Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway were sexually assaulted and strangled in woodland in Brighton, East Sussex, by paedophile Russell Bishop
A police force has apologised for failings in its initial investigations into the 1986 Babes in the Wood murders of two nine-year-old girls and the wrongful arrest of one of their fathers.
Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway were sexually assaulted and strangled in woodland in Brighton, East Sussex, by paedophile Russell Bishop.
On Wednesday Chief Constable of Sussex Police Jo Shiner said there were failings in the original investigation into their deaths in 1986, and that Nicola’s father Barrie should not have been arrested as part of a connected investigation in 2009.
Bishop was acquitted at the end of his first trial in December 1987 due to weaknesses in the case presented by police and prosecutors, and lies told by his ex-girlfriend, who was later jailed for perjury.
After his acquittal he was left free to kidnap, molest and throttle a seven-year-old girl, leaving her for dead at Devil’s Dyke in February 1990.
Nicola and Karen’s families battled for more than 30 years to finally see Bishop jailed in 2018 after a retrial based on fresh forensic evidence as part of a prosecution made possible under reformed double jeopardy laws.
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