Russell Bishop trial: Jurors visit Brighton park 32 years on from killing

Karen Hadaway and Nicola Fellows were found dead in Wild Park in 1986

Russell Bishop, 52, is accused of carrying out the murders of the two girls in Wild Park, Brighton, in 1986, the court heard.

He has pleaded not guilty to the murders.

The jurors will be shown key locations relevant to the case during a site visit today (October 18).

This week the court heard that modern forensics linked Bishop with a sweater left near the scene.

He was acquitted of the schoolgirls’ murders in 1987 – but prosecutors say improvements in technology has enabled scientists to link Bishop to the killings.

Prosecutors said a blue ‘Pinto’ sweatshirt was found close to where the girls were found and on a route that would lead from the park to Bishop’s then home.

And the court heard that experts said they can now link material fibres, hairs and paint found on the jumper to Bishop’s home, and to the two girls and the clothes they were murdered in.

Even in 1987, scientists found a ‘two-way transfer’ between fibres on the girls’ clothing, and the Pinto sweatshirt, the court heard, but it was not possible ‘except in unusual circumstances’ to attribute DNA test strands of hair to specific people.

Prosecutor Brian Altman QC said the scientific evidence and Bishop’s conviction of attempted murder just three years later proves the 52-year-old ‘to the exclusion of anyone else in the world, was the killer’.

The trial continues.