1987 Child Murders That Shook Brighton Forever - Serial Killer Documentary

1987 Child Murders That Shook Brighton Forever - Serial Killer Documentary

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
On the afternoon of ninth October nineteen eighty six, nine
year old best friends Nicola Fellows and Karen had Away
went out to play on their Brighton estate. As night
began to fall, there was no sign of the girls.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
What time would I laughing?

Speaker 3 (00:22):
I mean, this will be as big as it gets.

Speaker 4 (00:24):
Two young girls go missing is for the family the
scariest thing that can happen.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
The next day, their bodies will be discovered concealed in
a local woodland. The crime would become known as the
Babes and the wood Murders.

Speaker 5 (00:40):
So far, ten thousand people have been questioned by detectives.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
But the guilty man would walk free.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
This whole case is one of the biggest and most
disastrous failures.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Of the criminal justice system.

Speaker 6 (00:52):
He's a killer, he got off it. What is he
going to do next?

Speaker 7 (00:55):
Now he's got a taste for it and now he's
going to escalate.

Speaker 8 (01:00):
I've got nothing, so I'm not responsible for this.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
This is the story of how one of Britain's most
despicable child killers very nearly evaided justice.

Speaker 8 (01:12):
He really was a psychopath. He thought that he was invincible.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
M My name is Peter James, and I make a
living as a writer of crime fiction. I've been fortunate
that the stories I've created have found an audience across
the world. Most of my books have been set right

(02:11):
here in my hometown of Brighton on the South Coast.
It's a place I love dearly. I built my career
as a crime thriller author, often by taking inspiration from
some of the most painous and horrific crimes that have happened,
both here in the UK and in other countries of

(02:31):
the world. But in nineteen eighty six, a horrific double
murder happened here in my home city of Brighton, and
hove that It shocked me, and it shocked the entire nation,
and it's something that's stayed with me far longer than
any other crime I've encountered. Away from the bright lights

(02:55):
and beautiful seafront, there is another part of this city,
and it was the setting for one of the most
despicable double murders imaginable. This is the suburb of Mulscombe
on the outskirts of Brighton. Today Moulscombe is a changed place.

(03:15):
It's a pleasant residential estate. Back in nineteen eighty six
it had a real reputation for criminality and violence.

Speaker 9 (03:24):
It was a nineteen twenties Council of state with an
old fashioned attitude to policing, looking after their own. They
liked to do things their own way, and they like
to sort things out, so we wouldn't be the first
people that they would talk to.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
It was on this estate in nineteen eighty six the
unthinkable happened. On a cold October afternoon, two nine year
old girls would vanish without trace?

Speaker 7 (03:53):
Where were these children? Last thing?

Speaker 8 (03:55):
Lasting?

Speaker 5 (03:55):
I were calding live?

Speaker 8 (03:59):
What time?

Speaker 10 (04:00):
With a last seen.

Speaker 7 (04:01):
About half past five?

Speaker 11 (04:02):
It's not to go too far?

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Why miss she's going usually to bring bales?

Speaker 12 (04:07):
And how much thinking?

Speaker 10 (04:07):
You know?

Speaker 7 (04:08):
It says, how do you Why there's the other.

Speaker 12 (04:10):
Mother and missus Fellows.

Speaker 5 (04:12):
Right, and that's your nine year old girl in nine
year old.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
The missing girls were Nicola Fellows and her best friend
Karen had Away. They'd been outside playing together. It was
when they hadn't returned home for dinner and the night
was closing in that their worried parents raised the alarm.

Speaker 11 (04:30):
From walking around for was of many collapse, Yes, well
i'll get somebody's come.

Speaker 7 (04:34):
Up and sing o.

Speaker 9 (04:36):
We were actually in more schoon at the time we
got the call, so we were there within seconds. Both
the mums were very distressed. So it was now eight o'clock.
They'd been missing since half past five, and it wasn't
a very pleasant evening. It was cold, it was drizzly.
It just felt wrong. It felt that two girls would

(04:57):
not be outside for fun on a nightlight.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Brighton Police immediately organized
a search party. So we're talking about a pretty massive search.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
This is as big as it gets.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
Really, you know, young girls go missing on a cold
October evening is scary. Every available police officer will be
out there looking. Community will be out there looking. Members
of the family will be out there looking.

Speaker 9 (05:28):
It was now beyond ten o'clock. In our heart of hearts,
most of us thought, this doesn't look good at all.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Despite the combined efforts of the police and the local community,
it's now the early hours of the morning of tenth
October nineteen eighty six, and the two girls are still missing.

Speaker 9 (05:47):
We went home at about two or three o'clock in
the morning, and obviously my wife was asleep in bed,
and I went upstairs and I looked in on my
daughter and thought, you know, Susan Michel can't do that.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
When the search resumes the next day, the focus is
on a place known as Wild Park, a large woodland
only minutes from the girls' homes.

Speaker 13 (06:16):
But as the hours passed, it seemed an increasingly slender
hope that the girls had run away.

Speaker 9 (06:21):
In the short time that I'd gone there with literally
hundreds of officers. I was very impressed that it had
rolled into action the way it had.

Speaker 13 (06:28):
The mother of Karen had Away said today she was
sure that her daughter would not have gone with a stranger.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Tragically, it was not long before everyone's worst fears were confirmed.

Speaker 6 (06:43):
The two young girls missing since yesterday evening have been found.
A sixteen year old boy who joined in the hunt
found the bodies not far from where the two girls lived.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
And this is the Wild Park.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
In these woods, probably fifty yards below where I'm standing
that the terrible murders occurred. It's incredible to me just
how close to the homes of these two little girls
this happened.

Speaker 11 (07:17):
For Nikola's mother, Susan, it's all been too much and
she's had to leave the area. Her husband, Barry, says
the news was too much to take.

Speaker 8 (07:24):
When she was.

Speaker 14 (07:25):
First she just screamed, you know, Army's screamed. I collapsed
over at the World Park. I was just I was sold,
I was sexually assaulted.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
I would think it's actually a tranquil, beautiful setting that
it's always hard to imagine them a kind of horror.
I think the right Nikki French once said that bad
things happened on beautiful days, and it's also so true,
is that bad things happen in beautiful places too great

(08:01):
in a case like this, where did the police begin
as such for a suspect.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
Tragically, most people who are murdered are killed by somebody
they know, so the police will always start with looking
at family, friends, associates.

Speaker 9 (08:18):
It was almost twenty hours after the girls had gone
missing that they were actually found. With all these resources
looking in a relatively confined space, you'd wonder how on
earth that has happened. Is because this particular den was
not the sort of thing you would stumble across, which
started me to think, it's not a stranger who's done this,
it's someone who knows this area intimately, who goes there

(08:39):
and will have been to this den before.

Speaker 8 (08:43):
Promiir In cries.

Speaker 15 (08:44):
It would seem a distinct possibility that the murderer was
known to the two girls. This would be one explanation
as to how both girls were inveigled into the wild park.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
In October nineteen eighty six, the bodies of two nine
year old girls were discovered in Woodland in Brighton.

Speaker 5 (09:09):
So far ten thousand people have been questioned by detectives
and what's turning out to be the largest ever murder
hunt in Sussex.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
The bodies had been discovered by two teenagers helping in
the search, but also nearby was a local man searching
with his dog, a man known for the girls, Russell Bishop.

Speaker 9 (09:30):
He was a strange sort of character from the Star
and it was odd that we were sort of sanctioning
and condoning him wandering around with his dog pretending to
be a sniffer dog, or he claimed it was a
sniffer dog, so he was putting himself in and around
the search.

Speaker 7 (09:48):
He asks one of the girl's mother if he can
have some of their clothing to give the dog the scent,
and he gets it. He gets Karen's coat and he
makes a big show in front of the police officer
of rubbing the coat on the dog's nose and saying, well,
the dog has the scent. Now the dog will track

(10:08):
the girls. As a sidebar to what's going on here,
this is very strange. Why would you do that?

Speaker 1 (10:16):
The first police officer on the murder scene was PC
Paul Smith.

Speaker 6 (10:20):
I was down on the foot path near the road
with Russell Bishop. I knew he was a friend of
the family, so I just assumed he was out doing
what everybody else was, was looking for the girls.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
He said, I'm not going to search anymore.

Speaker 4 (10:32):
So Paul says to him, well, why is that. We've
got to carry on searching. So Russell says, really something
really strange. He says, if I find them, I'm going
to get nick for it.

Speaker 6 (10:43):
And then there's a couple of sixteen year old lads
shouted from the slope. We found them, We found the girls.
He went running up the slope and I followed him.
There was the two dead girls. Nicky Fellows was on
her back with Karen Hadaway laying on her. I took

(11:03):
the pulse and there was stone cold like marble.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
How did you feel at the moment you saw the girls.

Speaker 6 (11:12):
I mean, it's bad enough finding dead bodies and finding
them in some terrible conditions, but when it's children, it
is really really get to you, you know, yeah, and
still does really.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
As the investigation now escalates from missing person to murder inquiry,
Detective Constable John Morton's team is sent in to secure
the crime scene.

Speaker 16 (11:37):
At five o'clock in the afternoon, I got a call
asking me to come to the park where some local
ads had found the bodies of the two girls. They
had they're heads down and were absolutely deflated. I was
totally amazed when I saw the other guy, who turned
out to be Russell Bishop, and it was strange because

(12:00):
he was standing there shuffling his feet and whistling out loud,
and I was just absolutely stunned because I've never encountered
that behavior from anybody at a major crime scene ever. Bizarre, bizarre, absolutely.
So they explained to me how they'd come across the bodies,
and I said, could you take.

Speaker 12 (12:20):
Me to them?

Speaker 16 (12:23):
I saw both girls had deep zygnosis, they'd obviously been
there a long time. I thought that was my chance
to talk to Bishop, so I asked him what happened,
and he said to me, I jumped over the tree
and went to the girls, and I felt both of
their next for apulse. That's really strange because unless you've

(12:47):
sort of been a first age or something like that,
it's much easier to go to the risks.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Did you have an immediate suspicion John from his behavior?

Speaker 5 (12:55):
Oh?

Speaker 16 (12:55):
Absolutely, and also from what the other two had said.
I knew, But at that point Russell Bishop had not
gone to win fifteen feet of those girls on that afternoon.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Russell Bishop's suspicious behavior at the crime scene now makes
him the focus of police attention.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
The spotlight is definitely on Bishop at this point.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
Now, why would he necessarily go and engage with a
police officer and start sort of saying, well, I might
be a suspect. Why would he bring his dog along
when there's police dogs there? He said he felt the
girl's neck for a pulse. Is he doing that because
he wants to be somebody prominent? Or is he doing
that so that he's kind of building his alibis building

(13:39):
his defenses up in advance.

Speaker 7 (13:41):
For an offender to inject themselves into the investigation is
not unusual, and it's something that we see A same
person thinks, why on earth would you do that? One
theory is that they get off on being so close
to the fallout of what they've done. But I think
for him it was more a case of pre empting
being accused.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Bishop is a twenty year old unemployed laborer who is
well known within the local community.

Speaker 7 (14:07):
By most of the accounts by people on this stage,
he was regarded as a bit of a joke. He
supplemented his income with petty crime. He told tall tales,
and people found him quite pathetic and quite insignificant. Really,
I think he was a Walter Mitty kind of character.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
In another crucial development, police now have a witness who
places Bishop near the woods with the girls on the
night they disappeared.

Speaker 4 (14:33):
This is one of the things that I think really
put him into the focus of being the prime suspect.
The other thing about him saying that he went there
is because he described the girls exactly in the position
that they were laying. Now, there's no way he would
have seen that from the position that he was actually at.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
As the net begins to close on Bishop, a massive
wider murder investigation is still ongoing and the police were
about to make a vital breakthrough.

Speaker 10 (15:03):
People had brought in things that they thought might be
connected with the disappearance of the children, and there was
the sweatshirt, the blue sweatshirt.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
A few hundred yards from where the girl's bodies had
been discovered, a blue pinto sweatshirt had been found discarded
on a footpath.

Speaker 10 (15:23):
The scene investigator thought that he'd found some blood on
this blue sweatshirt, though.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
The stains turned out to be paint. It held a
whole host of other incriminating evidence.

Speaker 4 (15:37):
On the blue sweatshirt, which was found between where.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
The girls were found and where Bishop lived.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
There were ivy spores that were consistent with where the
girls had been found, but inconsistent with where it had
been dumped. There were traces of fibers from the girl's
clothing on the sweatshirt, which could only have got there
through direct contact. There was paint on the sweatshirt that
was consistent with paint that Bishop himself had used spraying

(16:04):
friends cars, and was also consistent with paint on the
trousers that were undoubtedly Bishop. So the blue sweatshirt was
absolutely central to the case.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
Officers now visited Bishop's house and showed the evidence to
his living girlfriend, Jenny Johnston. Without hesitation, she confirms the
sweatshirt belongs to Bishop. It's enough for the police to
arrest them.

Speaker 11 (16:30):
Bishop was arrested at the end of October and after
forensic tests, charged at the beginning of December. While he
continually pleaded his innocence, the girl's funerals took place. The
little friend's bodies have now been buried side by side.

Speaker 6 (16:45):
He's guilty of having killed these two children, and we
thought this is it.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
The police are convinced they have their killer. But in
the case of the babes in the Wood murders, nothing
is that simple. Bishop's trial would begin in the nineteen
eighty seven amid a glare of publicity and media coverage
at Lewis Crown Court.

Speaker 17 (17:05):
It was very much one of the biggest, if not
the biggest case of the time and was.

Speaker 10 (17:12):
Notorious with a majority of certainly police officers involved were
thought that there was sufficient evidence to convict.

Speaker 16 (17:20):
Bishop was the murderer, no doubt whatsoever.

Speaker 4 (17:24):
There's links between the blue sweatshirt and the girl's clothing.
Fiber links link the clothes together, which can't be explained instantly.
But also it's Bishop's own testimony that he saw the
girls in a particular position, which was exactly the position
that they were found in. And he has no innocent
way of having seen that.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
The police were confident Bishop was the killer, but the
jury would return a verdict that would send shockwaves through
the justice system.

Speaker 13 (17:54):
After two hours of deliberations. That jury ended Russell Bishop's
year in custody. One of his brothers relaid the verdict.

Speaker 6 (18:02):
When he walked free. It was a big shock amongst
the police, and we knew he was guilty, but he
got off it and we thought, what we're going to
do well.

Speaker 9 (18:14):
Incredibly frustrating because it sort of defies logic, isn't it.

Speaker 17 (18:18):
The case was probably strong enough for Bishop to have
been convicted. I think the fundamental issue was the way
the prosecution put its case at the time.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
A major issue for the case against Bishop was that
his girlfriend, Jenny Johnston, had now changed her entire story.
Johnston claimed her statement linking Bishop to the Pinto sweatshirt
found at the murder scene was false and that she
had been bullied by the police into making it. The
prosecution case would also fall apart over a basic issue

(18:55):
of timing.

Speaker 4 (18:56):
I think the biggest mistake that the prosecution make is
to who wed themselves to the fact that the girls
were dead by six point thirty. We know that a
very credible witness actually saw them and waved to them
fifteen minutes later.

Speaker 17 (19:12):
Why are the prosecution tying themselves in this way? And
when you look at the summing up of the judge,
he gave the jury certain steps towards their verdict, the
essence of which was, unless you're sure the girls were
killed before six thirty, it can't be Russell Bishop. And
that's why he was acquitted. Within a couple of hours.

Speaker 13 (19:36):
Police announce that the file will not be reopened.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
With Bishop now a freeman, the double jeopardy law in
place at the time meant he was now immune from reprosecution.

Speaker 13 (19:50):
Bishop avoided the cameras negotiations have been going on with
a Sunday newspaper over interviews.

Speaker 7 (19:56):
He took a payout from the then News of the World.
They'd paid him fifteen pounds as the victim of this
miscarriage of justice, which bay to Day's money is forty
one thousand, and it's not an insignificant amount. It's the
lie that he has to continue.

Speaker 9 (20:10):
It's one of them things which always will be brought up.

Speaker 7 (20:13):
The guy that the police tried to fit up for
this offense.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
I remember very clearly the day after Russell Bishop was acquitted.
I was here in Churchill Square. I was about to
cross the road and this van be decked with sort
of banners saying Russell Bishop not guilty, and there he
was standing on the back, waving his arms like he

(20:49):
was the big I am. And it drove past, and
I just felt a real deep sense of unease. I thought,
there's something not right here, something really not right.

Speaker 4 (21:00):
As a cast iron certainty, certainly within the police, that
Bishop had.

Speaker 11 (21:04):
Got away with it, Which leaves the question who is
the Morscom murderer, a vicious sex attacker who strangled two
little girls yards from their homes.

Speaker 6 (21:13):
In the days that followed, various groups would come forward
and say, what you're going to do about trying to
find the killer of these two little girls when we
knew that it was him.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
With no one convicted for the murders, the victims' families
are in turmoil and begin a campaign to have the
case reopened. Incredibly, fronton center of the march through Brighton
and standing side by side with the families is Russell Bishop.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
And that's all what's been on my mine is to
get this place. Who opened.

Speaker 9 (21:46):
He wanted to be a local hero. He liked the fame.
It was purely evil the stuff he was doing and
has done over the years.

Speaker 7 (21:54):
He wears a highbry's jacket getting people to sign the petition,
so he's very much the ring master here. What I
find very interesting when you watch the video is when
the reporter says to him, people think it's quite surprising,
having been accused of this, that you're now marching with
the families.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
People are very surprised. People keep asking me, what would
keep on and on and on.

Speaker 7 (22:20):
It's all about him. It's not about well, I want
to see justice done for the families or these poor girls.
He never mentions the two girls, the real victims in
all of this. He paints himself as the victim.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
My name isn't cleared until someone else has bought the justice.
The real person.

Speaker 7 (22:37):
I need to see this reopen so that I can
clear my name. It's all about him.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
It's very narcissistic, classic psychopath behavior.

Speaker 7 (22:46):
Classic.

Speaker 10 (22:49):
He was his own best publicist to deflect the attention.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
Away from him.

Speaker 10 (22:53):
If it wasn't so outrageous, it'd be quite clever.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
In nineteen eighty seven, double child killer Russell Bishop had
somehow managed to evade justice and walk free from court.

Speaker 7 (23:09):
He got away with it. He committed the most horrendous
act and killed two girls and got away with it.

Speaker 17 (23:17):
Pedophile who couldn't control his urges.

Speaker 6 (23:22):
He's a killer. He got off it. What is he
going to do next?

Speaker 1 (23:26):
This evil pedophile even had the nerve to play the victim.

Speaker 7 (23:30):
Getting away with it the first time. It emboldened him,
of course, and it builds his confidence and he thinks
he's teflon because he's got away with it, and in
normally that he can't be retried again for it because
of the double jeopardy loss, so he's home free.

Speaker 4 (23:45):
He's naive, he's narcissistic. He wants to put himself in
the center of attention.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
It's not just Bishop who doubles down on this deception
of innocence with him on the protest, his girlfriend Jenny Johnston,
who knowingly lied to keep him out of prison.

Speaker 7 (24:02):
He got paid out by the news of the world.
He became a mini celebrity. He was somebody for the
first time in his life on the estate and that
sustains him, I think for a while. But then his
predilection and his pedophilia and his paraphilia start to boil
up again.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
On the fourth of February nineteen ninety, a seven year
old girl is out roller skating on an estate in
East Brighton. What's about to unfold will bear shocking similarities
to the babes and the wood murders.

Speaker 8 (24:39):
It's one of those emotive crimes. Innocent seven year old girl,
just outside of her house in Whitehawk was snatched off
the street by an unknown person at that point, bundled
into the boot of the car, driven at speed to
the Dyke area, where she was then dragged out of
the boot of the car, taken onto the back seat

(25:02):
and indecently assaulted. He strangled her to the point that
she was unconscious. He thought that he had killed her,
and he then just discarded this naked body into a
hawthorn bush. Arna's cold, freezing, horrible, so very night.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
The victim had been left for dead, but miraculously she survived.
She's discovered two hours later by a passing couple.

Speaker 8 (25:31):
She was seconds away from death, but she wasn't. She
was alive, and she was in a terrible state. Bless her.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Despite her horrific ordeal, she starts to provide crucial details
about her attacker.

Speaker 8 (25:47):
She spoke about the car being a red car. She
spoke about the man who took her, who was much
younger than her dad, but he had a mustache. She
found a hammer. She started banging on the inside of
the boot with the hammer and him shouting, the driver shouting,
shut up, stop doing it, or I'll kill you. She
also talked about other things she was aware of in

(26:08):
the boot ten of WD forty.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
The police begin to investigate known pedophiles in the local vicinity.
They also have reports of a red car matching the
description scene in the area. The driver none other than
Russell Bishop.

Speaker 4 (26:26):
I remember taking a statement of somebody that said, you know,
I saw Russell Bishop driving his car up Coldean Lane
at that particular time.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
I asked the.

Speaker 4 (26:34):
Witness, how do you know that, and he says, well,
everyone knows Russell Bishop because he's never out of the papers,
so he can't really go anywhere without being spotted. If
he kept a low profile, we'd be looking for aneli
in a haystat when in fact he's almost presented himself
on a plate to us.

Speaker 8 (26:52):
And so we sent a team out there to his
house to interview him. The car was still there. The
car was still intact, great and we opened up the
boot and we saw in there w forty We saw
the hammer and all the chip marks we could also
see on the lid, and we thought we might be
not a bit of a winner here.

Speaker 5 (27:14):
The man being questioned about the attack is twenty three
year old laborer Russell Bishop, who was cleared of the
nineteen eighty six killings of two school girl friends near Brighton.
A court order was granted to detectives to question him
until midnight tonight.

Speaker 6 (27:28):
Somebody rang me open tome and said Russell Bishop's been arrested,
and I think I don't remember going yes. Yes.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
With the failure of Bishop's first trial fresh in their minds,
the police would leave nothing to chance.

Speaker 8 (27:41):
A taxi driver saw a pair of jogging bottoms in
Mill Road. Evidence on there of both Bishop and of
the little girl, as well DNA evidence which is still
very much in its infancy. At that stage. We found
tire tracks which later matched at the tires that were
on Bishop's car.

Speaker 5 (28:01):
Detectives in Brighton have been working with a sense of
urgency to produce results.

Speaker 8 (28:05):
Now.

Speaker 5 (28:06):
They found her clothes after a painstaking search by hundreds
of officers.

Speaker 8 (28:10):
Inside the clothing itself, they found chipping from the paint
underneath the boot lid. We've got evidence of Bishop got
evidence obviously of the little girl there and it was
a everything was there.

Speaker 5 (28:25):
Bishop's solicitor, Ralph pmes his adamant his client is innocent,
and a client.

Speaker 16 (28:30):
Still denied any involvement in this offense.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
With evidence against him piling up, Bishop tries to inject
some doubt into the case by demanding an identity parade.

Speaker 8 (28:42):
You're talking about a man who is a psychopath. You know,
there's no getting away from it. The guy is a psychopath,
and he loved to think that he was a puppet master.
He was orchestrating things that were going on around him.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
Only three days after he was attacked. The seven year
old victim will now have to be in the same
room as the man who left her for dead. I
can't think of any other serial offender in a history
of crime that behaved in the way that Bishop did.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
He's just so evil, and I'm going to ask you.

Speaker 15 (29:20):
In a moment, she looked through the window at the
lion of men who are sitting.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Bishop's fate now hangs in the balance.

Speaker 6 (29:31):
And they put the radios on talk through, which means
that every policeman on that channel in Brighton would here.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
I should then ask you whether the person who moves
for on that day he is here.

Speaker 8 (29:50):
She said, I think it's number nine, which was Bishop.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
You think it's number nine?

Speaker 7 (29:56):
Thank you.

Speaker 8 (29:57):
It was a dropped it moment. This moment absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 6 (30:01):
You could hear people cheering and somebody actually on the radio,
some copper. I don't know if it was pressed it
and he said about booking.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Time with a positive identification from the seven year old
survivor and all the supporting evidence the police had been
able to compile. Bishop will now faced trial on charges
of kidnap, in decent assault and attempted murder.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Bishop's defense council claimed throughout the trial that their client
had been victimized by the police after being acquitted in
the same courtroom three years ago of the murders of
two Brighton schoolgirls.

Speaker 8 (30:39):
Now what a pressure from the point of view of
you have arrested Muscle Bishop. If it goes skew with
and it goes wrong, it would make the Sussex Police
as if they were on some sort of vendetta, and
of course that was his defense.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
They alleged evidence against Bishop had been fabricated because of
lingering doubts about the so called babes in the Wooden
murders in the wild Park area of Brighton.

Speaker 8 (31:03):
At one point of suggests I just took his car
and drove it up on the dike to make sure
that the tire tracks matched. There was even the strangest
one where they suggested that I took her used condom
from within his house and sprinkled the contents onto the
girl's clothing in order to link him forensically to the scene.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
But this time the jury saw straight through Bishop's lies
and assembling, and without his girlfriend perjuring herself on the
stand to save him, now there would be no escape.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Sentencing Bishop, the judge, Mister Justice Nolan said, you are
a dangerous man, perhaps more dangerous.

Speaker 7 (31:40):
Than you think.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
The judge said, there is only one fitting sentence for
attempted murder, and that is life imprisonment. This caused the
public gallery to erupt into cheering, an applause that drowned
out the sound of Bishops sobbing in the dock.

Speaker 7 (31:54):
Massive relief that a predatory sex offender like that was
finally behind bars, and if he hadn't been convicted, then
he would have offended again and probably the time gap
between offenses would start to get shorter, because that is
a typical escalation as well.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
When Bishop was convicted of the kidnap, an attempted murder
and any decent.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
Sort, there was no celebration.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
We were so aware that there were two families still
waiting for justice.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
In nineteen eighty seven, Russell Bishop had walked free from
court acquitted of the murders of two nine year old girls,
Nicola Fellows and Karen had away after his girlfriend lied
in court to protect him. Three years later, Russell Bishop
is finally behind bars after the abduction and attempted murder

(32:56):
of another little girl.

Speaker 7 (33:01):
A dangerous pedophile was taken off the streets because classically
he would have offended again and again, and it was
a big relief, but obviously not for the families of
Karen and Nicola.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Bishop continues to believe he's escaped justice for the Babes
in the Wood murders, as no one can be tried
for the same crime twice. In two thousand and five, however,
the double jeopardy law is scrapped and the police once
again have Bishop in their sights. What do the police
need to reopen this investigation.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
The key thing that they need is new and compelling evidence,
and they only get one chance to present that evidence.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
So when the result of the.

Speaker 4 (33:47):
Blue sweatshirt examination comes back from the forensic scientists for
the first time ever there was a one billion to
one DNA hit of Russell Bishop's DNA on that sweatshirt,
it's an absolute Lemmark moment.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
The re examination of the all important Pinto sweatshirt, found
near to where the bodies of Nicola and Karen were
discovered using DNA techniques developed in the years since Bishop's
original arrest and trial, seems set to nail him at last,
but there's an unexpected problem.

Speaker 4 (34:23):
Subsequently, the forensic scientists contact the police and say, we're
really sorry, but the sweatshirt itself has been in packaging
for over thirty years and we're not confident that that
DNA match cannot be attributed to some kind of inadvertent transfer,

(34:46):
So you can't use that in evidence.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
With DNA from the Pinto sweatshirt now ruled out, the
forensics team next turned their attention to seal tapings taken
by the original investigators from the sweatshirt and from the
and skin of the victims in nineteen eighty six, these
were used to capture fibers. Now they can be examined
the DNA.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
There might be skin flakes or other kind of traces
of DNA that might put a stronger case and an
impenetrable case.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
Because they're trapped and sealed underneath the tape.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
They're time capsules, if you like.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
And what did they get.

Speaker 4 (35:26):
On one of the tapings on Karen Hadaway's arm is
Bishop's DNA.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Armed with new and compelling evidence. Police have Russell Bishop
brought from his prison cell to rearrest him for the
double murder of Nikola and Karen, some three decades after
those offenses.

Speaker 8 (35:45):
I'm listening you on suspicions Delucid Pharos hay On all
around Thursday night and ortob ninety seats.

Speaker 7 (35:54):
He wouldn't have known what was coming that day. Burn
in mind, he thinks he's getting ready for para. His
head now is moving forward.

Speaker 8 (36:03):
Regret his fresh events, and Michael.

Speaker 7 (36:10):
You can kind of see the horror dawning on him
that these murders of thirty odd years ago have not
gone away.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
With Bishop facing fresh evidence against him, He's backed into
a corner, and his police interview reveals his callous, unrepentant nature.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
What happened in the den?

Speaker 9 (36:29):
Com on both Karen and Nikola were sexually assaulted within
that den in our part, tell us what happened to Nichola?

Speaker 14 (36:40):
Now in terms of Karen, Nicholas family and friends, have
you've got anything to say about?

Speaker 4 (36:47):
And his suffering plain that they've had to live in
the last thirty years.

Speaker 7 (36:52):
His body language is quite dismissive.

Speaker 18 (36:54):
I'm not going to sit here, well I did thirty
years ago, and over and over around his please.

Speaker 8 (37:01):
Crack on the question.

Speaker 7 (37:02):
He starts off by saying, get this over with, make
it quick. I've got to get back to the prison,
get finished, close to get better. In the prison, he
sits with his arms crossed at first and his sideways
onto the officers. He's he's almost trying to take himself
away from this arena, but there's nowhere to go.

Speaker 8 (37:20):
You now saying that whoever wore that sweatshirt.

Speaker 18 (37:23):
Then go there's a link the iron fishing sa.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Soon, under pressure, Bishop's casual demeanor begins to crack the only.

Speaker 18 (37:34):
Evidence on that pinto from them victims out the fibers.
The pinto and the children's slovag was examined on the
same table at the same time by a police officer
who admitted the under oath, this.

Speaker 7 (37:47):
Is dominating gesture. That's what that chop means. It means
I'm cutting off what you're saying. I'm cutting off any
discussion about this because he's realizing the tide is against him.

Speaker 9 (37:58):
Where your position stands on touching Karen's forum, I didn't
touch that one.

Speaker 8 (38:03):
So innocent and as I said, I've got no conduct.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
But that's what I'm asking you. You've said you didn't
touch her.

Speaker 8 (38:10):
Oh you've got me out, so right down and then
move on.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
So Bishop is absolutely nail.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
Now we've got DNA on the skin of Karen had
Away that couldn't have got there other than during the murder.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
Because if you didn't touch her, I've got nothing to say.

Speaker 8 (38:27):
I'm not responsible for this. I'd nothing to do with it.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
I mean, it's so.

Speaker 8 (38:32):
Some fucking stuff Genie up thirty years later.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
This is now an unassailable case.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
The Court of Appeal will now quash Bishop's original acquittal.
He'll now face a second trial for the murders he
was found not guilty of thirty years earlier, and this
time the prosecution is determined to secure a conviction. Where
there are lessons that you got from studying the nineteen

(39:02):
eighty seven case.

Speaker 17 (39:03):
We weren't going to tie ourselves down to a time
of death, don't close out avenues unnecessarily, and we weren't
going to make that mistake again, and we didn't.

Speaker 4 (39:14):
Forensic evidence has been reevaluated using modern day techniques and
will be used in this trial.

Speaker 17 (39:20):
Because he had to explain how it was that his
DNA came to be on one of the girl's forearms.
The relevant forearm was in fact trapped under the body
of one of the girls, so he couldn't possibly have
touched it legitimately. That just completely killed him. I had
started my cross examination of him, and I'd.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
Only become my warm up with him.

Speaker 17 (39:43):
I mean, he would have had another at least two
days or three days of cross examination to answer all
the big questions. But eachap will tell him after about
an hour and a half.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
Our convicted pedophile has been found guilty of murdering two
school girls. Found strangled and sexually salted near Brighton thirty
two years ago. In December twenty eighteen, despite his continual
denials and lies, Russell Bishop was finally found guilty of
the Babes and the Word murders and sentenced to an
additional thirty six years. How did you feel when the

(40:17):
jury returned their guilty verdict.

Speaker 17 (40:19):
I would like to say I was professional about it,
but I probably wasn't elated happy that we were able
to secure a conviction for a man who was clearly
very guilty.

Speaker 8 (40:29):
Yesh got him at last. We have convicted him for
a heeneous crime which is quite likely have never come
out from prison.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
In a justice delayed is justice denied, and it wasn't
job done until then twenty eighteen conviction.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
But the scars left by these horrific crimes and the
delay in securing the conviction will never fade, neither for
the families nor for the police officers who worked on
the case.

Speaker 16 (40:57):
This job will stay with me. I'd die, and I'm
sure that loads of other police officers who feel the
same way. It never leaves you will never leave me.

Speaker 6 (41:08):
I'm sorry this does upset me. I had a nightmare
where I found the girls and as I went down,
one of the girls turned and said, can you help us?
And that really got to me because I got't because
they were dead.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
You know, Russell Bishop wasn't the only person to be jailed.
In May twenty twenty one. Bishop's girlfriend Jenny Johnston, who
had lied in court to protect him at the original trial,
would be found guilty of perjury and sentenced to six years.

Speaker 10 (41:36):
I think it's quite right that she was charged and convicted.
Had she not withdrawn her evidence and accused the police
of pressurizing her in the first trial, then maybe that
would have been the extra bit that was needed to
have him convicted in the first case.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
And then the little girl would never have been harmed
in the first place.

Speaker 4 (41:56):
Solutely, the sentence that she's now serving is listen to
all that. You know, the criminal justice system relies on truth.
The lies that she told could have been put right
either at the trial or in the subsequent decades, and
she didn't take that opportunity.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
You know, there's a dark final twist to the story.
I mean, who would have thought it? This is the
headline of today's Argus newspaper. Open the trap door and
let him fall into hell. Russell Bishop has just been
diagnosed with terminal cancer and has only a short time
left to live. Some will say good riddance, some will

(42:41):
say it's calmer, But I can't help feeling a little conflicted.
And a final dark twist in this sad and horrible
story is Russell Bishop once more, somehow cheating justice. Just
a little.

Speaker 12 (43:18):
Three black

Speaker 8 (43:33):
Fa