The disputed evidence The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in 2004 because of evidence about tiny droplets of Billie-Jo’s blood found on Sion Jenkins’ clothing. The evidence showed that Billie-Jo’s upper airway was blocked and pressure in her lungs built up behind the blockage. O: How far away is the patient? SJ: The other end of the house. O: Is there someone there that can help you? SJ: Yes, a next-door neighbour has just come round O: Right. Can one of you go and see? I need you to put two fingers next to her adam’s apple in her neck See if you can find me a pulse and run back and tell me SJ: OK. All right now, is that telephone right next to her? SJ: Say that again.

O: Is the telephone right next to your child? SJ: No it isn’t.. I’m at the other end of the house O: Oh right.. have you put her on her side? SJ: Yes. O: Right, you need to make sure that the blood is actually leaving her mouth Have you tried to find a pulse in the neck? SJ: No. Assistant Chief Constable Geoff Williams said: “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.” As Mr Jenkins left the Old Bailey to attempt to rebuild his life with his new wife, the legal process had finally come to an end. However, for the dead girl’s family and, of course, for the former teacher himself, a true ending can only remain a distant goal.

‘See if you can find a pulse’: the emergency call Sion Jenkins: Look I called for an ambulance, I need paramedics Operator: Right What’s the address? SJ: 48 Lower Park road I have got to have someone now, it’s serious O: Oh is this your daughter? SJ: It is my daughter O: Yes OK, now the ambulance is on its way Is she breathing all right? SJ: No O: She is not breathing? SJ: Well I can’t see. O: Right, OK, where is the blood coming from? A cut? Or is it coming from her mouth? SJ: Head Head, mouth O: It is coming from her mouth? SJ: Mouth O: Right OK. You need to make sure that it is not actually blocking her mouth, and it is actually leaving her mouth OK, so that she does not choke on it. He was questioned by Sussex detectives following the decision to have a retrial. However, the police said he had an alibi and their forensic testshad eliminated him as a suspect.

Sussex Police promised yesterday not to close the case, although they do not have any new leads. All but one place him at least 15 minutes away from the scene at the time of the attack. Sussex Police re-interviewed witnesses that saw Mr B in the park on the day of the murder. He said: “We had a rather confused conversation and it was obvious that he had mental health problems.” Suggesting he might find accommodation in the centre of the town, Mr Kent pointed the man in the direction of the Jenkins’ home.

He was seen acting strangely in a park close to the Jenkins’ home at the time of the murder. Further suspicious behaviour was that a plastic binbag was found stuffed deep inside one of Billie-Jo’s nostrils. When Mr B was arrested two days after the murder, officers saw him holding part of a plastic bag up to his nose as he lay on the bench in the police cell in a “foetal position”. They later found two more pieces of plastic in his underpants. Brian Kent, who runs a guesthouse on the road where the Jenkins family lived, told the Old Bailey that Mr B rang his doorbell on the day of the murder. Poets, storytellers and illustrators will fire children’s imaginations; guest authors include Jacqueline Wilson, Ian McMillan, Valerie Bloom, Michael Rosen and John Agard.
Running alongside the festival is the Imaginarium installation, where children from the surrounding borough of Lambeth retell traditional stories from Africa and Denmark as part of Africa Remix Festival and the bicentenary of Hans Christian Andersen’s birth.McGough was one of the three Liverpool poets, along with Brian Patten and the late Adrian Henri, featured in the influential The Mersey Sound collection of 1967. “If it ends up on the children’s pile, that’s just what happens,” he says.