Cash 'not important' says Billy-Jo foster-father

Former teacher Sion Jenkins claimed it was "not important" to him to gain compensation for the six years he spent in jail before being cleared of murdering his foster daughter.

Mr Jenkins, 52, said yesterday that he had not given "a second's thought" to the rejection by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) of the reported 500,000 claim his legal team submitted.

And he said he believed receiving compensation would not have convinced everyone that he was innocent of murdering 13-year-old Billie-Jo Jenkins.

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He said he had not appealed against the MoJ's refusal, saying the most important thing was "that the investigation" into finding her killer "doesn't die".

Mr Jenkins said his focus now was to see her killer face justice 13 years after she was bludgeoned to death at the family home in Hastings, East Sussex.

Speaking about Billie-Jo, he said he treated her like one of his own daughters and that he will never get over her death.

He said he "always remains hopeful" that her murderer will be apprehended, and gains hope from other cases which went unsolved for many years.

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Speaking for the first time about his compensation refusal in 2008, Mr Jenkins said: "The most important thing for me is that the investigation doesn't die. I'm not living in a hostel.

"I'm not living on the street like some unfortunate miscarriage of justice and so it really isn't important."

Billie-Jo was found in a pool of blood with head injuries inflicted by a metal tent peg on the patio of the family's home in Hastings, on February 15, 1997.

Mr Jenkins maintained his innocence and insisted Billie-Jo must have been killed by an intruder. In 1998 he was convicted at Lewes Crown Court of murdering her and jailed for life. But he had a retrial in 2005 after successfully appealing.

However, the jury failed to agree a verdict and a second retrial ended the same way in 2006, allowing him to walk free.

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