Predatory paedophile Russell Bishop was last week found guilty of murdering Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway
THE ex-girlfriend of the Babes in the Wood killer believes she could have saved them, saying: “I will never forgive myself for not spotting the signs.”
Predatory paedophile Russell Bishop, 52, was last week found guilty of murdering nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in 1986.
And his former lover Marion Stevenson, now 48, broke down as she spoke for the first time of the guilt that has dogged her over the murders of the girls who she “adored”.
She revealed that just weeks before he molested and strangled them, she heard them “giggling” as they hid in his car’s rear footwell when he picked her up for a date.
The girls grew up yards away from her Brighton home and Bishop, then 20, was a pal of Nicola’s dad Barrie.
Marion, just 16 at the time, said: “I am just so, so sorry that I didn’t see him for the predator he is and I couldn’t keep those little girls safe.
“I should have seen the signs. He was always jealous of me playing with the girls and of how much I loved them. I pray that wasn’t a reason he targeted them.”
Marion said she and Bishop were on their way to have sex at Devil’s Dyke beauty spot — where he tried to kill a girl of seven in 1990 — when she saw Nicola and Karen in his car.
He passed it off as an innocent game but she said: “I have no idea why they were there or what his plan was. I told them to get out of the car and I screamed at Bishop and asked what he was playing at.
RUSSELL Bishop went BACK to the scene of his heinous crime to make sure one of his victims was dead, he reportedly told a cell mate.
The Daily Star reports that Bishop thought that, while Nicola Fellows was dead, Karen Hadaway might have survived his attack.
The paper reports that Bishop told a fellow prisoner in HMP Full Sutton that he went back to where he had attacked both nine-year-olds and saw that Karen's skin was still "bright".
He reportedly told the lag that he strangled her once again, just to be sure she was dead, all while pretending to be part of the search party looking for the girls, whom he had sexually assaulted.
The Star quotes the unnamed lag as saying: "He told me how Nicola was completely dead because she was a dark marble colour, but Karen's skin was very bright."
He said how Bishop strangled her again and added: "He said that he regularly had nightmares...he even shed a tear for them but tried to hide it."
“He didn’t explain himself very satisfactorily. I have no idea if the girls were playing a joke or if he had somehow tempted them into the car. It haunts me now.” Bishop, who went on trial for the Babes murders in 1987 but was acquitted following a blunder over the time of deaths, was finally convicted after DNA advances.
Already jailed for life for attempting to murder the girl in 1990, he last week got at least 36 years more.
Marion revealed she was certain he was guilty when she met up with him after he was cleared to tell him she did not love him any more.
She added: “But what could I do? He had been let free by the court.”
Marion was called as a defence witness in Bishop’s latest trial for a historic claim that she saw Barrie watching a video of his daughter Nicola in a child sex abuse video.
She said: “I didn’t want to be a witness for the defence. But I did see Barrie watching the video.”
In court, Mr Fellows vehemently denied her claims which the prosecution described as “unsubstantiated salacious allegations”.
