All language subtitles for Cold Case Killers S01 E01_track3_[eng]

When a murder
is left unsolved...

No weapons, no eyewitnesses,
no forensic evidence at all.

There was nothing. ..And
a killer is on the loose...

These people are still out
there. Who's going to be next?

..Britain's cold case
detectives will never give up.

The best way to solve a
cold case is to keep it warm.

No matter how long it takes...
This case dominated my life.

..They'll investigate every
angle and uncover every clue...

Searching through
thousands of people.

They think they've got
away with it, they haven't.

..Until the killer is caught
at last. We all leave a trace.

We'd finally identified that
golden nugget. Bingo, we've got it!

Ok, thank you. All right.

It was the 9th of October,
1986, in moulsecoomb, Brighton...

..When two nine-year-old girls,
Karen hadaway and Nicola fellows,

vanished into thin air after
out playing with friends.

They went off and played
on their own but, as it got later

and darker, their parents started to
worry about them and wonder where

they were and ultimately decided,
no, they needed to call the police.

Nicola's dad, Barrie fellows,

immediately new
how serious this was.

She was very prompt
with Thursday nights -

top of the pops, EastEnders,
would not miss them for anything,

you know, even if she was along
her friends', she would not miss them.

Cheeky, naughty, just a
nine-year-old, wasn't she?

Innocent, still believed in
father Christmas, loved her mate,

Karen, along the
road, inseparable.

They were good kids as well -
they'd look out for each other.

This was a case of two children
who'd disappeared from plain sight.

It was just too
horrific for words.

Everyone was desperate
to find these children.

Detective Graham bartlett's
team wasted no time

and began a massive
search for the two girls.

You had lots of police officers
coming in from neighbouring

divisions as well
as Brighton itself.

Police in Brighton have begun
a widespread search for two

small girls who disappeared
outside a sweet shop in moulsecoomb.

Uniformed police
constable Paul Smith was

drafted in by Graham's team to
help run the search on the ground.

We were doing house-to-house
enquiries on the day that

the girls had disappeared.

Karen? Nicola?

And there were a lot
of people searching.

Mums and dads who knew the
girls - they were all up there with

families, searching up
the back woods and that.

Moulsecoomb was one of
the big council estates that

attracted a lot of policing,
but underlying all that was this

strong sense of community - people
felt they belonged in moulsecoomb.

Come on, then!

The community was
desperate to help.

Barbara castleton was
a friend and neighbour.

Come on, then! They
were quite popular kids.

They were always together.
Knew them quite well.

They'd always wave, "hello!"
And you'd say, "all right, girls?"

"Yep," and off they'd go.

Obviously, I asked my children,
had they seen them anywhere?

And my daughter said she'd seen
them over by coldean chip shop earlier.

There was a real
sense of urgency

and activity amongst the
community - they were worried.

This was out of the ordinary.

Every second counted in
the desperate search but,

as night fell, there was
still no sign of the girls.

The following morning,
the search was intensified.

Constable Paul Smith
led a team of police officers

and members of the public
searching woodland in wild park,

close to the estate
where the girls lived.

There's a sudden shout, one
of these lads appears and says,

"we found them, we found them!"

So I went crashing up
through the undergrowth

and, as I got to the top,
there's a path goes across.

I got there, went
over to the girls,

and they were lying as
if they were sunbathing.

I took their pulse, and they
were absolutely stone-cold,

like marble, and they
were obviously dead.

The bodies of the
two young girls missing

since yesterday
evening have been found.

Neither anybody went
anywhere near or touched them.

I think I was probably
in shock a bit.

It's not a nice thing to
find two dead children.

I had nightmares
of finding the girls,

and one of the nightmares was
going down to take their pulse

and Nicky fellows looked at
me and said, "please help us."

And that really was horrible.

The girls' bodies were
found in a wooden den.

Detectives now
cordoned off the site

and broke the tragic news
to the children's parents.

Three policeman walked in
- I'll remember it for my life.

A little man in the middle said,
"mr fellows, I'm afraid I've got to..."

Didn't let him finish.

I went absolutely ape. I
was just uncontrollable.

And it was down
to Barrie to identify

his own daughter's dead body.

She was in the
corner on this trolley.

And I walked across and said,
"can I touch her?" And they said, "no."

That hurt, that I couldn't
touch my own little girl.

Even today, it still gets me. She
was my life. She's my only daughter.

Forensic investigators
quickly established the shocking

details of how
the girls had died.

The postmortems were carried out
the night that the girls were found,

and both revealed that the girls
had been physically assaulted,

sexually assaulted and
strangled, which led to their death.

It was quite clear
that this was a brutal,

sadistic killer that had brought
these girls' life to an end.

The children - they were
just left for the police to find

so, already, they'll be building up
a picture that this is a perpetrator

that was driven by a sexual
motivation who didn't plan enough to

conceal the bodies and therefore
they're looking at somebody

who is driven by
an impulse to offend.

They would determine that
it's very likely that this offender

would offend again.

In 1986, frank le
duc was a reporter.

He followed every
step of the case.

The death of a child in Brighton

and hove in this sort of
way is almost unheard of.

It's the only double murder
of children that I can think of.

There was concern all the
time the killer was at large -

streets that seemed safe, parks
that seemed safe, parents were

worried and I think began to
keep their kids on a shorter leash.

While the community struggled
to come to terms with the shocking

news, the investigation quickly
entered a dramatic new phase.

So, by now, this was a full-blown
double murder investigation,

the like of which Sussex
police had not seen before.

Officers were being drafted
in from all over the county to

work on this to try and catch the
killer before they could kill again.

With a hunch that the
killer could be local,

Graham's team brought in inspector
John rodway to lead a massive

operation to canvass members of the
public around the moulsecoomb area.

This was far, far bigger than
anything I'd ever done before.

At that time, I was a
father of a seven-year-old,

and I was shocked
at what had happened.

As a police officer,

I was determined to find out what
happened and who was responsible.

I required in excess of 200
police officers to start this enquiry.

The role of the officers in the
house-to-house was to find out

who was there on the day of
the murders and on the day after.

We set up a system
of road checks.

If you can imagine groups of
20 police officers standing on the

side of the road with clipboards,
20-40 cars would come through.

We interviewed
over 2,000 people.

Incredibly, within just
days of the murders,

the massive search
had identified a suspect.

His name stunned everyone.

October 1986 - the bodies
of two nine-year-old girls were

found in the moulsecoomb
area of Brighton.

Now DC Graham bartlett's team
was running one of the biggest

murder investigations in
the history of Sussex police.

But little did they know that a
suspect was lurking in their midst.

His name - Russell bishop. I
used to play football with him.

I was in dismay. I thought,
"why? It can't be him!

"What makes you think
it's him?" Couldn't grasp it.

Russell bishop knew
the families of the two girls

and the girls themselves.

He played darts in the local
pub where the families would

go as well, which was
part of their social life.

Russell bishop had been interviewed
because he'd actually seen them

in the park with the park
keeper, bumped into them.

He'd said some strange
things to Paul Smith.

PC Paul Smith was
the officer who had found

the bodies of the
two young girls.

One of the members
of the public helping him

in the search was
20-year-old Russell bishop -

a father of three and well
known in the neighbourhood.

I used to smoke a pipe then, so
I thought, I'll have a quick smoke.

So I lit my pipe and a voice behind
said, "oi! What are you doing?"

And I thought it was
the superintendent,

and I turned round -
it was Russell bishop.

I said to bishop, you know, "are
you going to carry on searching?"

He said, "if they're dead and I
find them, I'll get nicked, won't I?"

I said, "what do you mean, you'll get nicked?" He
said, "well, I've got a criminal record, you know.

"I'm sure the police
will think it's me."

But when he said that, at the
time, cos I was on like police mode,

I thought, hm, strange,
it's a bit off, isn't it?

A bit weird.

When the bodies were
actually discovered,

bishop had run into the woods ahead
of PC Smith but, when police took

his statement, his account differed
from the experienced constable's.

So, in his statement, bishop
said that he touched the girls

or took their pulse -
that's a complete lie.

All the time I was there,

neither he nor anybody touched
the bodies or took their pulse,

and I stayed with the girls until
the scenes of crime guys came,

and then I left. He was never there
longer than a couple of seconds.

When challenged later,

bishop changed his account to
say he never touch the bodies.

Graham's team were
left deeply suspicious.

So, by the 31st of October,

the concerns about
bishop's general

behaviour around the time that
the girls went missing and the

bodies were found - the
decision was taken to arrest him.

He was very detached about
it, considering that he knew

the fellows family really well, and
he must have known the hadaways.

He didn't seem to be that bothered,
you know, he wasn't agitated,

he didn't look like he was going
to cry or he was upset in any way,

but I took that to be shock.

It was a shock when
his name was put up.

I was good friends with
his mum, with Sylvia,

and I just knew
him as Sylvia's son.

From what I knew of him, he'd
always been quite a quiet lad,

and you sort of think,
no, it couldn't be him.

So far, all Graham's team
had against their only suspect

was intuition and
no hard evidence.

So bishop was interviewed
for a number of hours

and continued to keep changing
his story about whether or not

he did go to the girls to
then change his story to

the fact that he did go to them.

Bishop was seen before
the girls disappeared,

talking to the park keeper
and the girls, that he'd

bumped into them in wild park,
and was wearing a light blue top.

A blue sweatshirt had been
found by a member of the public

near moulsecoomb train
station, close to wild park,

where the girls were found.

Graham's team now asked whether
this sweatshirt could be bishop's.

Police went to Russell bishop's
house to see his girlfriend,

Jenny Johnson, and took
the sweatshirt with them,

and the first thing that she said
when they walked in the door was,

"oh, you brought
Russell's sweatshirt back."

They took a witness statement
from her to say that it was

Russell's sweatshirt.

This might place bishop near
the crime scene, but that was all.

It did not connect
him to the actual crime,

so Graham's team of detectives
requested a forensic comparison

between bishop's sweatshirt
and the girls' bodies.

Tapings were
taken from the girls,

so that's sellotape effectively
being applied to the skin to

then recover anything
that might be loose on there,

be that fibres, hair, anything like
that, and then that's then examined.

While detectives awaited the
results of the forensic analysis,

they had no option but
to release bishop on bail.

And the first thing he'd done was
come home and knocked on my door,

and his first words out of his
mouth was, "I didn't top the kids."

And I thought, whoa!
Not, Barrie, how are ya?

Not, I didn't kill your
children. "I didn't top the kids."

Bishop's behaviour may
have been suspicious,

but they still had little
hard evidence against him.

Then the results of the
forensic investigation into

the blue sweatshirt came back.

There were fibres
matching the girls' clothes

on the pinto sweatshirt,
there was traces of foliage on

the sweatshirt that related to the
scene where the girls were found.

There was hope.

This meant that the killer had
almost certainly been wearing

a blue top at the
scene of the crime.

If the top was indeed bishop's,

detectives felt they had a
watertight case against him.

The police were confident, as
were the crown prosecution service,

that they had sufficient evidence
to convict bishop and the forensic

evidence that was built around
the sweatshirt, the girls' clothing

and the scene of the murder
pointing towards bishop being the killer.

The family were obviously
still grieving horrendously

for the loss of their child.

There was a satisfaction that
the police had apparently found

who'd killed their little girls,

but a horror that it was
somebody they knew.

Bishop was charged
with both murders

and tried at lewes crown court,
November 1987, in a four-week trial.

Russell bishop denied killing
Karen hadaway and Nicola fellows.

There would be no-one

who worked in Sussex police
around that time that didn't only

know about the case but was
also intimately following the case.

It gripped everybody.

Despite Graham's team's
confidence in their case against bishop,

what was about to unfold
in the court room rocked

the investigation to its core.

The prosecution itself wasn't
perhaps the best presented case

there's ever been, and there
was a great deal of tension.

The forensic scientist, when he was
called to give evidence, ended up in

a spat with the defence solicitor in
terms of his methods, his recording,

why he didn't examine certain
things and focused on others.

It got to the stage where

the scientist pulled out a notebook
and started writing down what

he was being accused of
whilst he was in the witness box.

I'd never seen that before.

Constable Paul Smith
was also in court,

fully prepared to give
evidence about bishop's

behaviour during the
search for the girls' bodies.

He was equally astounded
by the court proceedings.

When we went to trial,
the prosecuting barrister -

I was waiting for him to initiate
the conversation where bishop

had said to me on the
path, "if we find them

"and they're dead, I'm going
to get nicked," and he didn't.

I was quite surprised, really.

There were more
surprises to come.

The prosecution's key
witness was bishop's

girlfriend, Jenny Johnson.

Her evidence that he owned the
blue sweatshirt was what linked

bishop to the crime
scene and the crime.

The trial of Russell bishop at
lewes crown court in 1987 was

astonishing in many ways.

One of the key prosecution
witnesses, his common-law wife,

Jenny Johnson, became
what's termed a hostile witness.

Her testimony in the witness
box shocked everyone.

She changed her story in
the most dramatic fashion.

She stuck to the story
that that sweatshirt,

the pinto sweatshirt,
wasn't bishop's.

She said that the police had
made her sign the statement,

hadn't let her
read the statement

and that she'd never
seen the jumper before.

Without proof that it
was bishop's, the forensic

link between the sweatshirt and
the girls' bodies was meaningless.

But worse was yet to come.

There was another weak point
in the prosecution's case which

the defence now
began to exploit.

The prosecution wedded
themselves to a time of death

for the girls, and that
time was 6:30 on the night.

Now, the reason
that they did that was

because bishop was seen
to leave the park at 6:30.

Crucially, a defence witness
claimed to have seen the girls still alive,

eating chips near wild
park, 15 minutes later at 6.45.

The jury was left to
decide what to believe.

The very first question that
they were asked to address was,

"if you don't believe the girls were
dead by 6.30, you must acquit."

That was really significant,

because the evidence showed
that they were still alive at 6.30.

After just two hours
of deliberation,

the jury returned a verdict...

..Not guilty.

And bishop's brother was
bursting to share the news.

Reporter: The verdict... Yay!

I loved that girl.

Do you feel angry now?

No. It just hurts.

Every detective that had been
involved in the investigation,

from the senior investigating
officer right the way

down the ranks, were devastated
with the result. Absolutely devastated.

The hadaways and the fellows
hadn't got justice for their little girls.

And that hurt.

That rug was pulled away
from them by that verdict.

While Karen and Nicola's
families and Sussex police

tried to come to terms
with bishop's acquittal,

he made the most of his freedom.

Russell bishop was paid
£15,000 by the news of the world

for his story. After he
was acquitted, he left court

and went for a slap-up
meal at the Gatwick Hilton

with journalists from
news of the world,

where family members - Jenny
Johnson - gathered as well.

Whether or not
bishop was the killer,

no sense that there were two
little girls that didn't come home

on the 9th of October.

And it was, frankly, horrendous.

Reeling from the verdict,

the tight-knit community of
moulsecoomb were living in fear.

"He's been acquitted.
He didn't do it. Who did?

"Who's still wandering the
estate or living on the estate?"

And you started to think, "well,
I wonder if it was that person,"

or "I wonder if it
was that person."

Now bishop was acquitted,
he went back to the estate -

and his life - still
under suspicion.

You're looked at. Even though
there's no nasty comments I've had,

it's always that feeling I've
got, and it isn't a very nice one.

But with no witnesses or new
evidence pointing Graham's team

towards any other possible
killer, the investigation ran cold.

In the summer of 1989, after
two years and no new leads,

the local community's frustration
turned into open protest.

They can't shelve it and let it
gather dust. I think it's wrong.

There's a man out there
who murdered two little girls.

When they said they weren't
looking for anyone else,

I was not very happy.

Barrie fellows orchestrated
a very public campaign,

backed up with petitions, public
meetings and, subsequently,

a march on the police station
to reopen the investigation.

The problem for police was a
law known as double jeopardy.

It meant that back in 1987,
someone acquitted of a crime

could not be tried for the
same offence of second time.

I understand why people
would want the police

to have reopened the
investigation. The pressure was huge.

There was political pressure,
there was family pressure.

Though detectives were taken
aback by the family's demand,

the sight of one man on the march
staggered Graham and his team.

And who was front
and centre of the march?

Who was interviewed on
television in an orange reflective vest,

as if he was a
marshal on the march?

Russell bishop.

I want to see this
case reopened.

My name isn't cleared until
someone else is brought to justice -

the real person.

In one of their biggest
ever murder investigations,

Sussex police thought they had
identified Russell bishop as the man

who sexually assaulted and then
murdered two nine-year-old girls.

But he'd been acquitted by a jury,
leaving police with no other leads.

Back in the community,
bishop took part in a protest

aimed at forcing
police to find the killer.

Russell bishop took part in
that demonstration, in that march,

in that demand for the police
to re-investigate the crime.

Chanting: Justice!

And the families felt compelled
to walk alongside the bishops.

When he came on that march,
jumping on and off buses,

showing bits of paper to
people - "we want justice" -

I didn't want to
go on that march.

But my brother said,
"you've got to, to save face."

Bishop's common-law
wife, Jenny Johnson,

whose dramatic change of
evidence had helped acquit him,

made her feelings
clear to Sussex police.

Despite the protests,

there was nothing Graham
and his team could do.

With no new evidence and no
other suspects, the case ran cold

and the killer
remained at large.

Then, in 1990,

over three years after Karen hadaway
and Nicola fellows were murdered,

police received the call
they'd been dreading.

I was on a late shift.

And as I drove back into the
police station, two or three police cars

came rushing past me
on blue lights and sirens.

The sergeant then came
out and said a little girl

had been out roller-skating in
whitehawk and had gone missing.

She was discovered
later that day,

over ten miles away in an
isolated area known as devil's dyke.

She was crying, she was
scratched, she was cold,

and she was wandering
around this hilltop.

Devil's dyke is a very bleak
part of the south downs.

And she was up there just
wandering around, naked,

this little seven-year-old girl.

She'd been kidnapped
and then sexually assaulted.

She was then thrown into
the bushes and left for dead.

It was almost identical to the
murders of Karen and Nicola

nearly four years earlier.

Determined to find who did this,

Graham threw everything
he had at the investigation,

whilst inspector John rodway
was put in charge of carrying out

a fingertip search of the wilderness
where the girl had been found.

I developed a system
whereby there were three lines.

The first line of officers
had bushcutters, axes.

The second line
had rakes and forks,

to find out if there
was any evidence.

And the third line was
scenes of crime officers,

who would, as soon
as something was found,

photograph it, bag
it and keep it sterile.

The search was massive.

There was nothing left on
the area that we searched.

It was all taken
down to bare soil,

to find absolutely
everything that was there.

John's intensive
search paid off.

Under a tree was
some rolled-up clothing

that was of the same
colour and the same type

the abducted girl was wearing.

The scenes of crime
officers, when they removed it,

found everything that
we were looking for,

even down to the pound coin
that the little girl had been given

by her father to go shopping.

John hoped these finds would
hold clues to the girl's attacker.

Meanwhile, detectives
took a statement

from the seven-year-old girl.

And her account
stunned everyone.

Her memory and
recollection was staggering.

She was able to remember not
only the person that had snatched her

and dumped her in the boot
of the car, she could describe

what was in the boot of
the car by look, sound, smell.

The girl said the car she'd been
abducted in was a red Ford cortina.

This astounded police.

One of the uniformed chief
inspectors had come in and said,

"did you know that
Russell bishop was seen

"with a red cortina
the other day?"

So he sent a couple of dcs
out there to go and see him,

and they got there, and bishop
was, at that time of a Sunday evening,

furiously cleaning
his car inside and out.

He was clearly trying to
destroy evidence of something.

Police immediately brought
bishop in for questioning.

The piece that
brought all this together

was an identification parade.

And I'm going to ask you in a
moment to look through the window

at the line of men
who are sitting there.

I shall then ask you whether the
person whom you saw on that day

is here.

Ten people were brought in
to the identification parade,

and she definitively said...

Number nine. You think
it's number nine? Thank you.

Number nine was Russell bishop.

Bishop was confident that
he would not be identified

by this little seven-year-old
girl, but he underestimated her.

New advances in forensic
science now offered Graham's team

further evidence to link bishop
to the crime, through DNA.

The nail in the coffin for
bishop here was this was one of

the first cases where Sussex
police were able to use DNA

to prove a case.

And, crucially, bishop's DNA
was found on the little girl's clothing,

the little girl's DNA was
found on his clothing.

We can see in this case that
there is elements of control,

but there's also a
lot of disorganisation.

He leaves his victim. He hasn't
killed her, he thinks he has,

so he's careless.
He's made mistakes.

And often, we see that.

We see offenders who
start off very careful,

but the more they get away
with it, they make mistakes.

Bishop was charged with attempted
murder, kidnap and sexual assault.

He was tried in December
1990 at lewes crown court.

He was convicted and sentenced
to a minimum of 14 years in prison.

Reporter: When the
verdicts were announced,

the defendant held
his head and sobbed.

I think there was great relief
that this predatory paedophile

was finally behind bars...

..And was likely to be behind
bars for a very long time.

Spectators in the court
clapped and cheered.

Police released a message
of thanks from the local girl.

"All my scratches
have gone," she says.

"I'm having a lovely Christmas."

For Graham, there was satisfaction
that bishop was now in prison

for one horrific
crime, but that was all.

There was no sense of delight,

no sense of celebration for
bishop being now incarcerated,

because there were still two
families out there who hadn't

got justice and two little girls
who were laying in a grave

without their killer being
in prison for their crime.

There was nothing
Sussex police could do,

and the case
continued to run cold.

But then, in 2005, the investigation
turned a dramatic new corner.

The law changed in 2005,

effectively enabling the
re-prosecution of people

that have been acquitted of serious
crimes under certain circumstances.

For nearly 30 years, Graham
and his detectives were dogged

by their failure to convict
Karen and Nicola's killer.

Now, at last, they had
a chance to put it right.

The new law said if they could
find new and compelling evidence,

they could retry bishop.

The forensic science had moved
on a pace and forensic scientists

were able to apportion guilt
where they couldn't before,

so why should somebody
continue to get away with crime

when new evidence
showed that they were guilty?

I was always waiting for the
news that bishop was going to be

re-investigated and hopefully
re-tried for these crimes.

I mean, we knew it
was Russell bishop.

You know, the evidence pointed
to the fact that it couldn't have been

anybody but Russell bishop.

Even so, Graham's team couldn't
gather enough new evidence

to meet the standard
required for a second trial.

That opportunity didn't
come for another eight years,

after giant leaps
by forensic science.

By 2013, Graham had
retired from the investigation.

It was now left to detective
superintendent Jeff Riley

to review the cold case.

Jeff Riley, who's one
of Sussex police's finest

and most successful
senior investigating officers,

and he would go forward,
then, to lead the team.

Using the latest
forensic tools available,

he began an entirely
new forensic investigation.

I became involved in 2013.

It was always one of those cases
that, kind of, people talked about.

There was always a suggestion that
somehow we'd done something wrong,

and that's kind of the
narrative that I kind of had heard

before I kind of
became involved in it -

that somehow we'd not
done something properly back

in the original investigation or
we'd done something wrong at trial.

This pinto sweatshirt
was always the key exhibit,

as part of the
original investigation.

And that was from day one.

You know, we'd never been able
to link that blue pinto sweatshirt

to Russell bishop.

Now, Jeff Riley
hoped forensic science

would prove that decisive link.

But the bar was high.

And the double jeopardy,
the evidence had to be new

and compelling and in
order for it to be compelling,

it had to be substantial
and it had to be reliable.

The modern forensic team began
by analysing the blue sweatshirt

found at the crime scene.

And fibres from the sweatshirt
were found on the girls' bodies.

Bishop always denied owning it,

but new forensic analysis
now suggested otherwise.

And we were able to unpeel the
cuff and find DNA from Russell bishop

in that sweatshirt and this was a
massive step forward for the case.

But one of the forensic scientists
identified a major problem.

And she said, "I've got some
really bad news. I can't confirm

"the reliability of
that sweatshirt."

The sample they'd taken,
the way it had been stored

and bags opening, she said,
"I can't say 100% that has not

"come from some form
of cross-contamination."

We thought we actually
had quite a strong case.

So it felt like it collapsed around
us, which was just a very dark day.

But Jeff's forensic
team didn't give up.

Instead, they turned to the
rest of the original 1986 evidence

and identified exhibits they were
confident could not have been

contaminated. Crucially, what
Jeff was about to find out next

would suddenly break
the case wide open.

We had a swab that was taken of
Karen hadaway that actually we had...

So it was taken at postmortem in
1986, it was sealed under acetate,

it was then put into a frozen
storage in the forensic archives,

when that was re-examined,

many years later, we had a DNA
result on the arm of Karen hadaway.

And we then started to get
some forensic results back.

And that forensic hit is
what started off the whole

new re-investigation.

In 1990, Russell bishop
began a 14-year sentence for the

attempted murder, kidnap and
sexual assault of a seven-year-old girl.

He had also been tried in 1987
for the murders of Karen hadaway

and Nicola fellows.

He was acquitted, yet
remained a prime suspect.

But with a new change in the
law and forensic advancements,

detective superintendent Jeff Riley
finally found a combined a DNA match

on the arm of one of
the murdered school girls.

We now had Russell bishop's DNA
on the arm of Karen hadaway that

was found in 1986 at postmortem,

which was massive and
set everything off running.

But Jeff would only have one
shot at convincing a jury of bishop's

guilt, so the case
needed to be watertight.

He turned his attention
back to the sweatshirt.

We always had paint evidence
from the first investigation

because bishop
used to spray cars

and there was lots of red
spray over the sweatshirt,

but in order to bring it up to
date, we had it re-examined

and because we had now
new techniques and new,

more powerful microscopes, what
we could see was the sweatshirt

was covered in tiny,
tiny red paintballs,

as were some of the
clothing from the girls,

as were some of the
swabs from the girls.

It was more evidence to directly
link bishop to the girls' bodies.

Jeff finally had what he needed
to arrest bishop for a second

time in 2016.

30 years after
the girls' murders,

bishop once again faced
detectives in the interview room.

So, basically, during interview, he
was... he mainly said no comment.

What we're asking you
now, that's not clear to us,

ok, where your position stands
on touching Karen's forearm.

I didn't touch no-one, so...

As I said, I've got
no comment to make.

But that's what I'm asking
you - if you didn't touch her...

Well, you've got me answer,
so write it down and move on.

Please. That's fine. I
just want to be clear,

you're saying you didn't
touch Karen hadaway.

I've got no comment to make.

I'm not going to sit here,
like I did 13 years ago,

and went over and over and
round in circles. Not happening.

Please, crack on
with your questions.

Bishop was unable to explain
away Jeff Riley's new forensic

evidence, so Jeff charged him again
with the murder of Karen and Nicola.

Bishop would now
face trial yet again.

This was a massive
moment for us.

It was a massive moment
for the families cos it meant

we were back to trial.

And all the old evidence that
had been gathered since '86

and all the new evidence
that we'd gathered, it would

all come together, I felt,
with a really strong case.

On the 16th of October 2018,

bishop appeared for trial
at the old Bailey in London.

There was huge interest in
the retrial of Russell bishop.

There are so few
double jeopardy trials,

cases where somebody is
tried a second time for such

a serious offence. The
courtroom was packed each day.

The case cast a long shadow
in the way that people look

after their children.

Russell bishop stole the innocence
of the childhood of a generation.

I travelled to the old Bailey
on almost every day of the trial.

And was following all
of the evidence, all of the

witnesses and
watching some of them

going through the pain that
they'd experienced back in 1986.

True to form, bishop once again
displayed unpredictable behaviour.

Bishop sat in the dock, he
obviously listened to the evidence.

He would mumble under
his breath at different stages.

When certain bits of evidence
came up that he didn't like,

he would shout out about them,

and several times, the jury
had to be asked to leave.

He would shout at
his counsel, you know,

even throw
questions at the judge.

Meanwhile, bishop's own
testimony failed to address the new

forensic evidence Jeff
Riley had built against him.

DNA evidence, pretty
much every step of the way,

linked bishop pretty
conclusively to all the key

aspects of the evidence,
including the bodies of the girls.

There was no way he could
explain away how his DNA was

found on one of
the girls' bodies.

There was no way he could
explain away how the girls' DNA

was found on his clothing.

After a 32-year investigation,
the trial took eight weeks,

until finally the jury reached
an unanimous verdict.

The whole court was
packed, you know.

It was packed with other barristers, it was packed
with kind of... The media, and when the jury came

back in, I mean, the atmosphere
was absolutely electric.

So the jury came back in.

You were looking at
their faces, you can't tell.

I'm conscious of the families
sitting just behind me. I turned...

I remember looking at the
families and they're starting to weep.

They came back as guilty.

A convicted paedophile has
been found guilty of murdering two

school girls. And it was just
like you felt your heart race.

You could just feel it in
the pit of your stomach.

The families, they were so
dignified when that verdict came back.

We just sat there and
hugged each other, cried.

Cried like a baby.

There was a bit of
relief. Vindication.

Russell bishop is
a truly wicked man

and has rightly now been
convicted of his dreadful crimes.

I was absolutely delighted.

The family knew the truth,
they knew what had happened,

they had all of their suspicions
validated and so did we.

I spoke to a number
of police officers.

So many of them
broke down in tears.

We knew we had the
right person all the time.

I had no feelings for
Russell bishop at all,

as a human being,
he was a pervert,

he was a paedophile and he
was the lowest of low of criminals.

Bishop refused to
attend the verdict.

In his absence, he was
given two life sentences

and ordered to serve
a minimum of 36 years.

While police celebrated putting
bishop behind bars, there was

one loose end that Jeff
Riley needed to tie up.

But we still had one
thing left unsolved

and that was what to
do with Jenny Johnson.

Her statement under oath that
Russell bishop never owned the

blue sweatshirt was
crucial to his acquittal,

but that evidence
was now clearly a lie.

So one of the last
things that I did was

I arranged for Jenny Johnson
to be arrested and interviewed.

She was arrested and interviewed

and she admitted during
interview that, yes, she had lied.

She said that it was because of the way
that bishop was very violent towards her

throughout their time together and
she was absolutely petrified of him.

After over three decades of
hiding a dark secret, Jenny Johnson

was finally put on trial at
lewes crown court in may 2021.

She was convicted of perjury

because she'd lied at
the original trial in 1987

and she was also convicted
of attempting to pervert

the course of justice because
she'd lied about the sweatshirt.

And because she'd kept
that lie going throughout

a number of years, then
that was really significant.

Potentially, we would have convicted
Russell bishop in 1987, had she

not lied, and therefore he
wouldn't have then gone on to attack

a little girl in the 1990s.
That's a massive thing.

Johnson was sentenced
to six years in prison

and is currently
appealing her conviction.

It will hurt me for an eternity.

It's like having your heart
ripped out and put back differently.

She still believed in
father Christmas, still

believed in the tooth fairy, that's
what I remember most about her,

her innocence, and
her friends' innocence.

The murders of Karen hadaway
and Nicola fellows stand out

as being the most significant crimes
of my service within Sussex police.

One man's evil basically
robbed children of their childhood.

I will never forget what
happened on that night

and they demonstrated how
resolute and dignified families can be

and how determined

and persistent the police can
be to bring people to justice.

The case of a
missing schoolgirl...

Right from the start,

I didn't ever expect she
would be found alive.

..Becomes a complex
murder investigation...

This case dominated my life.

Took so many twists and turns.

..That leads police on a
nine-year hunt for justice.

Bingo. We've got them.