Graphic details were given to an Old Bailey jury of the fatal injuries sustained by schoolgirl Billie-Jo Jenkins and of attempts to save her.

Paramedic Christopher Burton gave evidence yesterday at the murder retrial of 13-year-old Billie-Jo's foster father, Sion Jenkins.

Mr Burton said he and a colleague went to the former deputy headteacher's home in Lower Park Road, Hastings, at about 3.45pm on February 15 1997.

He recalled they passed the Jenkins' home by about three car lengths before Jenkins emerged from the house to beckon them inside.

After following Jenkins into the large Victorian house, they were led to the patio where Billie-Jo lay critically injured.

Mr Burton said Billie-Jo, a former pupil at all-girls Helenswood School in St Leonards, was face-down on a black plastic binliner in a pool of blood with a shattered skull.

Clotted blood and pieces of brain tissue were visible. There was also a wound approximately three centimetres in length above her left eye.

Blood from Billie-Jo's gaping wounds were trickling from the black plastic binliner on to the patio tiles, Mr Burton said.

Under cross-examination, Mr Burton said that he later remembered seeing two footprints on both of Billie-Jo's upper thighs.

Mr Burton demonstrated to the jury the position of Billie-Jo's head and explained that efforts to revive her were in vain.

He said that after he and his colleague had turned her over, her neck was checked for a pulse but they could not find one.

ECG electrodes were placed on her chest to check whether there was an electrical output but again there was not one.

Mr Burton recalled that Billie-Jo's hands, face and neck were cold and they found no sign of life.

Amid fears her attacker was still nearby, Mr Burton said he looked down the side path and up towards the garden but saw no one.

Wearing a patterned sweater, Jenkins, 48, now of Lymington, Hants, sat with his head bowed during most of Mr Burton's evidence.

Jenkins, former headteacher-designate at all-boys William Parker School in Parkstone Road, Hastings, was supported in court by his wife Christina Ferneyhough.

He denies murder and the trial continues.