I WANT TO ASK THE KILLER WHY

THE mum of Babes in the Wood victim Karen Hadaway wants a prison showdown with her killer.

Michelle Johnson believes it is the only way she will get answers.

She said: “I want to look him in the eye and ask, ‘Why did you kill my girl?’”

The 62-year-old who tirelessly fought for justice for daughter Karen and her young pal Nicola Fellows, added: “I want to know why he turned on those children.

“There are so many questions we still need answering.

“He saw them that day and took an opportunity.

“Only he knows why he did.”

Michelle reveals: “Before he was even arrested Bishop’s mum Sylvia came to see me and asked me if I thought he’d done it.

“She said, ‘Do you think my Russell is involved?’

“I told her I knew he had killed those girls. She just told me her son was a wally.

“He wasn’t even in the frame. He wasn’t even a suspect.

Taunting

“That’s always stuck in my mind as it was a funny thing to say.”

Michelle, clasping the hand of Karen’s elder sister Lyndsey, 31, said: “He admitted abducting her in Karen and Nicola’s re-trial.

“But he still pleaded not guilty for them.

“I think he did it to tell me that he had murdered those girls that night.

“He was taunting me and it was a game for him.

“We’ve never had an apology or an explanation from anyone. For more than three decades they pursued the wrong man and I was pursuing the right one.

“We were let down. Let down by the police, the crown prosecution and the government.”

Michelle heartbreakingly tells of how her beloved little girl was stuck in “limbo” for 32 years.

Peace

“I’ve never been able to look at my daughter’s photograph and say she was at peace,” she said.

“But now she can finally rest with Nicola in their angel beds in heaven. “She’s been waiting so long. I came home after the verdict and looked at her picture and said to her, ‘We’ve done it, darling. You and Nicola can rest. And now Mummy can rest.’”

Michelle describes how twisted Bishop haunted her every thought on her journey “to hell and back” as she battled to get him locked up for one of Britain’s most horrific crimes.

“I was manic,” she said. “I went every day to the 1990 trial for the seven-year-old girl.

“I wanted to go as a member of the public to see if I could actually see evil in him. And I did.

“I would lay a plate at the table for Karen every mealtime. It was torturing me.

“Her favourite dinner was chicken pie. I had cooked it for her the night she was murdered and it stayed in the oven for three months.

“I didn’t want to open the oven and face reality. I just chain smoked and didn’t eat.”

Michelle nearly broke down after her husband Lee died of a heart attack in 1998, which the family believes was brought on by the stress of Karen’s murder.

“It was one of the hardest things for me to bear and I got very low,” she said.

“I felt so alone.

“It was just me against the world really. But now I can finally grieve.”