Sion Jenkins was a pillar of the community and, seemingly, the epitome of respectability - until he was convicted of his foster daughter's murder.

Jenkins was a deputy headmaster, a father of four, an aspiring Tory councillor and a foster father.

So the nation was shocked when he was convicted of bludgeoning 13-year-old Billie-Jo Jenkins to death.

Jenkins and his younger brother Llewellyn grew up together in Wales and still bear a striking resemblance to one another.

His brother's arrest, trial, conviction and sentence were to turn Llewellyn's life upside down and four years later cause a nervous breakdown.

It is only now, five years after the murder, that he is beginning to come to terms with it.

While campaigners including his parents continue their fight to prove Sion Jenkins' innocence, Llewellyn has written a book.

But, perhaps surprisingly, its pages do not include an explicit declaration of his own belief in his brother's innocence.

He steers away from the facts of the case and concentrates solely on his own experiences during and after the trial.

The book, Calico Boys, is based on the journal he started keeping following his brother's arrest.

He says he wrote the book to examine the longings and confusions that worry away at family bonds.

It is described as "partly an exploration of the role memory plays in our lives, partly a story of resilience and love" and "wholly a record of a personal search for spiritual clarity."

Billie-Jo's body was found on Saturday, February 15, 1997, on the patio of the home Sion Jenkins shared with her, his wife Lois and their four other daughters.

She had been hit with a metal tent peg as she painted the patio doors.

Jenkins told police he had found her body when he returned home with two of his daughters after leaving her alone for 40 minutes. He blamed the tragedy on a mystery intruder.

Llewellyn writes: "I was in the bath, listening to the radio, when I heard that a girl had been murdered in Hastings.

"I think it was the following morning my dad rang, telling me it was Billie. That's when it all changed all our lives forever."

In the days after the murder, the shocked younger Jenkins sat and watched news reports as the grim realisation set in that his brother was the prime suspect.

He writes: "Grisly shots of my brother appealing for help at the news conference appeared, followed by a live broadcast from outside Hastings police station which anticipated him being charged with the murder of his foster daughter."

Sion Jenkins was charged with Billy-Jo's murder, temporarily halting the media's feeding frenzy.

His brother, who splits his time between homes in Norfolk and Wales, visited the house in Lower Park Road, Hastings, where he had taken a picture of Sion and his family in happier times.

He writes: "Billie was dead. The others in the photograph would never be the same again.

"The photograph, that day and my memory of it were like relics from another time, over forever, leaving only sorrow, pity and an ache of doubt. Billie was dead."

He recalls an abortive attempt to visit his brother at the police station where he watched a television crew exchange "cynical" jokes.

He writes: "My sole purpose in coming to Hastings had been to see him, to let him know he wasn't alone, that I would always be his brother no matter what.

"I hadn't looked beyond these things.

"I had failed and the very air seemed to resonate with my failure."

His accounts of prison visits, his own confusion and the panic attacks that preceded his breakdown are interspersed with flashbacks to the Jenkins brothers' carefree childhood days.

Of their early years he recalled: "Sion lived outdoors.

"Shot through with curiosity as sharp as pepper, he had once, aged three and a bit, famously absconded through a side gate, to be brought home an hour later by the proprietor of a car showroom.

"He'd been found sitting in the front seat of a Bentley, gnawing on the steering wheel."

The contrast is stark when he writes of visiting his brother in prison.

He recalls: "He was sitting in the far corner, head down, enclosed in a glass-fronted cubicle.

"It was as poignant picture of separation as you'll ever see.

"When we reached him, he looked up with dull interest but didn't leave his chair; the angular bones of cheek and jaw didn't flinch."

Jenkins' family continues to campaign for his release, insisting he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

The former deputy head was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 1998 following a month-long trial at Lewes Crown Court.

His wife Lois divorced him and he is in his fifth year at Wakefield prison, Yorkshire, where he teaches fellow inmates literacy skills.

He still maintains his innocence.

Calico Boys is published by Leaping Cat Press, priced £11.99.