GUILTY UK - Nicola Fellows, 10, Karen Hadaway, 9, Moulsecoomb, Brighton, 9 Oct 1986

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I'm confused. This is from 14 hours ago, so I guess there was they were in court yesterday.
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Kevin Rowland was just 18 when he joined the search for nine-year-old friends Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway after they disappeared on October 9, 1986.

Mr Rowland said he spotted a pink or purple jumper and the side of a young girl's face who looked like she was asleep in Wild Park, half a mile from their homes on the edge of Brighton.

He said: "I stopped because I knew there was a young girl there and I did not want to go any further."

His first words were: "S**t, I think we've found them."

[...]

Defence barrister Joel Bennathan QC also alleged that Bishop had gone up to where the bodies were and felt for a pulse.

The witness repeatedly denied it, saying: "Absolutely not."

Mr Rowland was quizzed about an interview he gave to Brighton's Evening Argus newspaper in which he described the girls as "lying cuddling like they were asleep, their arms around each other".

On being asked how he knew that, he said: "I had no idea they were cuddling. I did not see they were cuddling.

"Cuddling sounded compassionate to me at the time. I may have heard that from other sources by the time I gave the interview."

Mr Rowland spoke to the reporter after Nicola's father Barrie visited his home.

He told jurors: "Barrie was crying. He was in a real mess. I thought it would make him feel better.

"I think I said that to the Evening Argus because I said that to Barrie."

Witness describes haunting moment he found bodies of 'Babes in Woods' victims, 9
 
Bit more from yesterday.
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His friend Matthew Marchant, who was with him, went to get police, but returned moments later, followed by Bishop and his dog.

Mr Rowland said he thought Bishop had shouted "have you found anything yet" and "where are you?" and tried to get closer to the girls.

He said: "He tried to step over me but I put my arm out to stop him."

The witness repeatedly denied defence claims that he and Mr Marchant had both looked at the girls' bodies, saying: "Absolutely not."

Emphasising the density of the woodland, Mr Rowland said PC Paul Smith, the first police officer on the scene, "had to crawl through the undergrowth" to get to the girls.

On his return, Mr Smith radioed in to say he had checked each girl but found no pulse, jurors were told.

The court also heard from Janet Reid, a local resident who gave evidence anonymously at Bishop's 1987 trial after threats were made to her and her family.

Ms Reid recalled Nicola had twice told her daughter, who was a school friend, that the father she lived with was "not her real dad" and that one day she would run away to find her real father in the North.

Alleged killer Russell Bishop 'tried to get close to' murdered girls' bodies
 
From Today.
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Today the jury was shown the blue 'Pinto' jumper at the centre of the second trial. It was in packaging designed to preserve it.

Prosecutor Brian Altman previously told the jury that evidence on the transfer of fibres, paint comparisons and DNA suggested the jumper was Bishop's.

Mr Altman said: 'We say you can conclude that the Pinto sweatshirt obviously belonged to him, that it came into recent contact with the girls' clothing and that recent contact can only have been at the time of their murder.'
[...]

Today, the court heard from former Superintendent David Tomlinson, who was in charge of the extensive operation to find the girls.

Mr Tomlinson said that a policeman, Bishop and two teenagers who discovered the bodies were at the scene when he arrived.

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The girl's bodies were discovered in this patch of woodland in Wild Park, Brighton

Describing the moment he saw the girls' bodies, he said: 'I walked along the path. I was conscious that I wanted to keep the disturbance of the scene to the minimum.

'There was still an amount of undergrowth. With the position of the bodies it was difficult for me to see what had happened.

Russell Bishop is accused of the murders. Prosecutors say he was wearing the blue jumper when he killed the girls

Mr Tomlinson added: 'I was able to see the two bodies but they were not in a comfortable position. I got the impression one body had been almost thrown or tossed against the other.

'Karen was wearing a grey pleated skirt, a type of school uniform. Nicola had a checked type skirt.'

One of the two teenagers who found the bodies became pale and looked as if he was about to pass out but Bishop 'did not seem to be affected', Mr Tomlinson said.

The retired officer said he ordered the whole scene to be sealed off.

Pictured: The blue jumper which led to the second 'Babes in the Wood' murder trial | Daily Mail Online
 
More from Mrs Reid yesterday.
_____________

Mrs Reid had given evidence for the defence anonymously as “Mrs White” in Bishop’s 1987 trial, the court heard.

The day before she was due to give evidence again – this time for the prosecution – Mrs Reid altered the time she spotted Nicola and Karen by two hours.

She originally told police she saw the victims standing with chip paper opposite her home as she said goodbye to her father on the evening of October 9, 1986.

She recalled Nicola, who was a school friend of her daughter, had waved at her at about 6.25pm.

She estimated the time because her father left at about 6.20pm and on her return indoors, TV soap opera Crossroads was just starting at 6.30pm.

But on Monday, she altered her story, saying it was more like 8.20pm – two hours later.

She explained that since giving evidence in 1987, she had realised they had waited to watch a film called Runaway Train.

She told jurors she was visited three times by Nicola’s father Barrie Fellows, someone she thought was with Karen’s father and police later that night.

Prosecutor Brian Altman QC said: “Do all those timings have to go back two hours?”

The witness, who refused to say her name in court, replied: “Don’t know.”

Joel Bennathan QC, for Bishop, said: “When you gave evidence in the crown court last time you asked and were allowed to give a name which is not your name – Mrs White.

“And the reason you asked the judge on that occasion was because you told him you have had some trouble since you became a witness in this case?

“I’m not pointing the finger anywhere about the source of these problems. It was a very high-profile, terrible crime.”

The witness said: “Yes it was.”

The lawyer went on: “Local feeling ran high about it. You were saying you had seen these two little girls eating chips, you and your family had threats.”

Mrs Reid said: “Yes we did.”

Mr Bennathan said incidents included damage to her husband’s motorbike and taxis turning up which had not been ordered.

The witness agreed, adding: “We had boulders through the window.”

She also confirmed that Nicola had twice told her daughter that the father she lived with was “not her real dad” and that one day she would run away to find her real father in the North.

As she completed her evidence, she said: “I don’t wish to talk about it again. It’s too upsetting.”

Russell Bishop murder trial: Porter found girls' bodies in woods | The Argus
 
Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, said: "In the course of this trial, certain allegations are going to be made that Barrie Fellows, Nicola's father, was observed two-to-three months before Nicola's death watching a video in his front room of his own daughter engaged in sexual activities with the lodger who lived at the address at the time."

However, Dr Cary, who has reviewed the findings of the original pathologist in 1986, said the injuries Nicola had suffered were inflicted around the time of her death, and if she had suffered internal sexual abuse within the preceding few months, he would have expected to see evidence of it.

Dead girl 'not assaulted months earlier'
 
Bishop, 52, told police officers that he had bought some cannabis from a woman called Angie Cutting.

...

But she told the court that Bishop, then aged 20, had not been to see her on Thursday 9 October 1986 – the day when Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway were murdered.

While she admitted selling cannabis from her Moulsecoomb home to various people, including Bishop, they had fallen out over the sale of a stereo.

Bishop also told police that representatives of an insurance company would back up his story that he was not in Wild Park at 6.30pm on the day of the double murder.

But Reliance Mutual Assurance Company assistant manager Sydney Giles said that he had called at Bishop’s property at about 4.30pm and found no one home.

And Andrew Longford, who worked as an agent for Britannic Assurance Company, in Brighton, said that he could not have visited Bishop’s Hollingdean home when the defendant said.

While Mr Longford usually collected premiums from Bishop for an endowment policy for the defendant’s son Victor, on the day in question his car was in a garage being repaired.

Brighton double murder trial – defendant’s alibi comes unstuck
 
A retired forensic scientist who linked the prime suspect in the Babes in the Woods murders to his alleged victims has told jurors how he took every step to “minimise” the risk of cross-contamination.

...

Fibres taken from the clothes led Dr Peabody to conclude the Pinto sweatshirt may have been in contact with the defendant’s trousers and clothes belonging to his then girlfriend and the dead girls, jurors heard.

Prosecutor Alison Morgan asked how seriously the scientist took the dangers of cross-contamination at the time.

He replied: “Cross-contamination was something we took every step that we could to minimise if we could possibly do so. We were very conscious of cross-contamination.”

Examination of items would take place in different rooms which would be swabbed down afterwards.


Items were not allowed to come into contact with each other, Dr Peabody said.

He said he would have expected items to arrive at the lab in Aldermaston in sealed polythene or paper bags.

If any evidence arrived for testing unsealed, it would be sent back, he said.

He told the court the Pinto sweatshirt and Nicola’s pink jumper were examined in different rooms.

Dr Peabody said in the 1980s, his first priority would have been to collect any loose fibres, hair and debris.

Girls murder case expert ‘took every effort to avoid evidence contamination’
 
Later, under cross-examination, defence barrister Joel Bennathan QC said: "As you left the witness box in 1987 you were pinned against a wall by the senior police officer."

Dr Peabody replied: "As it happens, yes."

Mr Bennathan said: "I don't want to go into the rights and wrongs of that but he was unhappy about the way the evidence came out?"

Dr Peabody said "emotions ran high" at the time.

...

"My findings provided strong evidence to indicate the (Pinto) sweatshirt had been in contact with the clothing of the two dead girls," he said.

He said ivy hairs on the sweatshirt and girls' garments suggested "sustained contact with ivy", not from "merely walking through undergrowth where ivy is present".

Police 'pinned expert to wall' jury told
 
Senior forensic scientist Roy Green, who is based at a laboratory in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, said he was called in to deploy “new techniques and new ways of thinking” in the high profile case known at the time as the Babes in the Wood.

In 2014, he received two boxes from the forensic archive, which included 104 microscope slides of fibres collected by scientists during the original 1986 investigation.
His examination of fibres on a blue Pinto sweatshirt found discarded along Bishop’s route home identified a link with the defendant, his then-girlfriend and the dead girls, jurors heard.

Green said the number of coincidences needed to explain away all the different fibres connected with Bishop’s home environment were “too numerous to be credible”.

The fibres provided “extremely strong support” for a link between the Pinto sweatshirt and items from Bishop’s home while there was “very strong support” for a link between the Pinto and Karen and Nicola’s clothes, he said.

Prosecutor Brian Altman QC asked if the jury was to conclude the defendant was wearing the Pinto top at the time of the killings whether fibres would have been lost by the time it was recovered from behind Moulsecoomb train station.

Green said: “Yes, after four hours, 80% of the fibres will have fallen off.

Russell Bishop Trial: New Evidence Suggests ‘Very Strong’ Link Between Sex Predator And Murdered Schoolgirls


“Having visited the scene you will have got a sense for the distance from the scene and where the item was found, so in that time there may well have been further fibres that were lost in the process of wearing it, carrying it, or taking it off, so there will have been more fibres on that item than were ultimately found.”
On the theory of secondary transfer between the Pinto sweater with another potential suspect, Green said it would not explain fibres on the girls’ clothes at the scene.

He said there were opportunities for the transfer of fibres during contact with the girls in the weeks before the killings, but they were greatly reduced.

Green said it did not explain his findings on Nicola and Karen’s clothing which were clean on that day.

A taping from Karen’s left forearm taken during her post-mortem examination produced a one in a billion DNA match to Bishop, the Old Bailey has heard.

New Evidence Suggests ‘Very Strong’ Link Between Sex Predator And Murdered Schoolgirls, Trial Hears
 
orensic scientist Roy Green tested 14 areas from a taping from Karen's left forearm, taken at the time of her post mortem examination in 1986.

He said the areas were identified as possibly containing skin flakes or other organic material.

On his results, he said: "The result of the DNA-17 analysis showed a mixture of DNA from at least two people.

"The majority of the DNA was an incomplete profile matching that of Russell Bishop.

"Most of the remaining components also contained the DNA of Karen Hadaway.

"There were also three additional components other than from Russell Bishop and Karen Hadaway."

DNA match links Russell Bishop to murders, court hears | The Argus

_104230856_hi050328717.jpg

Tapings were taken from Karen Hadaway at the time of her post-mortem in 1986

He said he looked at two propositions - firstly that the DNA was from Karen, Mr Bishop and an unknown person - and secondly that it was from Karen and two unknown people.

"A statistical evaluation of the result was performed, as a result of which it was estimated that the DNA findings would be approximately one billion times more likely if proposition one were true rather than proposition two were true," he said.

The court was told tapings from a blue Pinto sweatshirt found discarded on Mr Bishop's route home were also tested for DNA.

Mr Green said the results found DNA "in excess of one billion times more likely" to belong to the defendant and an unknown person than two unknown people.

DNA samples 'linked to murder suspect'
 
Legally Bland said:
More from Mrs Reid yesterday.
_____________

Mrs Reid had given evidence for the defence anonymously as “Mrs White” in Bishop’s 1987 trial, the court heard.

The day before she was due to give evidence again – this time for the prosecution – Mrs Reid altered the time she spotted Nicola and Karen by two hours.

She originally told police she saw the victims standing with chip paper opposite her home as she said goodbye to her father on the evening of October 9, 1986.

She recalled Nicola, who was a school friend of her daughter, had waved at her at about 6.25pm.

She estimated the time because her father left at about 6.20pm and on her return indoors, TV soap opera Crossroads was just starting at 6.30pm.

But on Monday, she altered her story, saying it was more like 8.20pm – two hours later.

She explained that since giving evidence in 1987, she had realised they had waited to watch a film called Runaway Train.

She told jurors she was visited three times by Nicola’s father Barrie Fellows, someone she thought was with Karen’s father and police later that night.

Prosecutor Brian Altman QC said: “Do all those timings have to go back two hours?”

The witness, who refused to say her name in court, replied: “Don’t know.”

Joel Bennathan QC, for Bishop, said: “When you gave evidence in the crown court last time you asked and were allowed to give a name which is not your name – Mrs White.

“And the reason you asked the judge on that occasion was because you told him you have had some trouble since you became a witness in this case?

“I’m not pointing the finger anywhere about the source of these problems. It was a very high-profile, terrible crime.”

The witness said: “Yes it was.”

The lawyer went on: “Local feeling ran high about it. You were saying you had seen these two little girls eating chips, you and your family had threats.”

Mrs Reid said: “Yes we did.”

Mr Bennathan said incidents included damage to her husband’s motorbike and taxis turning up which had not been ordered.

The witness agreed, adding: “We had boulders through the window.”

She also confirmed that Nicola had twice told her daughter that the father she lived with was “not her real dad” and that one day she would run away to find her real father in the North.

As she completed her evidence, she said: “I don’t wish to talk about it again. It’s too upsetting.”

Russell Bishop murder trial: Porter found girls' bodies in woods | The Argus
Click to expand...

She recalled Nicola, who was a school friend of her daughter, had waved at her at about 6.25pm.

She estimated the time because her father left at about 6.20pm and on her return indoors, TV soap opera Crossroads was just starting at 6.30pm.

But on Monday, she altered her story, saying it was more like 8.20pm – two hours later.



I wonder why she would change the timing - from the Pros opening speech, there were several other witnesses to this 6.25/ 6.30 pm timing, so it is hardly her word alone which is providing evidence of this time frame.
 
Defence trying to point towards DNA being from Nicola's father, rather than RB.

Helena Lee‏Verified account @BBCHelenaLee 24h24 hours ago

Defence barrister asks Mr Green ( forensic scientist ) if it matters whether fibres are found on the inside of the outside of the garment.

Mr Green: Depends. When things are bagged fibres can move around.

( Russell Bishop saying it isn’t his sweatshirt ... any fibres found then become significant. )


Defence barrister tells witness he’ll be asking his assistance as to whether DNA of a father could be found in the findings - in particular Nicola (Fellows).
Defence: you say it’s likely some components would match components in her family’s profiles-half of Nicola’s DNA would be identical to her father?

Witness: yes

Defence: Many times you find bits that could be Barrie Fellows’ (DNA) but you make the assumption they are most likely the child’s.

Witness: yes but I compared Barrie Fellows (Nicola’s father) with each bit of the tapings. He didn’t appear to have contributed to virtually all of them. I could not exclude one.
 
Answered my own Q here - no trial today

Helena Lee‏Verified account @BBCHelenaLee 24h24 hours ago


Mr Green is told that’s all from him today and he will return next week again. Judge has told him same rules apply - no talking to anyone about the case.

Judge tells jury they’ve had a lot to take in. They aren’t sitting tomorrow and therefore has told them not to turn up tomorrow.
He wishes the jury a refreshing weekend and says he’ll see them back at 10am Monday.
 
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