Russell Bishop: Babes in the Wood murders solved after 32 years

A convicted paedophile has been found guilty of murdering two nine-year-olds, nicknamed the Babes in the Wood, three decades after he was acquitted of the crime.

A jury at the Old Bailey found Russell Bishop, 52, who is already serving a life sentence for the kidnap and assault of a seven-year-old girl in a separate attack, guilty of murdering Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway.

The bodies of the nine-year-old friends were found in Brighton’s Wild Park nature reserve on 10 October 1986, the day after they vanished while out playing. Both had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

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Suspicion fell on local roofer Bishop, who had joined the search parties combing the area for the missing girls and was “among the first on the scene” when their bodies were found, says the BBC.

Bishop, then 20, knew the Fellows family through a lodger who lived with them and, when interviewed by police, he “gave himself away with detailed accounts that only the killer could have given”, says The Times.

Bishop maintained his innocence, claiming he had been harangued by officers into making false incriminating statements in his original interviews.

In December 1987, a jury concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to convict Bishop.

“Police still remember how he became a ‘cause celebre’, fighting for ‘justice’ for the schoolgirls after his acquittal,” says the BBC.

Retired detective inspector Malcolm Bacon said: “He was walking round, fronting marches, trying to find out who the ‘real person’ was who had killed the girls.” Nonetheless, “it was pretty obvious at that particular time that he was responsible”, said Bacon.

Three years after his acquittal, police suspicions intensified when Bishop was convicted of a brutal sex attack on a seven-year-old girl at Devil’s Dyke on the South Downs.

After strangling and molesting his victim, Bishop left her for dead in the undergrowth - but she regained consciousness and was able to seek help. He is currently serving a life sentence for the attack.

He was finally brought to justice for his earlier crimes after new DNA evidence enabled prosecutors to seek a second trial in the murders of Nicola and Karen.

“A discarded sweatshirt on Bishop’s route home linked him to the crime by DNA, while fibre, paint and ivy hairs placed it at the murder scene,” says Sky News.

Speaking after the Old Bailey verdict, Karen’s mother Michelle said she had “got her heart back”.

“I lost my heart a long time ago and I was waiting for it to come back, I just sat there and thought ‘we’ve got to get it this time’,” she said.

“It was just a relief to think that we waited all this time to get the right decision, I was just relieved.”