Paedophile ‘escaped justice for 32 years for killing girls’
‘The motive was sexual’
A PAEDOPHILE escaped justice for murdering two schoolgirls and abandoning their bodies in woodland three decades ago, a court heard yesterday.
Russell Bishop, 52, is accused of sexually assaulting and strangling nine- year- olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in Brighton in 1986.
The roofer was acquitted of the killings a year later but the case was never closed and police believe forensic science advances have led to DNA evidence proving he is responsible.
As a result the Court of Appeal quashed the acquittals allowing investigators to bring what they claim is a ‘compelling’ case against him.
Among the evidence is a blue sweatshirt found during the search for the girls and which 30 years on has ‘given up its secrets’, the Old Bailey heard. The court was told forensic experts have now not only linked it to Bishop but also to the two victims.
A jury heard the bodies of Nicola and Karen were found almost exactly 32 years ago in Wild Park, Brighton, on Friday, October 10.
Prosecutor Brian Altman QC said the murders led to the ‘largest and longest-running police inquiry’ ever held in Sussex.
Opening the case against Bishop, he said it is an ‘historic case’ and the horrific circumstances are ‘ both very rare and exceptional’. Mr Altman accused Bishop, who knew both the victims, of committing the murders ‘for his own gratification’.
‘Plainly the main, if not the only, motive here was sexual and paedophilic,’ he said. Relatives of both victims packed the well of the court for the opening of the trial. Karen’s mother Michelle, 61, clutched the hands of her daughters Lyndsey, 37, and Kimberley, 31. Shaven-headed Bishop stared downwards in the dock, studying hand-written notes. The court heard how Nicola and Karen lived a few doors away from each other in Moulsecoomb and often played together. They both knew Bishop as a friend of their families. Their disappearance on the night of Thursday October 9 led to a huge search operation by volunteers and the police. Their bodies were found the following afternoon, hidden in a ‘den’ amid dense woodland. Karen was lying across Nicola with her head in her lap. Mr Altman said ‘both appeared to be sleeping and both of their hands were close together’. A post-mortem examination found they had been strangled and sexually assaulted. The jury was told at the time of their killing Bishop was 20 years old and sported fair hair and a moustache. He was in a long-term relationship with his girlfriend and they had a young son. He was also in a sexual relationship with a 16year-old girl.
Mr Altman said the new forensic evidence, coupled with an analysis of the ‘case as a whole’ will prove Bishop is a double killer.
The jury also heard that three years after walking free Bishop snatched a seven-year- old girl from the Whitehawk area of Brighton. The victim survived and he was found guilty of attempted murder, kidnapping and indecent assault. Mr Altman said ‘similarities’ between the double murder and the 1990 kidnapping also point towards Bishop. He said: ‘The facts underlying it help identify him as the killer as well as reveal his disposition to behave in a certain way, which is happily both very rare and exceptional.’
The day after the girls disappeared, Bishop joined volunteer search parties, even bringing his dog Misty as a ‘sniffer dog’.
But Mr Altman said ‘it was all a pretence’ and ‘ a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from himself’.
Bishop denies two charges of murder. The trial continues.