A side gate on to the patio where Billie-Jo Jenkins was murdered was closed when her foster father left to visit a DIY store but open when he returned, the Old Bailey heard.

The evidence came from Sion Jenkins' daughter Lottie in a taped police interview made the day after 13-year-old Billie-Jo was killed.

It was played at Jenkins' murder retrial yesterday.

Lottie and her sister Annie had accompanied Jenkins on the store trip. Lottie, ten at the time, said the journey was abandoned when 47-year-old Jenkins realised he had no money to buy white spirit.

Jenkins told them it would be too far to collect cash then return again, so they drove home.

When all three returned to the family home in Lower Park Road, Hastings, on February 15, 1997, Lottie said the side gate was open.

She noticed it because it was normally shut to prevent their pet dog Buster from escaping.

Lottie described seeing Billie-Jo's blood-soaked body on the patio.

She said: "I went into the dining room and saw Billie lying there with blood all over her. So my dad took me and Annie into the playroom because I don't think he wanted us to see Billie like that."

In her interview, Lottie said Jenkins decided to buy white spirit after picking her up from a clarinet lesson. She said: "I remember I put my clarinet in my room, came back downstairs and then dad realised he needed white spirit."

Lottie said Jenkins followed her out of the house and down the front steps to his white MG, where Annie, was before he told them: "Jump in." When they were yards from the store at the Sainsbury traffic lights in Sedlescombe Road North, Lottie said Jenkins reached into his left pocket and realised he had no cash.

The prosecution claims Jenkins, former deputy headteacher at all-boys William Parker School, in Parkstone Road, Hastings, battered Billie-Jo in a fit of temper with a metal tent peg as she painted the patio doors.

His defence team assert an intruder was responsible.

Lottie said the family had been plagued by silent phone calls and a prowler.

She said: "We have had silent phone calls and late one night my dad saw a man hanging around.

"When the man ran away I think my mum might have contacted police or she was going to when this happened."

Jenkins denies murder and the case continues.