Former deputy headteacher Sion Jenkins choked back tears as he told of how he lost his family after being accused of murdering his foster daughter Billie-Jo.

He wiped his face with a tissue and his voice showed signs of strain as he told the Old Bailey his wife Lois wrote to him saying they could never be a family again.

Lois divorced him and left Britain with their four daughters, the court has heard. Jenkins was jailed for life in 1998 for the 13-year-old's murder but was released on bail last year after a second appeal resulted in a new trial being ordered.

Jenkins, 47, from Aberystwyth, mid Wales, denies battering Billie-Jo to death with an iron tent peg in February 1997. After telling the jury of the "horrendous" scene as he and daughters Lottie and Annie found Billie-Jo in a pool of blood at the family home in Hastings, Jenkins spoke of the end of his marriage.

He said he had tried to ring Lois after his arrest but "she didn't want to speak to me". He wrote to her saying: "We will be together again. You must believe in me."

But there was a change in Lois when he was allowed a supervised visit a few weeks later. He said: "She was a shadow of the person she had been. She was very rigid and very white. She was sitting in an unusual, very rigid position and she was very uncommunicative. I tried to put my arm round her. She froze."

But following the meeting, he was rearrested. Six weeks later, he received a letter from Lois.

It said: "Whatever the outcome of the trial, my faith has been shattered and I do not believe we will be able to live together as a family afterwards. I must now begin to piece together a life for myself and the girls."

He said that since that first meeting he had seen his daughters only five or six times. Jenkins described finding Billie-Jo in the patio where she had been painting windows.

He said: "We went into the dining room. Lottie screamed out and Billie was lying in a pool of blood on the patio. I went straight to her. The girls were behind me in the dining room. The scene was horrendous."

Later, Jenkins denied a suggestion by prosecution counsel Nicholas Hilliard that he was "not really giving the jury the real Sion Jenkins".

Mr Hilliard questioned Jenkins about lying on his job application form. Jenkins claimed he had been to Gordonstoun School when he had instead been expelled from Glasgow Academy. Mr Hilliard suggested that when the police discovered his false claims, Jenkins had tried to cover up.

The trial was adjourned until Tuesday.