RUSSELL BISHOP RETRIAL The motive for these murders was sexual ...he killed those two little girls

A PAEDOPHILE avoided justice for 30 years after sexually assaulting and murdering two nine-year-old girls in 1986, a court heard.

Russell Bishop, 52, killed Karen Hadaway and Nicola Fellows in a hidden corner of a Brighton park on 9 October 1986, the Old Bailey was told.

But he escaped justice when he was acquitted at a murder trial in 1987, Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, told the court.

Bishop is being retried after some of the old scientific evidence was reassessed using modern-day DNA profiling techniques.

And Mr Altman said “the defendant’s movements, his actions and what he had to say to the police, including significant lies” provided “compelling evidence that this man was the killer”. about the situation and condition of the girls at the scene that only the killer could have known”.

Mr Altman added: “Russell Bishop was, to the exclusion of anyone else, responsible for the murders of the two little girls.

“The killings were entirely intentional and they were carried out in the woods by a man who sexually assaulted them for his own gratification.”

Prior to the trial starting, the Court of Appeal quashed Bishop’s 1987 acquittal without drawing any conclusion about his guilt or innocence.

The jury was also told that four years after the deaths of Karen and Nicola, Bishop was convicted of the February 1990 indecent assault, kidnap and attempted murder of a seven-year-old Brighton girl, who survived her ordeal.

Mr Altman told the jurors: “All the similarities between the events of which he was convicted in 1990 and those of 1986 are such that, together with all the other evidence in the case, they can lead you to the sure conclusion that the defendant was responsible STRANGLED: Karen and Nicola ACCUSED: Bishop

Bishop in 80s also for the murders of Nicola and Karen.”

Bishop denies murdering Karen and Nicola.

At the time of the murders, Bishop was a 20-year-old roofer living one-and-a-half miles from the girls’ homes.

He knew Nicola’s father and on the afternoon of the murder, the court heard, Bishop called at Nicola’s house, hoping to talk to a lodger who also lived there.

The court was told, however, and that Nicola told Bishop to go away and called his teenage girlfriend a “slag”.

Mr Altman stressed that there was no physical contact between Bishop and Nicola during this exchange.

And he explained: “This [will be] significant when we come to consider the scientific evidence that was later found to show a contact between the defendant and Nicola.”

The trial continues.