The evidence trail in the Siôn Jenkins case started with the 18-inch tent peg recovered from the crime scene by the SOCOs. The 18-inch tent peg had blood on it whilst it was at the scene, and in order to determine if the tent peg was in fact the murder weapon, the forensic analysts tested the blood that was on it and tested the tent peg for fingerprints. Blood tests showed that the blood on the tent peg belonged to Billie-Jo Jenkins, the victim in the case. The tent peg was then tested for fingerprints, which produced an negative result for the presence of fingerprints. This means that anyone handling the tent peg must have done so whilst wearing gloves, or that exposure to the weather had destroyed fingerprint evidence upon the tent peg. Therefore, in order to determine if the tent peg was in fact the murder weapon, the tent peg was given to the pathologist and was compared to the wound on Billie-Jo's head, which provided a positive match to the blunt force wound that was on Billie-Jo's head. The collection and analysis of the tent peg was completed well, with precautions taken to not contaminate the tent peg blood or possible fingerprint evidence. This allowed the conclusion to be drawn that Billie-Jo was killed by the tent peg. This was an accurate conclusion proven by factual evidence based upon the match of her blood on the murder weapon and the match that the peg made to the wound on Billie-Jo's head. There was however a weakness in the way that the tent peg was gathered; the plastic evidence bag that it was collected in is usually not used for pieces of evidence with biological evidence attached to it. This is due to the fact that biological evidence can become denatured, especially blood and bodily fluids, due to the lack of oxygen in the plastic packaging. A better method of packaging would be in a paper bag with a viewing window in it, in order to eliminate the problems with not being able to safely handle the evidence due to the spike on the tent peg because of the viewing window, and to be able to preserve biological evidence for the longest amount of time, due to paper bagging being able to allow oxygen into the bag, meaning that the blood evidence would not get denatured whilst in the packaging. This was extremely valuable to the case because the successful collection and analysis of the peg, without contaminating the evidence sample, meant that the evidence could be used in court and mean that the conclusion that the tent peg was the murder weapon was accepted in court.
During the time of the analysis of the tent peg, the body of Billie-Jo Jenkins was also being analysed. Billie-Jo's body was analysed by the pathologist Dr. Hill, and was used in order to draw a conclusion on the cause of death. The cause of death after the analysis of the body was concluded to be blunt force trauma to the back of the head, though there were a lot more injuries on the body of Billie-Jo. It was also found that Billie-Jo's lungs had collapsed due to the attack. The examination of Billie-Jo's body was valuable to the case because of the professional manner it as performed in, allowing the conclusions drawn from the body to be used in court, and the useful evidence that was gained from it; the fact that the cause of death was identified to be blunt force trauma aided in the identification and analysis of the murder weapon, and the proving of the lung collapse in Billie-Jo helped later on in the case, when the prosecution relied on this fact in order to disprove the defence's claim that Billie-Jo breathed out blood causing the micro-droplets on Siôn's clothing.
The next piece of evidence to be analysed was Siôn's witness statement that was taken on the day of the murder. The statement was taken by PC Darren Bruce on the day and was used by the police at a later date when interviewing Siôn Jenkins about the events that happened on the day when he had been questionned at the police station. the conclusion that was gained from this piece of evidence was that, even though this conclusion was derived later on into the investigation, Siôn had no recollection of how the blood from Billie-Jo got onto his clothing. He also made numerous mistakes during his initial witness statement, which were picked up on during interviews, and cast suspicion onto Siôn at that time. This evidence was valuable during the proceedings of the investiation, even if it served no use during the trial due to it being submitted 3 days late, as the initial suspicion of Siôn Jenkins came from the witness statement he provided on the day of the murder. This would give the investigation another lead to investigate, which would lead to the arrest and subsequent first guilty verdict of Siôn Jenkins. The collection of this piece of evidence was done poorly though, as it was recorded late, leading it to be an unusable piece of evidence in court. This makes it weaker as a piece of evidence as the conclusions drawn from this evidence had to be shown in court through other evidence, such as the recordings of the further interviews with Siôn, rather than the initial piece of evidence.
After this, the next piece of evidence that was gathered was the trace evidence from the interior of Siôn's car. This evidence was found to be trace amounts of blood in the front of the car on the driver's side, though there was so little of it that it could not be further analysed. This evidence held little value to the case due to the lack of solid conclusions that could be brought about by it; one theory is that the blood was transferred there from Siôn's clothing to the car when he walked about freely, though the blood may not have even been from Billie-Jo and may have been unrelated altogether. The fact that the evidence could not be further analysed left it to be a weak piece of evidence in the case and meant that only speculation could be drawn from it. The proceedure of checking the vehicle for evidence was performed well, and the carryiong out of a presumptive test was also perfromed well at the scene, as it allowed the investigation team to conclude that there was blood in the family vehicle of the Jenkins', though the very little amount of trace evidence meant that the carrying out of a presumptive test meant that there was not enough evidnce to be further analysed. This is not necessarily a bad proceedure on the part of the SOCOs however, as they could not submit the evidence for blood analysis without first knowing what the substance was for definite.
The last and most vital piece of the evidence trail was the clothing of Siôn Jenkins that was recovered a few days after the incident. These pieces of clothing, once analysed, held the most crucial piece of evidence in the entire trial, and was the one most called upon by the prosecution in their case against Siôn Jenkins; the 158 micro-droplets of blood. The conclusion that was drawn from the drops of blood on the clothing was that, based on the positioning and type of droplets that were formed, that the blood was formed in such a way that was consitent with the blood spray from blunt force trauma from the position of the attacker. This conclusion made it apparent to the investigation team that Siôn Jenkins could have possibly been the murderer of Billie-Jo Jenkins, and this conclusion was followed up upon by the investigation team until his subsequent arrest. The collection and analysis of Siôn Jenkins' clothing was, albeit late, performed exceptionally well. This is evidenced in the fact that the evidence was usable in court and was presented as the prosecution's main piece of evidence, as well as being the investigation team's main lead on Siôn Jenkins throughout the investigation of the case. However, even though the proceedures performed on this piece of evidence were done well, the conclusion gianed by this piece of evidence was rushed; the evidence may not have been thoroughly analysed before it was used to convict Siôn Jenkins, as it was shown by the defence that the blood spray pattern, though it undenyably matched a pattern that can be caused by spray from a blunt force trauma attack, could also have been caused by a pressure build up in the airways of Billie-Jo and the releasing of that pressure to shoot out a fine mist of blood if the body was to be moved or agitated. The fact that this option was never investigated or even considered led, as well as other miscarriages of justice, to the retrials and release of Siôn Jenkins.
Overall the main conclusion produced by the investigation team, the one which led to the incarceration of Siôn Jenkins, feels like it was a rushed conclusion and a targetted one. The evidence is there to indicate Siôn Jenkins in the murder, there is little denying that, however, there are an equal amount of explanations that says he is not the murderer, and there are other potential people that could have been a true murderer. An alternate conclusion to the case would have been to further analyse the blood spray pettern that was produced on Siôn Jenkins' clothing and to further analyse other evidence, such as intelligence from serial murders in the area, in order to keep suspect options open. The fairness and justice in the case was also called into question, as due to the publicity of the Siôn Jenkins case in local and even national news, there could have been no chance that a fair trial could have been reached in a local court due to potential bias from the media coverage. The 'trial by media' approach should have been supressed by the police in order to attain a fair trial for Siôn, assuming the outcome would have been the same. If anything, a local court should never have been used in order to attain a fair trial and this is another thing I would have changed in the investigation to reach another conclusion.
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