This site was last updated on 15 February 2013 at 13:53.
Who remembers today?
15 February 2013 is the sixteenth anniversary of a murder that shocked the nation. Its reverberations travelled far. For those whose lives it changed forever the personal costs were immeasurable. A light that had started to burn brightly was extinguished.
Billie-Jo died in the closing years of the twentieth century. In the second decade of the twenty first century her murder remains unsolved, and that failure cannot be left unchallenged. The sound and fury that raged when the case was headline news may have faded, but the call for the truth has lost none of its resonance. The voice of reason continues calmly to ask the questions that still need answers.
Today we are all wiser, perhaps less credulous and more receptive to nuance. The Leveson inquiry into the culture and ethics of the media led to disclosures that show us the media’s potential to inflict terrible injury. Operation Weeting and Operation Elvedon make us aware of the possibility that there can be situations when collusion between media and police can have disastrous consequences for individuals. Transparency is acknowledged as a value, and recent disclosures about the wrongdoing of past decades continue to highlight the dangers of a cover up culture. Revelation brings cathartic benefit, and truth is seen as an explicit good.
The time is right for reflection and for an honest re-evaluation of the events of 15 February 1997, when Billie-Jo Jenkins was murdered and a terrible sequence of events set in motion. There is no sell-by date on the truth and Billie- Jo is still entitled to justice. Resolution—and reconciliation—remain a real possibility in this complex and still unfinished case.
Remember Billie-JO, whose life was cut short on a sunny February day. Remember her, and the untimely ending of a young life full of promise. Remember her lost hopes and the dreams that could never come true And in remembering her, call for justice.
The rigorous pursuit of error.
As a society we are finally learning that it is less damaging to admit mistakes than to pretend that they never happened. Nothing enhances justice more than the rigorous pursuit of error.
The Guardian: Justice on Trial