Sion Jenkins left court a free man today after a nine year legal saga in which he endured three murder trials, two appeals and - minutes earlier - a violent physical assault in the courthouse.
Stepping outside the Old Bailey after being acquitted of bludgeoning his foster-daughter Billie-Jo to death on a sunny afternoon in February 1997, Mr Jenkins, 48, told reporters that detectives had been “wilfully blind and incompetent”.
He said that he had been the victim of a dreadful miscarriage of justice. He said that detectives had been single-minded in their determination to convict him. And he demanded that the investigation into his foster-daughter’s death was re-opened immediately.
Mr Jenkins spoke with characteristic calm despite the dramatic events earlier in the afternoon.
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At shortly after mid-day, the six men and six women of the jury returned to the court and told Judge Mr Justice David Clarke that, after 39 hours of deliberations stretching back more than a week, they had been unable to reach a verdict on the case.
Mr Clarke dismissed the panel, thanking them for their diligence. The court erupted in near pandemonium as members of Billie-Jo’s natural family began yelling: “It’s not over!”
When the judge called for a short break, the chaos spilled out of the courtroom. A number of angry relatives managed to evade security to enter the second-floor waiting room where Mr Jenkins was seated.
At least two women launched a flurry of kicks and punches. They pulled his hair, drawing blood as they clawed at his face until security guards intervened. One of the women later told reporters “Revenge was lovely” before being led away by police.
The court was hastily reconvened and Christopher Sallon QC, who has defended Mr Jenkins, called for an inquiry into how his client had been attacked.
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He said: “Two women ran the full length of the corridor from the stairs and attacked Mr Jenkins. One of them injured him and drew blood. How that was allowed to happen remains unknown. It could have been very much more dangerous.”
Mr Clarke noted the complaint, before turning to the prosecuting team. Nicholas Hilliard, prosecuting, said that no further retrial would be sought. He said: “In the course of two lengthy trials, neither jury has been able to reach a verdict and we can’t say they would be more likely than not to do so in a future trial. Having given very careful consideration to the case, now is the time to offer no further evidence.”
Mr Jenkins gave no visible reaction in the dock. He appeared before journalists some 30 minutes later to give a brief, but emotional statement to the scrum of film crews and journalists.
After giving his “everlasting thanks” to his new wife Tina, his family, friends, legal team and two campaigning journalists he launched a fierce attack on the Sussex detectives who he accused of “dreadful errors”.
He said that he had been through a “dreadful ordeal” and that he was finding today’s events difficult to take in.
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He said: “My thoughts are, as always, with my daughters. I want to assure them of my total love for them. Although they are on the other side of the world not a day has passed when I have not thought of them.
He went on: “Billie-Jo’s murderer has escaped detection because of dreadful errors in the police investigation and their single-minded and desperate determination to convict me at all costs.
“The police have been wilfully blind and incompetent. The murder investigation must be reopened immediately, with a new police team who will put all their energies into finding Billie-Jo’s killer.”
The case, one of the most extraordinary in recent legal history, began nine years ago when Billie-Jo was bludgeoned to death with an iron tent peg on a sunny Saturday afternoon at the family home in Hastings, East Sussex. Her foster father Mr Jenkins, 48, a local deputy head teacher and pillar of the community, was arrested three weeks later, causing a media storm.
He was jailed for life after his first trial in July 1998, but always maintained his innocence. A retrial was ordered by the Court of Appeal in 2004 following a concerted campaign by journalists and lawyers which threw forensic evidence of bloodspots, central to the case, into doubt.
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Mr Jenkins told police, and later a succession of judges and juries, that he had discovered Billie-Jo lying dying in a pool of blood on the patio when he returned home from a shopping trip with two of his daughters.
Prosecutors claimed that the 150 spots of blood proved he was the murderer. Mr Jenkins, in his later appeals and re-trials, argued that they had found their way onto his jacket and trousers as he knelt to tend the dying girl.
The defence has always blamed that an unknown man, known only as Mr X, who was in the vicinity of the Jenkins’ family home on the afternoon Billie-Jo was killed. Mr X was said to have had a fixation with carrier bags. A peculiar feature of the murder, which has never been explained, was that pieces of bin liner were found stuffed up the dead girl’s nose.
Mr Jenkins’ wife, Lois, however, soon became convinced that her husband was guilty. She gave evidence for the prosecution at his subsequent trial and retrials, once appearing for the prosecution as her daughter Charlotte gave evidence for the defence.
Over the course of hundreds of days in court, Mr Jenkins never swayed from protesting his innocence. He told judges and juries that the case had cost him his family, his home and six-and-a-half years of his freedom.
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The criminal case took on an element of soap opera. Mrs Jenkins divorced her husband of 15 years and emigrated with their four other daughters to Tasmania with a martial arts instructor 11 years her junior.
In 2004, a second appeal succeeded and he was released on bail to live with his parents in Aberystwyth, Wales, and a retrial was ordered. Six months later, it emerged that Mr Jenkins had secretly married a twice-divorced millionairess who he reportedly met when she began writing to him in prison.
Last year an Old Bailey jury failed to reach a verdict after the first retrial, which lasted three months. The judge ordered another retrial, which began in November last year and concluded in yet another failure today. In total the legal process has cost over £10 million.
After the dramatic conclusion of the case Sarah Jane Gallagher, the chief Crown prosecutor for Sussex, defended the decision to press ahead with the third retrial. “I am satisfied that the CPS fulfilled its duty under the Code for Crown Prosecutors and the decision to try Mr Jenkins again was correct,” she said.
Assistant Chief Constable Geoff Williams said the Sussex force would do everything it could to bring Billie-Jo’s killer to justice. Speaking moments after Sion Jenkins had attacked the police case against him, the officer said: “I think we need to take time now to reflect on today’s outcome, but I would say this - a case such as this is never closed.
“We should perhaps pause and remember what this case is about. It’s about Billie-Jo - a bright, lively 13-year-old girl with everything to live for who was brutally murdered on the patio of her foster parents’ home, a place where she ought to have been safe.
“In these circumstances I think the public would expect the police to do all they reasonably can to bring her killer to justice. This therefore remains an unresolved murder case.”