Speaker 1: In October nineteen eighty six, nine year old friends Nicola
Speaker 1: Fellows and Karen had Away disappeared while playing near their
Speaker 1: homes in Brighton, England.
Speaker 2: They were just seen being little girls around the estate,
Speaker 2: nothing extraordinary at all until that point when they disappeared
Speaker 2: off the face of the earth.
Speaker 1: The following day, the bodies of the two young girls
Speaker 1: were discovered. The police had a prime suspect, twenty year
Speaker 1: old Russell Bishop, but at his trial a year later,
Speaker 1: the killer walked away scot free.
Speaker 3: Anyone with half a brain would have been careful never
Speaker 3: to do it again, and yet he does it again.
Speaker 1: After attempting to kill a third young girl in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Bishop would eventually face justice in twenty eighteen, thirty two
Speaker 1: years after the murder of Nicola and Karen the abes
Speaker 1: in the Wood.
Speaker 4: Evil, insignificant, arrogant, is a creature. He's horrible, absolutely horrible.
Speaker 1: Russell Bishop had finally been unmasked as one of the
Speaker 1: world's most evil killers. In December twenty eighteen, Russell Bishop
Speaker 1: was serving time in Franklin Maximum Security prison for the abduction,
Speaker 1: sexual assault, and attempted murder of a seven year old
Speaker 1: girl in nineteen ninety, investigators were certain the fifty two
Speaker 1: year old was also responsible for the nineteen eighty six
Speaker 1: murders of nine year old friends Nicola Fellows and Karen
Speaker 1: had Away, but in nineteen eighty seven Bishop had been
Speaker 1: found not guilty of their murders.
Speaker 2: There was a huge shock within the police when Bishop
Speaker 2: was acquitted of killing Nicola and Karen. The investigation had
Speaker 2: been carried out so professionally and so assiduously, so when
Speaker 2: the jury returned with not guilty verdicts, everyone was just stunned.
Speaker 2: It just really rocked the whole police to the corps.
Speaker 2: We just thought, what could possibly have gone wrong?
Speaker 5: We knew that it was Bishop. Everybody knew that it
Speaker 5: was Bishop, yet he'd walked.
Speaker 1: Free since then. Graham Bartlett had studied Russell Bishop's career
Speaker 1: of crime.
Speaker 2: When I was a very young detective Brighton, I became
Speaker 2: involved in the second investigation into Russell Bishop. As a
Speaker 2: result of that, I became very aware of the case
Speaker 2: that had gone on before, in the injustice that had
Speaker 2: been served through the acquittals. So I became fascinated with
Speaker 2: the case, and as my career took off, I became
Speaker 2: constantly involved in terms of just being aware and also
Speaker 2: when I was the divisional commander of Brighton and how
Speaker 2: this cloud over the whole policing of the city that
Speaker 2: we hadn't delivered justice for those two girls.
Speaker 1: This killer's story begins in Brighton, on the south coast
Speaker 1: of England. Russell Bishop was born in February nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: One of five brothers. Bishop had a troublesome time growing up.
Speaker 6: Bishop had difficulties at school in terms of his learning.
Speaker 6: He was dyslexic, so he was sent through a series
Speaker 6: of different special schools and he ran away a lot.
Speaker 6: So this says to me that from quite a young age,
Speaker 6: this is somebody who thinks that the rules don't apply
Speaker 6: to them. They simply don't want to follow them.
Speaker 1: As a teenager, Bishop struggled to stay on the straight
Speaker 1: and narrow.
Speaker 3: The first brushes he has with the law offer mundane offenses,
Speaker 3: a driving offense in nineteen eighty three when he's seventeen,
Speaker 3: a burglary offense in nineteen eighty four when he's eighteen,
Speaker 3: and then in nineteen eighty five he's convicted of more
Speaker 3: burglaries and is given one hundred and fifty hours of
Speaker 3: community service. He's bumping along at the bottom of the
Speaker 3: law in a very minor way.
Speaker 2: He would smoke drugs, he would carry out theft, burglaries,
Speaker 2: low level burglaries, steal from cars, just.
Speaker 5: Really the run of the mill, irritant on the estate.
Speaker 1: To try and fit in with his friends. Bishop would
Speaker 1: embellish his criminal accomplishments.
Speaker 3: He has a bit of a ponchamp for bigging himself up.
Speaker 3: I mean he likes to say, oh, oh, I'm a
Speaker 3: master criminal. Absolute nonsense. I mean he might have tried
Speaker 3: to steal the odd car, but on a scale of
Speaker 3: one to ten, he's a zero. He's no master criminal
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 6: Bishop was a compulsive liar. He would lie about sexual conquests,
Speaker 6: how many women he'd slept with, the kind of criminal
Speaker 6: activity that he'd been involved in. So he's somebody who's
Speaker 6: very concerned with what other people think of him and
Speaker 6: essentially giving a performance. So he will embellish, he will exaggerate,
Speaker 6: he will report what he wants to have happened rather
Speaker 6: than what's actually happened.
Speaker 1: By nineteen eighty six, twenty year old Bishop was living
Speaker 1: in Mullscombe, a suburb of Brighton.
Speaker 2: At the time he was living with his common law wife.
Speaker 2: His girlfriend had a child by her, but also was
Speaker 2: seeing a sixteen year old girl and having a sexual
Speaker 2: relationship with her. In some ways he did show that
Speaker 2: he preferred younger girls, but nothing at all has come
Speaker 2: out then or now that would suggest that he was
Speaker 2: a pedophile.
Speaker 1: On the afternoon of the ninth of October nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: nine year olds Nicola Fellows and Karen had Away had
Speaker 1: come home from school and were playing on the green
Speaker 1: outside their homes in.
Speaker 3: Bullscom Everybody can pretty much see them through the window.
Speaker 3: It's late afternoon and there are a group of girls,
Speaker 3: not just two. After an hour, maybe forty five minutes,
Speaker 3: Nikola and Karen split off from the rest of the
Speaker 3: group and go in search of something else to do.
Speaker 3: At about six point fifteen, the girls are seen outside
Speaker 3: the fish and chip shop with a bag of chips
Speaker 3: each and walking. Nothing all that unusual in that except
Speaker 3: that by then both Nicholas and Karen's mother are becoming
Speaker 3: rather concerned. When Karen didn't come home for tea, which
Speaker 3: is something that she always do when had my master.
Speaker 3: Both parents started to get worried, started to have a
Speaker 3: look round, phone around friends and try and find where
Speaker 3: they are.
Speaker 2: And they were drawing a blank in this sort of
Speaker 2: a state, in any sort of a state in you know,
Speaker 2: certainly in my childhood too, it wasn't unusual for kids
Speaker 2: to go missing for you know, a couple of hours
Speaker 2: or so. The evenings were still light. But something about
Speaker 2: them go missing and not being seen nobody knew where
Speaker 2: they were. That really people's worries about what was it?
Speaker 2: What had happened to these two little girls.
Speaker 1: Throughout the evening. There had been various sightings of the
Speaker 1: girls around the estate and in nearby Wild Park.
Speaker 3: The last time the two girls are seen is heading
Speaker 3: towards Wild Park with their bags of chips and in
Speaker 3: the same vicinity had around the same time. There's also
Speaker 3: a sighting there of Russell Bishop.
Speaker 1: Bishop knew both girls through his friends and neighbors in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 5: It's a very close knit community.
Speaker 2: Bishop used to play for Barry Fellows football team. He
Speaker 2: was a goalkeeper in Barry Fellows football team, so knew
Speaker 2: the Fellows through.
Speaker 5: That that way.
Speaker 2: Also his girlfriend at the time that knew the hadaways,
Speaker 2: so he got to know them through that means. Really,
Speaker 2: but Moulscome is one of these places where people literally
Speaker 2: know everybody.
Speaker 1: By eight point thirty pm, night had fallen and the
Speaker 1: girls still hadn't returned home. Their worried parents decided to
Speaker 1: call the police.
Speaker 2: When the officers drove into Newitt Road to go and
Speaker 2: see the parents, immediately they sent something was different. They
Speaker 2: both policed Mulscoom for a while, they'd been to these
Speaker 2: kind of calls before, but the number of people out
Speaker 2: on the street, the little huddles of concerned faces trying
Speaker 2: to work out what was going on. Immediately they picked
Speaker 2: up on that a.
Speaker 1: Police search begin and for the two nine year old friends.
Speaker 2: It's difficult when you're either commanding or taking part in
Speaker 2: the search such as this, because your overriding emotion must
Speaker 2: be hope. You must hope that you're going to find
Speaker 2: these girls alive, find Nichola and Karen, bring them back
Speaker 2: to their mum and dads. But in fact, the longer
Speaker 2: it went on, the less likely that was becoming.
Speaker 1: The girl's parents. The police and the whole community were
Speaker 1: desperate to find Nicola and Karen alive. It was cold
Speaker 1: and dark, but the search continued until two am, when
Speaker 1: it resumed later that morning. Detective Constable John Morton was
Speaker 1: one of the huge number of police that had been
Speaker 1: drafted in to help.
Speaker 7: The briefing started at nine o'clock and at that stage
Speaker 7: we had all available uniform personnel at Brighton engaged and
Speaker 7: the search had been ramped up considerably in an effort
Speaker 7: to find the girls.
Speaker 1: Police Constable Paul Smith had also reported for duty. He
Speaker 1: was tasked with searching homes in the area near Wild Park.
Speaker 8: We were doing every single house parallel to the park
Speaker 8: and beyond. This is a massive estate and I think
Speaker 8: there was sort of thirty forty guys involved. You knock
Speaker 8: on the door, we say, look, we've got two little
Speaker 8: girls gone missing. Can I search your house? And every
Speaker 8: single person they said, every one of them said you know,
Speaker 8: please come in.
Speaker 2: Hope was always there, but actually this dread that something
Speaker 2: awful had happened to them was starting to grow in
Speaker 2: people's minds.
Speaker 1: Members of the public also joined in the search for
Speaker 1: Nicola and Karen. One of the Mulescomb residents was twenty
Speaker 1: year old Russell Bishop.
Speaker 5: He was searching around with everybody else.
Speaker 2: He got in a car at one point and went
Speaker 2: to the back of the park, but was constantly putting
Speaker 2: him in or about the center of the search. Just
Speaker 2: wanted to be kept coming back to our park, kept
Speaker 2: wanting to talk to officers.
Speaker 6: Bishop literally can't help himself, and as with many narcissists,
Speaker 6: he wants to be right in the middle of everything.
Speaker 6: He can't step back from something, he can't be quiet,
Speaker 6: and any kind of attention, whether that's positive or whether
Speaker 6: that's negative, is something that he will value. So he
Speaker 6: places himself right in the middle of this drama that
Speaker 6: he's created.
Speaker 1: When Paul Smith continued with his search for the nine
Speaker 1: year old girls in Wild Park, Russell Bishop was already
Speaker 1: on the scene with his dog.
Speaker 8: We were sort of talking about searching, you know, looking
Speaker 8: for the girls, and he was quite negative about that.
Speaker 8: He said, I've been searching all day. My dog knows him,
Speaker 8: he's a good tracker, and I've decided to give up.
Speaker 8: I've been doing it all day. And I said, well,
Speaker 8: we've got to keep looking, got to find him. You know,
Speaker 8: if we find him, rush him to hospital and have
Speaker 8: him checked over, and then they'll be back with the
Speaker 8: mums and dads sort of thing. And he said, oh, well,
Speaker 8: I'm not doing that. He said, because if I found
Speaker 8: them and they're dead. I get arrested one out for
Speaker 8: killing them. With my background and the fact I'm being
Speaker 8: in trouble with the police, I'll get nicked. And I said, no,
Speaker 8: you won't. You've just got to give a statement, you know.
Speaker 1: At around four pm, police officer Paul and local resident
Speaker 1: Bishop were still searching for the girls, who'd now been
Speaker 1: missing for almost twenty four hours.
Speaker 8: We were sort of walking towards Wild Park by this
Speaker 8: time into our part and there was a shout from
Speaker 8: a boy and he said, we found them. We found them.
Speaker 8: We went rushing off towards them, and I had wet
Speaker 8: weather trousers, ons had been raining, I had a long raincoat,
Speaker 8: I had boots, so I was a bit slower than
Speaker 8: he was. And I said to Bishop, look, you run
Speaker 8: on ahead, and if they're there, you keep them away
Speaker 8: from the girls. And you keep away from the girls.
Speaker 1: Paul Smith arrived just after Bishop. Nightmare that everyone was
Speaker 1: dreading had become a reality.
Speaker 8: I kept them away. It was about twelve thirteen feet
Speaker 8: away from where the girls were, and I could see
Speaker 8: that they were They looked dead. I went across to
Speaker 8: them and I took the pulse and sorry I still
Speaker 8: get to me, I took the pulse and there were
Speaker 8: stone cold, dead like pieces of marble.
Speaker 1: The two teens who'd found the girls told Detective Constable
Speaker 1: John Morton that no one apart from Paul Smith had
Speaker 1: gone anywhere near the bodies. But Russell Bishop had a
Speaker 1: totally different story.
Speaker 7: He said to me that he had been searching with
Speaker 7: the other two along this path and they'd come to
Speaker 7: a fallen tree which they had to cross, and that
Speaker 7: he had crossed the tree, gone to the girls and
Speaker 7: sinned that they were both dead. And to verify that,
Speaker 7: he said he took a pulse from both girls at
Speaker 7: the neck. Frankly, I was so staggered by what he
Speaker 7: said that I sat down immediately and wrote down what.
Speaker 5: He told me in my notebook.
Speaker 8: You know, it was nothing to him, you know, like
Speaker 8: you swat a fly and then you get rid of it.
Speaker 8: It was like that he was just not bothered. There
Speaker 8: was no emotion. You know, I would have expected him,
Speaker 8: because he knew him to be like, oh my god,
Speaker 8: you know, even if you're in shock. But nothing there
Speaker 8: at all, just not you know, it was if it
Speaker 8: could have been a dead dog.
Speaker 6: The police were suspicious of bishop from the beginning, because
Speaker 6: he was overly enthusiastic and some of the information that
Speaker 6: he was sharing really didn't stack up. So he claimed
Speaker 6: to have checked the girl's pulses. He claimed to have
Speaker 6: seen blood coming from the mouth of one of the girls,
Speaker 6: and he couldn't have been close enough to see that.
Speaker 6: So the police were quite concerned at this behavior. There
Speaker 6: were a lot of red flags here, so he was
Speaker 6: the prime suspect.
Speaker 7: Really.
Speaker 1: Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway had been sexually assaulted and
Speaker 1: strangled to death. The news of the discovery quickly spread
Speaker 1: amongst the residents of Bullscombe. The entire community was in shock.
Speaker 2: Any murder is big, Any murder is a tragedy, but
Speaker 2: the loss of two little girls in such brutal circumstances
Speaker 2: is probably the biggest thing that can happen in terms
Speaker 2: of policing.
Speaker 3: It's a dreadful scene and it's a dreadful crime. It
Speaker 3: has a monstrous effect on the community in Brighton. Originally
Speaker 3: the killings were known as the Wild Park murders, but
Speaker 3: they later became known as the Babes in the Wood
Speaker 3: killings because the girls were so innocent and young.
Speaker 7: I've gone to school in Moscow for part my childhood,
Speaker 7: so it was a personal blow to me that somebody
Speaker 7: would take two young girls from that estate and decided
Speaker 7: he was going to murder them. To me, you don't
Speaker 7: do that, not on my beat.
Speaker 1: The search for two missing girls had now become a
Speaker 1: double murder case. Evidence from the surrounding area were scrutinized.
Speaker 7: That a brief England next morning, her attention was drawn
Speaker 7: to a blue sweatshirt which had a logo across the
Speaker 7: front Pinto in white lettering. It had been handed into
Speaker 7: the police box by a railway engineer who was at
Speaker 7: Muscoam station and found it hanging over the wire that
Speaker 7: separated the station from the footpath.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty six. DNA was still in its infancy,
Speaker 1: but that didn't mean the words any clues to be
Speaker 1: found on the sweatshirt.
Speaker 2: As time went on, the various forensic items were recovered
Speaker 2: from it, fibers from the girls, jumpers, ivy spores that
Speaker 2: were peculiar to the area where.
Speaker 5: The girls were killed and not where the sweatshirt was found.
Speaker 2: So it became very clear that whoever had murdered Nicola
Speaker 2: and Karen had been wearing this sweatshirt at the time.
Speaker 2: They did that because otherwise those fibers would not have
Speaker 2: retained on there. So it was really really significant this sweatshirt.
Speaker 1: Russell Bishop had been acting suspiciously and he had been
Speaker 1: spotted in the area at around the same time as
Speaker 1: the girls were last seen alive. Investigators were convinced that
Speaker 1: the Pinto sweatshirt belonged to Bishop. The evidence appeared to
Speaker 1: be pointing in one direction. In December nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: Bishop was charged with the murders of Nicola and Karen.
Speaker 1: Almost a year later, in November nineteen eighty seven, his
Speaker 1: trial began at Lewis Crown Court.
Speaker 2: They never quite got to the point where they could
Speaker 2: say through science that that sweatshirt was worn by Bishop
Speaker 2: on that night. They knew that it had been worn
Speaker 2: by the killer, but they couldn't put it on Bishop's back.
Speaker 1: At that point, the prosecution put forward the case that
Speaker 1: Bishop had murdered Nicola and Karen had around six thirty pm,
Speaker 1: but one witness testified she'd waved hello to the two
Speaker 1: girls at a court of the seventh fifteen minutes after
Speaker 1: the killings had supposedly taken place.
Speaker 6: The judge asked the jury to go away and consider
Speaker 6: three propositions, and if one or more of them they
Speaker 6: didn't agree with, then they had to acquit. So the
Speaker 6: first one was that the girls were dead by six
Speaker 6: point thirty, The second was that Bishop had worn the
Speaker 6: Pinto sweatshirt, and the third was that the Pinto sweatshirt
Speaker 6: had been worn by the murderer.
Speaker 7: Absolutely stunned. The most stunning thing of all was that
Speaker 7: the jury came back within two hours were not guilty verdict.
Speaker 1: The case put forward was just not strong enough to
Speaker 1: convince the jury of Bishop guilt. It was a gut
Speaker 1: wrenching blow to the families of the two girls, the investigators,
Speaker 1: and the community as a whole.
Speaker 2: Bishop knew when he heard those words not guilty, that
Speaker 2: he got away scot free.
Speaker 5: In his mind and in everybody else's mind.
Speaker 2: There was no possibility of him being prosecuted again for that.
Speaker 6: The way that the law stirred at this time we
Speaker 6: had a principle called double jeopardy, which meant that somebody
Speaker 6: couldn't be tried for the same crime twice. Once they've
Speaker 6: been acquitted, that was it. Prosecution couldn't just keep trying.
Speaker 6: So Bishop is acquitted and he feels absolutely invincible. At
Speaker 6: this point in.
Speaker 3: Time, Bishop leaves Lewis Crown Call with his arms in
Speaker 3: the air, shouting I am innocent, and rushes across the
Speaker 3: road to celebrate in the pub opposite. Now some brass neck,
Speaker 3: wouldn't you think? Some ego there? After all, he knows
Speaker 3: perfectly well, these killed those two innocent young girls.
Speaker 1: In the minds of the people who worked on the case,
Speaker 1: Russell Bishop had just got away with murder.
Speaker 8: Ordinary blogs like me p season that was summed because
Speaker 8: you know, after we'd heard about the case and we
Speaker 8: knew what had got on, we were sure that he
Speaker 8: was the killer.
Speaker 2: It was absolutely devastating for everybody that they had a
Speaker 2: child killer, a double child killer, in their hands, and
Speaker 2: he got away.
Speaker 1: Investigators were certain Bishop was the perpetrator, but they couldn't
Speaker 1: prove it in a court of law, so he walked
Speaker 1: away a free man. By nineteen eighty nine, Bishop himself
Speaker 1: was seeking.
Speaker 9: Justice and as we've still got to get this cause open,
Speaker 9: and that's all what's been on my mind is to
Speaker 9: get this causero opened.
Speaker 6: After he's acquitted, Bishop doesn't just go away and live
Speaker 6: a quiet life as a narcissist, He feels entitled to attention,
Speaker 6: and he quite likes the infamy that comes with being
Speaker 6: involved in this case. So in nine eighty nine, he
Speaker 6: goes on a march with the family and the local
Speaker 6: community to a local police station to basically raise awareness
Speaker 6: about this case, which is apparently still unsolved.
Speaker 5: Some people might be surprised that you're now linking up
Speaker 5: with the parents.
Speaker 10: Of the two murdered schoolgirls, having been accused yourself of
Speaker 10: their murder.
Speaker 9: People are very surprised that the kid master me. Why
Speaker 9: do I keep on and on and on. The fact
Speaker 9: is I want to say this case with open my
Speaker 9: name isn't cleared until someone else has brought the justice
Speaker 9: to real person.
Speaker 6: He really enjoys being at the center of that because
Speaker 6: it enables him to claim the victim status for himself.
Speaker 6: He's saying, everybody, look at me, I am the victim
Speaker 6: of a miscarriage of justice. Feel sorry for me.
Speaker 1: By February nineteen ninety, Sussex police were still trying to
Speaker 1: move on from what they believed to be a grave
Speaker 1: miscarriage of justice when a similar attack took place in
Speaker 1: the county.
Speaker 2: I remember, in my first month as a detective at
Speaker 2: Brighton's the idea as a very junior DC bottom of
Speaker 2: the pile. Working one Sunday evening it happened to be
Speaker 2: the third anniversary of the girl's funerals, and then suddenly
Speaker 2: everything changed. The sergeant came in and told us that
Speaker 2: a little girl had gone missing from Whitehawk, which is
Speaker 2: a similar estate to Mulscom, a different part of Brighton,
Speaker 2: and shortly after she'd been reported missing, a little girl
Speaker 2: had been found naked, scratched, crying on Devil's Dike, which
Speaker 2: is a big wind swept part of what's now the
Speaker 2: Southdowns National Park.
Speaker 1: Detective Inspector Malcolm Bacon was in charge of the investigation.
Speaker 4: She comes to she's in the middle of nowhere, so
Speaker 4: she stumbles out and she's been seen by a couple
Speaker 4: who were on the main road deck. So she goes
Speaker 4: to the mess and the first thing she said, you're
Speaker 4: not kidnappers, are you? Bless her? But of course they weren't,
Speaker 4: wrapped her up in a pullover and a coat and
Speaker 4: took her to the Dyke Golf Club.
Speaker 1: The seven year old girl that survived a terrifying ordeal,
Speaker 1: which she bravely shared with Malcolm and his team. After
Speaker 1: roller skating to the local shop to buy some sweets,
Speaker 1: her young life would change forever.
Speaker 4: She was on her way back when she said she
Speaker 4: saw this red car and she was scooting past it.
Speaker 4: Suddenly she was grabbed, literally grabbed, snatched off the street
Speaker 4: and dumped into the boot of this red car, this
Speaker 4: red Corteina. She was scared, absolutely scared, witness and she
Speaker 4: realized she saw can of WD forty. She described it
Speaker 4: as the stuff that her dad uses to get the
Speaker 4: car started. And she also found in there like a
Speaker 4: hammer type thing, and she started bashing on the lid
Speaker 4: of the boot with this hammer. Suddenly the driver shouted
Speaker 4: down and told her to shut up, stop doing her
Speaker 4: or killer.
Speaker 1: The girl kept quiet, hoping that she'd be set free,
Speaker 1: but her ordeal continued.
Speaker 4: She was bundled straight into the back seat of the car,
Speaker 4: and from there she realized and she saw the person
Speaker 4: who was responsible, and she strangled. She was strangled certainly
Speaker 4: to the point of view that she passed out. And
Speaker 4: I am sure, I am sure that Bishop was convinced
Speaker 4: that he killed her.
Speaker 1: Three years after the murders of Nicola Fellows and Karen
Speaker 1: had Away, Russell Bishop was hoping to claim a third victim.
Speaker 4: At that point, unconscious, hardly any life signs at all.
Speaker 4: She was sexually assorted. Bishop then just takes what he
Speaker 4: considers to be the dead, naked body of a seven
Speaker 4: year old child that he is just assorted and abused
Speaker 4: and just discance her. There's no other word for it.
Speaker 4: He discards her. He just throws her in the middle
Speaker 4: of these gorse bushes. On a freezing cold Sunday night in.
Speaker 1: February, Bishop sped off in his car, but the monster
Speaker 1: had made a mistake. The girl was not dead.
Speaker 6: I think he did seriously believe that she was dead
Speaker 6: because strangulation was a method that he'd used before on
Speaker 6: Karen and Nikola, and it had been successful in relation
Speaker 6: to that case, so he assumes that it's worked again
Speaker 6: and that he's gotten away with it again because there
Speaker 6: are no witnesses.
Speaker 4: We don't normally use forensic pathologists to do examinations of children,
Speaker 4: but on this particular case, it was because he noticed
Speaker 4: not only the pinching on the round the throat, but
Speaker 4: also particular hemorrhages, which is indicative of a suffocating injury.
Speaker 4: That's the sort of thing that you look at when
Speaker 4: a person has been strangled and they're killed. That's how
Speaker 4: close she was seconds, I would suggest, seconds away from death.
Speaker 1: The seven year old girl's incredible testimony immediately helped Malcolm
Speaker 1: and his team come up with a prime suspect.
Speaker 4: So I gave a briefing to the troops and I
Speaker 4: mentioned about the red cardiff that and the other and
Speaker 4: the uniform chief inspector said, are you aware that Russell
Speaker 4: Bishop was seen in a red car this week?
Speaker 1: Less than two and a half years after his acquittal
Speaker 1: for murder. The police were paying twenty three year old
Speaker 1: Russell Bishop another visit.
Speaker 2: They drove up to his house and saw him scrubbing
Speaker 2: as if his life depended on it.
Speaker 4: Washing his red courtena on a Sunday night in February.
Speaker 4: That didn't sit night.
Speaker 5: So Bishop was arrested and taken to the police station.
Speaker 1: Bishop was back in custody. It was a moment of
Speaker 1: bittersweet redemption for Sussex Police.
Speaker 4: People were volunteering to come in as soon as somebody
Speaker 4: heard it was Russell Bishop that had been nicked as well.
Speaker 4: You've got to be honest that that was like a
Speaker 4: magnet as well. That was like a magnet and I
Speaker 4: went down with the sergeant from the seen as a
Speaker 4: crime officer to look at this car. And when we
Speaker 4: opened up the bootlead, we saw the WD forty, We
Speaker 4: saw the hammer, we saw the chip marks to the
Speaker 4: boot and we thought we're going in the right direction.
Speaker 1: Evidence collected at the scene near Devil's Dyke didn't help
Speaker 1: Bishop's cause.
Speaker 4: We find tire marks at the area where we've the
Speaker 4: assault took place. The tire marks later found to be
Speaker 4: exactly identical to the ones that are on Bishop's car.
Speaker 1: Soon news reached the station of even more evidence that
Speaker 1: pointed towards Bishop's involvement.
Speaker 2: There was a taxi driver that found a bundle of
Speaker 2: clothing on a road. It was fairly busy, but was
Speaker 2: the natural route away from the Dike to where Bishop lived.
Speaker 2: This bundle of clothing would ultimately be a parcel of
Speaker 2: evidence that had both the girls and Bishop's DNA in
Speaker 2: it together.
Speaker 4: Shippings from the bootleg that were on there. There was
Speaker 4: clothing fibers which later matched up to the ones that
Speaker 4: little girl was wearing. There was blood and they were
Speaker 4: seamen on those trousers, immediately linking the little girl to
Speaker 4: those trousers to Bishop and then the car as well.
Speaker 1: In a bid to make sure Bishop didn't escape justice.
Speaker 1: The brave seven year old girl was willing to face
Speaker 1: her attacker once more.
Speaker 2: Almost at the time a decision had to be made
Speaker 2: was whether Bishop was going to be freed or not.
Speaker 2: His solicitor asked for an identification parade. This was a
Speaker 2: bit of a last desperate throw over dice.
Speaker 5: In my view.
Speaker 2: It was a chance for Bishop's solicitors to see how
Speaker 2: well this little girl would stand up to the account
Speaker 2: that she'd given.
Speaker 4: They set it up in a room with a one
Speaker 4: way mirror, and so she could stand back and she
Speaker 4: can observe. He sat down, he was given his.
Speaker 9: Number, and I'm going to ask you in a moment
Speaker 9: to look through the window at the line.
Speaker 5: Of men who are sitting there.
Speaker 8: I should then ask you whether the person who you
Speaker 8: saw on that day is fear.
Speaker 2: The girl looked up and down the line, stopped at
Speaker 2: the Bishop, looked at Bishop.
Speaker 5: He couldn't see her. You think it's number line, thank you.
Speaker 4: So it was really quite a tear jerking moment in
Speaker 4: a sense. It was so emotional that that little bit,
Speaker 4: I mean, it was just wonderful for her and for us,
Speaker 4: definitely for us.
Speaker 1: Bishop was charged with kidnap, in decent assault and attempted murder.
Speaker 1: At his trial in November nineteen ninety, he took to
Speaker 1: the stand in a bid to discredit the police investigation.
Speaker 3: The ever slippery Bishop attempts to convince the world that
Speaker 3: he has been fitted up for the crime because of
Speaker 3: his fame. Oh, I'm the man that got away with
Speaker 3: the babes in the woodkillings. I was acquitted, but now
Speaker 3: they're trying to make up for lost time.
Speaker 4: He got in a box and he started to give evidence,
Speaker 4: and his arrogance just shone through. He didn't have to
Speaker 4: do anything. Just let him talk, Just let him talk me,
Speaker 4: and it just showed this psychopathic behavior throughout. He couldn't
Speaker 4: stop himself from being the victim to this arrogance that
Speaker 4: he showed throughout.
Speaker 1: With incredible bravery, the young girl, who had since turned eight,
Speaker 1: agreed to take to the stand in order to help
Speaker 1: get a conviction.
Speaker 3: It must have been the most extraordinary moment. You've got
Speaker 3: this man full of all kinds of slippery stories, and
Speaker 3: you've got this little girl sitting on a high stool
Speaker 3: with pillows, saying I know who attacked me. He did.
Speaker 5: It was a moment of the highest drama.
Speaker 6: I think this kind of courage and resilience is something
Speaker 6: that Bishop will never have because he's such coward. Very
Speaker 6: often in these cases, the victims embody everything that the
Speaker 6: perpetrators aren't, and that is very much the case here.
Speaker 1: There is no escaping justice this time. On the thirteenth
Speaker 1: of December nineteen ninety, Russell Bishop was sentenced to life
Speaker 1: in prison.
Speaker 2: Sometimes when murderers are convicted and good sentences are passed down,
Speaker 2: the police have a bit of a celebration, might go
Speaker 2: out for a drink or you know, just a very
Speaker 2: satisfied with the outcome. There were no celebrations this time.
Speaker 2: You know, we locked up a very very evil man.
Speaker 2: But there was no cause for celebration because the families
Speaker 2: of those two little girls were still waiting for their
Speaker 2: day in courts, still waiting for justice.
Speaker 1: The guilty verdict to reaffirm the communities believed that Bishop
Speaker 1: was behind the nineteen eighty six murders of Nicola and Karen, even.
Speaker 2: Though Bishop had been convicted of a very similar offense
Speaker 2: against very similar girl in very similar circumstances. Nothing would
Speaker 2: have allowed the police to recharge Bishop with those earlier
Speaker 2: murders and put in before the court. The law simply
Speaker 2: didn't allow it. So we were stuck. We knew that
Speaker 2: Bishop had killed Nicola and Karen. Everybody knew that. Within
Speaker 2: the police, the families knew that nothing we could do
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: By two thousand and four, thirty eight year old Russell
Speaker 1: Bishop had been in prison for fourteen years. The convicted
Speaker 1: pedophile was due to be released at any moment. Detective
Speaker 1: Jeff Riley had been recruited in the same year that
Speaker 1: Bishop was sent to prison, but he was still aware
Speaker 1: of the miscarriage of justice surrounding the babes in the
Speaker 1: Wood murders.
Speaker 10: Well I joined the police in nineteen ninety, so of
Speaker 10: course that was only a few years after he had
Speaker 10: been acquitted at trial. Now I was aware of the investigation,
Speaker 10: and I was aware had a massive impact clearly on
Speaker 10: the families, a massive impact on the community in Wull's Comb.
Speaker 10: And I think it always hung as a bit of
Speaker 10: a dark crowd over Brighton and over Sussex place because
Speaker 10: you never want to see the murder of two little girls,
Speaker 10: you know, with the guy not brought.
Speaker 1: To justice, but all that was about to change.
Speaker 10: The big change came in in two thousand and three
Speaker 10: when the Criminal Justice Act was brought in. It was
Speaker 10: actually became law in two thousand and five, and that
Speaker 10: was a real milestone in the UK justice system because
Speaker 10: it meant that someone who's found not guilty i acquitted
Speaker 10: at trial could now potentially be taken back to trial
Speaker 10: and be retried for the original offense.
Speaker 1: The new legislation that removed the so called double jeopardy
Speaker 1: law meant Bishop could be retried for the murders of
Speaker 1: Nicola and Karen, but only if there was some new
Speaker 1: evidence against him.
Speaker 2: When we talk about new evidence, we weren't talking about
Speaker 2: evidence that had been sat there and the police hadn't
Speaker 2: bothered to look at, or the prosecution had decided not
Speaker 2: to use. It could had to be new evidence, and
Speaker 2: it had to be compelling.
Speaker 1: Gathering the new evidence would take years, but fortunately, as
Speaker 1: Bishop was still considered a danger to young girls, his
Speaker 1: parole was continually denied. By twenty thirteen, Jeff and his
Speaker 1: team believed they had made a breakthrough. Although DNA testing
Speaker 1: wasn't readily available to detectives in nineteen eighty six, forensic
Speaker 1: science had come on in leaps and bounds. The blue
Speaker 1: Pinto sweatshirt once again became pebotal in the case.
Speaker 10: Normally they would always test around the neck, they would
Speaker 10: test under the armpits. But they took the view that
Speaker 10: actually had like a double cuff on the sweatshirt. So
Speaker 10: if we unpicked the cuff and pulled it apart, we
Speaker 10: may find some evidence of the wearer within that cuff.
Speaker 10: And that's exactly what they did, and that's exactly what
Speaker 10: they found. They actually recovered a full DNA profile from
Speaker 10: Russell Bishop from within that cuffed area that had been
Speaker 10: there since he bore the jumper in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen eighty six, the sweatshirt had merely been
Speaker 1: regarded as lost property and had been handled so many
Speaker 1: times contamination of the evidence couldn't be ruled out in
Speaker 1: a court of law. Incredibly, it was back to square
Speaker 1: one for Jeff Well.
Speaker 10: That was a massive blow for the investigation. We'd been
Speaker 10: running two years. You know, I'd been discussing with the family.
Speaker 10: We'd built their hopes up, we'd invested a lot of money.
Speaker 10: From Sussex Police's point of view, we'd invested a lot
Speaker 10: of time, but of course the impact of the family
Speaker 10: could have been significant. But the scientists were quite upbeat
Speaker 10: and they said, look, we've got lots of other options
Speaker 10: to test evidence. So you know, just because we've lost
Speaker 10: this DNA and the calf which was our original bit,
Speaker 10: doesn't mean to say there's not other avenues.
Speaker 1: Some evidence from the original investigation was still securely sealed away,
Speaker 1: forensic examples taken from the bodies of Nicola and Karen
Speaker 1: using an adhesive tape.
Speaker 2: They decided that they would go back to these tapings,
Speaker 2: the tapings that have been taken back in the eighties
Speaker 2: by the scientists who was looking for fibers, hair foliage,
Speaker 2: those sorts of things. Because these tapings were sealed parcels
Speaker 2: in time, really there were time capsules of evidence.
Speaker 5: There was no break in seals.
Speaker 2: So they examined the tapings and this was a Eureka
Speaker 2: moment because within those tapings was Bishop's DNA.
Speaker 1: Modern science had proved what detectives back in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: six couldn't. The new DNA evidence firmly placed Russell Bishop
Speaker 1: at the scene of the crime and proved he had
Speaker 1: been in physical contact with the two nine year old girls.
Speaker 1: It also meant, without a doubt, Bishop had been wearing
Speaker 1: the now infamous Pinto sweatshirt.
Speaker 10: So even though we'd lost the calf, we had DNA
Speaker 10: on the sweatshirt. We had DNA victim and made all
Speaker 10: the other evidence that actually stood the test of time.
Speaker 2: Bishop's assertion, and it was probably his only consistent assertion
Speaker 2: other than the fact he hadn't killed the girls, was
Speaker 2: that he knew nothing about that sweatshirt and it wasn't
Speaker 2: his here it was sprinkled in his DNA.
Speaker 1: Based on this new evidence, investigators knew that the Court
Speaker 1: of Appeal would agree to a retrial. The only thing
Speaker 1: left to do was break the news to Russell Bishop.
Speaker 10: He was a Category A prisoner because of his security risk,
Speaker 10: so we had to take him to a Category A
Speaker 10: holding police station. And that's the first thing he would
Speaker 10: have known about our investigation was when he drove into
Speaker 10: the rear yard of Durham Central Police Station and he
Speaker 10: just kept saying that I want to go back to prison.
Speaker 10: You know, this has been dealt with, This has gone away.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 10: I think he was hoping it had gone away, and
Speaker 10: I think he convinced himself it had. But of course
Speaker 10: he hadn't thought about double jeopardy. He hadn't thought about
Speaker 10: the Criminal Justice Act, and he hadn't thought about the
Speaker 10: fact that we'd never forgotten about this case. And there
Speaker 10: he was in custody, being arrested again for the murders
Speaker 10: of Karena Nicola. It was a massive moment for us.
Speaker 1: The retrial began that the Old Bailey in October twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Further evidence was presented against Bishop, including explicit letters he'd
Speaker 1: written to a thirteen year old girl from his prison
Speaker 1: cell while on remand for the original trial in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven.
Speaker 10: He started shouting that it wasn't right that he was
Speaker 10: questioned in this way. He appealed to his council, He
Speaker 10: appealed to the judge. The judge very clearly told him
Speaker 10: that these questions were appropriate and if any stage they weren't,
Speaker 10: he would step in, but he didn't need to. As
Speaker 10: this went on and went forward, Bishop became more and
Speaker 10: more angry. He then asked for break. He then left
Speaker 10: the witness box. He then refused to return, and the
Speaker 10: following day refused to return to trial. So actually he
Speaker 10: never came back to court after his initial evidence.
Speaker 3: I think he realized at that moment that he'd blown it,
Speaker 3: because the jurors could see for themselves exactly what he
Speaker 3: was capable of.
Speaker 1: After just three hours of deliberations on the tenth of
Speaker 1: December twenty eighteen, the jury had reached a decision.
Speaker 2: When they filed back into the court, the families were
Speaker 2: all there, the barristers were all there, the police officers
Speaker 2: were there.
Speaker 10: Everyone was in court apart from Bishop. The family was
Speaker 10: sitting just behind me. The courtroom was packed, but the
Speaker 10: atmosphere was electric, I mean absolutely electric. The jury came
Speaker 10: back in. You know when you all look at the
Speaker 10: jury trying to get an indication of what you think.
Speaker 10: You know, we've all done it over the years, but
Speaker 10: we just couldn't tell.
Speaker 5: The foreman stood up.
Speaker 2: The clerk asked whether they'd made a decision on which
Speaker 2: they were all agreed. The foreman confirmed they had, and
Speaker 2: then when asked whether or not they found Bishop guilty
Speaker 2: or not guilty of murdering Nicola, he replied guilty, And
Speaker 2: when asked whether they'd found the defendant guilty or not
Speaker 2: guilty of murdering Karen, he replied guilty.
Speaker 10: The fitting in the court was just astounding. Like you know,
Speaker 10: I looked at the family and just to look on
Speaker 10: their face and they let out a gasp. I think
Speaker 10: there was a gasp, but just went around the court.
Speaker 2: It was a huge moment for the whole city, for
Speaker 2: the police, for the retired officers, that this was a
Speaker 2: cloud that had now lifted from the city.
Speaker 1: Unlike his acquittal exactly thirty one years earlier to the day,
Speaker 1: Russell Bishop would not be celebrating in the pub. The
Speaker 1: following day, the fifty two year old refused to appear
Speaker 1: in front of the judge to hear his fate.
Speaker 2: His sentenced Bishop with a withering attack to two life
Speaker 2: sentences and a minimum term of thirty six years. Bishop
Speaker 2: will be at the very least eighty eight when he
Speaker 2: is eligible for parole. I would be astonished if that
Speaker 2: man ever walked the streets again.
Speaker 10: Detectives don't like to get too emotional with these things,
Speaker 10: but this was just such a massive moment for the team.
Speaker 10: And I remember sitting next to one of my guys
Speaker 10: and I was just shaking hands and you know, and
Speaker 10: just look looking at the family and smiling at Barry
Speaker 10: and Michelle and Susan and just thinking, I'm so pleased
Speaker 10: for you, you know, I'm so pleased that finally you've
Speaker 10: got justice for your daughters. It was an amazing moment,
Speaker 10: you know, one that I've never had before, and I
Speaker 10: don't think whatever have again.
Speaker 1: A weight had been lifted from Wolscombe and the city
Speaker 1: of Brighton as a whole.
Speaker 6: I think the feeling in the community amongst the family
Speaker 6: and the officers involved was that they had finally achieved
Speaker 6: justice for Karen and Nicola. But I don't think it
Speaker 6: was very much as celebratory moment. It was more the
Speaker 6: closing of a chapter because Karen and Niccola would now
Speaker 6: be women with years of life behind them and in
Speaker 6: front of them, and this is something that Bishop has
Speaker 6: denied to them. So I think there is a sense
Speaker 6: of justice here, but we'll never be able to get
Speaker 6: back what he's taken away.
Speaker 1: For thirty two years, Bishop thought he'd got away with murder,
Speaker 1: but justice eventually caught up with the Keller's killer.
Speaker 2: Russell Bishop is an evil, pedophile psychopath. His crimes speak
Speaker 2: for themselves. The way he conduct himself, the way he's
Speaker 2: conducted himself throughout just underline the evil that that man is.
Speaker 5: I used to say.
Speaker 2: That there were people that did evil things, but very
Speaker 2: few evil people. Well, Bishop is one of those evil people.
Speaker 1: Bishop was a pedophile who couldn't resist his selfish and
Speaker 1: impure instincts. He squeezed the life from two innocent young girls,
Speaker 1: and it was only his own ineptitude that saved the
Speaker 1: life of a third. Justice was thirty two years in
Speaker 1: the making, but the scars he's left on the community
Speaker 1: he ripped apart will take even longer to heal, making
Speaker 1: Russell Bishop one of the world's most evil killers.