BILLIE-JO JENKINS accused her foster father of punching her in the face after she went to school with blood round her mouth and on her shirt, the Old Bailey was told today.

Sion Jenkins, 48, is being tried for the third time for her murder, which he denies.

Billie-Jo had arrived at school with scratches on her neck and blood on her face, her friend Laura Jane Conway said in video interviews played in court. “She said she took the dog to the park and her dad told the dog off. Billie didn’t like that because her dog was her best friend and her dad ended up punching her in the face.” On another occasion, Billie-Jo went to school with a cut on her mouth, and bruises on her arms and legs. She allegedly told her friend: “I had an argument with my dad again. You can guess what happened.”

Laura Jane, who is now 22, made her allegations in police video interviews recorded in 1997 after Billie-Jo’s body was found at the back of her home in Hastings, East Sussex.

Holly Prior, Billie-Jo’s best friend, described how the 13-year-old had said that her foster father had lost his temper, pushed her against a door and scratched her neck. Billie-Jo had asked Holly to keep what she said secret. In a video interview played to the court, Holly, then 13, described the marks on Billie-Jo’s neck as “really red and sore, as if she had been bleeding”. Billie-Jo was worried that her foster mother and father might lose their jobs because he had lost his temper, Holly had told the police.

Earlier, Mr Jenkins’s former wife, Lois, told of his anger at Billie-Jo. Mrs Jenkins, 44, said: “It was almost a physical process . . . he would be be extremely angry, red in the face.” Mrs Jenkins said that she had never seen her former husband hit Billie-Jo or threaten her with violence. The trial continues.

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