Tangled past of heiress marrying Sion Jenkins

The society heiress who secretly married murder suspect Sion Jenkins began corresponding with him when her previous marriage started to break up, friends revealed today.

Christina Ferneyhough married 47-year-old Jenkins in a secret ceremony last week after striking up a friendship with him when he was serving a life sentence for killing his 13-year-old foster daughter, Billie-Jo in 1997.

Jenkins, a deputy headmaster who has always maintained his innocence, was released on bail last August after the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction. He faces a retrial at the Old Bailey in April.

Their relationship began when Ms Ferneyhough began writing to Jenkins in prison after her husband moved out of their home following a turbulent separation.

"Christina always believed in him," a source close to the couple said.

Today the story of her tangled love

life and how she approached Jenkins can be told for the first time.

Friends of Ms Ferneyhough describe her as a "slightly eccentric" woman. One said: "She pops across to the patisserie in her pyjamas and she gets the pub opposite to deliver bar meals to her."

She was at the centre of intense gossip in London's antiques and art world when her first marriage broke up.

She was just 21 when she married her first serious boyfriend, Mark Armstrong, in June 1971.

He went into the antiques business and the couple moved to Harrogate in 1980. They ran the business together, specialising in 18th and 19th century furniture.

It was then Ms Ferneyhough became the subject of salacious gosspi after striking up a close friendship with fellow antiques dealer, Miles Ferneyhough. They began a passionate affair and moved in together and later moved to a ?2 million house in Belgravia which she bought from an inheritance from her parents.

The couple married in the summer of 1992 and a few months later their son, Oscar, was born. He now lives with his mother in Belgravia.

Christina and Miles Ferneyhough ran a successful antiques business in Chelsea in the 1990s, but the marriage was plagued with problems. By 1997 the couple talked of splitting up. Miles moved out of the house and Christina read of the murder of Billie-Jo.

She began writing to Sion Jenkins in prison and he replied. Jenkins arranged visiting passes for her and by the time he was released last summer they were said to be "very close".

Christina was divorced from Miles in December, 2000 but the couple have remained in close touch.

Sion Jenkins's wife, Lois, divorced him soon after he was jailed for life for Billie-Jo's murder in 1998. She moved to Australia, taking their daughters Lottie and Annie with her.

Mr Jenkins and Ms Ferneyhough were married in a low-key ceremony at St Peter's Church, Belgravia, last week.

The wedding was kept secret, even from his parents, David and Megan Jenkins. The conditions of Jenkins's bail make it necessary for him to live with his parents at their ?750,000 home in Aberystwyth, but he is allowed visits to London to see his lawyers. It was on one of these visits, last Tuesday, that he and Miss Ferneyhough were married.

She was born in Southampton to a working class family - her mother was a typist and her father Ernie, the son of a lorry driver, drove a taxi but later moved into property.