Sion Jenkins, the former deputy headteacher cleared of murdering his foster daughter Billie-Jo, has revealed he is appealing to the Home Office for compensation. Jenkins spent six years in prison before his conviction was quashed in 2004.
Jenkins told The Independent on Sunday he hopes to win up to half a million pounds, minus deductions for board and lodging during his imprisonment. 'I have just filled in the forms. I am waiting for a decision. I fulfil all the criteria,' he said.
The 50-year-old emphasised that official recognition of being wronged is more important than the amount. However, he added: 'I believe the Government should compensate me for taking away my liberty for six years, which also meant I lost the childhood of my daughters.' His former wife Lois took their four girls to Tasmania after his conviction.
Billie-Jo, 13, was battered to death with a metal tent spike in the garden of their home in Hastings, East Sussex, in February 1997. Jenkins was sentenced to life in 1998 but released on appeal in 2004. Two retrials failed to reach a verdict, and he was formally acquitted in February 2006.
Jenkins has since remarried a nurse who wrote to him in prison, and lives in Portsmouth, where he is completing an MA in criminology. He was encouraged to seek compensation by the £700,000 awarded to Colin Stagg, but rules have changed, reducing his potential payout.
Jenkins recently published a book naming a man he saw in his hallway on the day of the attack as his main suspect. He claims a witness has since emerged to support his story. He also spoke of the pain of separation from his daughters, now young women: 'It's that gut feeling when you have had children and you love them and they are suddenly wrenched from you.'
