Trial by tabloid

I have no idea whether Sion Jenkins — the former Hastings deputy headmaster who was this week acquitted of murdering his foster daughter after juries in two successive trials failed to reach a verdict — committed the foul deed or not. I wasn’t there. Maybe Jenkins suffered one of the fits of rage which his former wife, Lois, now claims are part of his character and slugged poor Billie-Jo over the head because she had spilled paint on the carpet, then stuffed a piece of black bin-liner up her nose in a deliberate attempt to implicate the mysterious ‘Mr B.’, a lowlifer with a plastic fetish who used to frequent the park outside the Jenkinses’ home. Or maybe, as Jenkins himself maintains, he was lingering in B&Q’s white spirit department when the girl was attacked. All I do know is that had I been on the jury sifting through five months’ worth of evidence in one of the most eagerly followed murder trials of recent years, I would almost certainly have been one of those members who felt unable to convict.