-year-old daughter Megan in Kent in July, 1996.
"I know Michael Stone very well," said Mr Jenkins, adding: "Ian Huntley was on my landing at Wakefield prison, and I knew Harold Shipman, who was known as Fred to other prisoners."
Mr Jenkins said that he finally knew he had received justice when he was cleared last year. "When I stepped out (of court), I gave thanks to God and I rejoiced that I would be going home," he said.
"When I went back in and the judge gave the instructions that not guilty should be put on the indictment and that I would be walking out, I did rejoice at that moment. It was the Crown's responsibility to persuade the jury of my guilt and they could not do that."
Now married to his second wife, Christina, Mr Jenkins denied claims by a witness at his trial that he had physically lashed out at Billie-Jo during a family holiday. He said that he had felt powerless to defend himself when such allegations were made.
He said that his first wife had said "many things" about him since the original trial, even though she had originally believed that a neighbour had killed Billie-Jo. He added: "I think Lois was persuaded of my guilt and started speaking about things that were not true."
Mr Jenkins called for advanced DNA techniques to be used on the tent peg used to bludgeon Billie-Jo, saying it was the best hope of bringing her killer to justice.
He also denied that he was writing his book about the case in the hope of making money and said that newspaper reports, suggesting that he was to receive £500,000 in compensation for false imprisonment, were not true.
Comment: Forensics found that Jenkins shirt had 158 tiny spots of blood on his shirt, this was in the form of a spray, and in my view could only have got there at the time that Billie-Jo was attacked. For example, like the fine spray of orange juice coming from a juicy orange when the peel is pierced with a thumb nail. He has since claimed that the blood got there after the event when he turned Billie-Jo over. However, he would have been above her and whilst it is possible to get blood upon oneself in this manner, it is more likely to be in larger amounts and smeared as opposed to a spray of blood almost undetectable to the naked eye.
Does Jenkins really expect that his daughters will want to read his account? I don't find his explanation for writing the book any more believable than his explanation for the presence of Billie-Jo's blood on his shirt.
It is a shame that he wasn't drowned. Even poetic justice is better than no justice at all. It was a particularly callous act to subject his two young daughters to "finding" Billie-Jo's body along with Jenkins in an attempt to give himself an alibi.
This case highlights the need to introduce the not proven verdict from Scottish law.
