The trial of a predatory paedophile accused of murdering two nine-year-olds in 1986 has been told that the real killer may instead have been one of the girls’ fathers, acting to cover up his “guilty secret” of involvement in the abuse of his daughter.
Russell Bishop, 52, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of sexually assaulting and murdering Karen Hadaway and Nicola Fellows in a Brighton park in October 1986.
But Joel Bennathan QC told the jury that Nicola’s father Barrie Fellows made a more plausible suspect.
“At the time the girls went missing, there was someone very close to them who has no alibi,” he claimed. “That someone had a guilty secret: he had been complicit in the abuse of Nicola, which shows an interest in paedophilic sex.
“In the end it might mean he couldn’t let Nicola Fellows tell the world about what had been happening to her. That person, I am afraid, was her father, Barrie Fellows.”
While stressing that only Bishop was on trial for murder, Mr Bennathan suggested to the jury that it was possible “the police and prosecution have spent 32 years building a case against the wrong man.”
Bishop denies murdering Karen and Nicola.
The jury has already been told that he was acquitted at a murder trial in 1987.
Three years after that acquittal, the court heard, Bishop grabbed a seven-year-old girl off the street, bundled her into the boot of a stolen car, and strangled and sexually assaulted her before leaving her for dead in gorse bushes at the Devil’s Dyke beauty spot in Sussex.
The girl, however, survived to identify her assailant, and Bishop was convicted of the 1990 attack.
Now Bishop is on trial again for the murder of Karen and Nicola after new DNA came to light which led to the Court of Appeal quashing his 1987 acquittal.
But opening the case for the defence Mr Bennathan suggested that it might instead have been Barrie Fellows who sexually assaulted and strangled the two girls in a natural ‘den’ in Brighton’s Wild park.
Telling the jurors they needed to consider the possibility that Nicola’s father may have been the real killer, Mr Bennathan said: "Only one person is on trial here sitting in the dock – Russell Bishop.
"But the law allows a defendant like him to point out facts, ask questions, to the jury that might suggest the possibility that another person exists who may have carried out these awful attacks.
"That someone made comments after the killings that are far more incriminating than anything Russell Bishop said. That someone is someone who may actually - unlike Mr Bishop been able to order Nicola Fellows to meet him in Wild Park.”
Mr Bennathan admitted that the 1990 attack on the seven-year-old girl, for which Bishop was convicted, had been “awful”.
But he told the jurors they must not assume that just because Bishop was convicted in 1990 it automatically followed that he was also guilty of killing Nicola and Karen.
Mr Bennathan urged them to “wait and see where we end up with the similarities and most importantly the differences [between the two cases].”
He also warned that the scientific evidence cited by the prosecution may have been the result of accidental contamination of forensic samples rather than a reliable pointer to Bishop’s guilt.
“The science now surrounding DNA is mind-bogglingly sensitive, based on infinitely small particles,” said Mr Bennathan. “Now, there is extreme caution to stop police officers and scientists moving traces from one exhibit to another.
“But in 1986 were all these precautions taken?”
The prosecution, however, maintains that the forensic samples taken in 1986 are in fact a “time capsule” that with modern DNA profiling techniques can now be used to prove Bishop’s guilt.
Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, told the jury that there was “compelling evidence” that Bishop murdered the two nine-year-olds on October 9 1986, before joining the search for the ‘missing’ girls in a “cynical attempt to divert attention away from himself”.
Called as the first witness, Karen’s mother Michelle Johnson broke down in tears on Tuesday as she recalled the moment she realised her daughter’s body had been found.
Ms Johnson, who was known as Michelle Hadaway at the time of the murder, described how she had sat down for a brief rest in Brighton’s Wild Park after spending hours searching for Karen and her friend, who had gone missing the previous evening.
“I was exhausted,” Ms Johnson told the Old Bailey. “I was petrified. I was worried about my little girl, worried about both those children.”
Then, the court heard, she saw police swarming everywhere and heard the force helicopter hovering overhead as a police cordon was erected.
“I saw the tape…” said Ms Johnson. Then she burst into tears in the witness box.
Once she had recovered her composure, Ms Johnson told the court how she had seen Bishop standing near the police cordon.
“I shouted at him because I wanted to know what was happening,” Ms Johnson told the court. “He looked at me and put his hand over his face."
The trial continues.
