Justice for Babes in the Wood as ‘monster’ guilty
BABES in the Woods killer Russell Bishop has been described as an “evil monster” by the families of his two young victims as their 32-year fight for justice came to an end.
Bishop was 20 years old when he sexually assaulted and strangled nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in a woodland den in Brighton.
He was cleared of their murders on December 10, 1987, but within three years went on to kidnap, molest and throttle a seven-year-old girl, leaving her for dead at Devils Dyke on the edge of the Sussex seaside city.
While serving life for attempted murder, Bishop, now 52, was ordered to face a fresh trial in light of a DNA breakthrough.
A sweatshirt discarded on Bishop’s route home was linked to the defendant by DNA, while fibre, paint and ivy hairs placed it at the murder scene in Wild Park.
Tests on a sample from Karen’s left forearm also revealed a “one in a billion” DNA match to Bishop.
Bishop denied murder, claiming the evidence could have been contaminated. But the jury rejected his defence and convicted him at the Old Bailey after just two and a half hours, on the anniversary of his original acquittal.
Members of the girls’ families wept and hugged each other as the the verdict was delivered.
Afterwards, Karen’s mother Michelle Hadaway said Bishop was an “evil monster”.
She said: “After 32 years of fighting, we finally have justice for Karen and Nicola. Time stood still for us in 1986. To us, them beautiful girls will always be nine years old. They will never grow up. What people like Bishop inflict on the families of their victims is a living death.”
The Fellows family said: “The guilty verdict doesn’t bring Nicola and Karen back, but we know that other children are now safe from the hands of Russell Bishop. He is a monster. A predatory paedophile. Russell Bishop truly is evil personified.”
The case, dubbed the Babes in the Woods murders, shocked the nation in 1986 and blighted the tight-knit community of Moulsecoomb, on the edges of the South Downs in Brighton.
It is believed to be Sussex Police’s longest-running murder inquiry.
At around dusk on October 9, 1986, Bishop spotted the girls playing in the park near their home and seized his opportunity, the prosecution said.
During the attack, he punched Nicola in the face, to “subdue” or “punish” her for being disrespectful to his teenage girlfriend earlier that day, Brian Altman QC suggested.
The day after the killings, Bishop joined the search for the children, claiming his dog Misty was a trained tracker. He was nearby when two 18-year-olds spotted the bodies.
Afterwards, he gave conflicting accounts to police and produced a series of fake alibis. But he described details of the murder scene which only the killer could have known.
In the original trial, the prosecution said the girls must have been killed before 6.30pm, by which time Bishop had been seen heading home on foot and the girls were spotted outside a fish and chip shop.
But in the retrial, jurors heard the time of death could have been later and Bishop simply doubled back to intercept the children.
Bishop tailored his defence to the new forensic evidence, claiming he touched the girls to feel for a pulse, even though the 18-year-olds insisted he never got near.