This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A one-in-a-billion DNA match and other “overwhelmingly compelling” evidence shows a convicted sex predator, Russell Bishop, murdered two nine-year-old girls 32 years ago, a jury has been told.

Bishop, 52, a former roofer, is on trial for the second time for sexually assaulting and strangling Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway on 9 October 1986. The girls were found dead in a woodland den in Wild Park on the South Downs the day after they went missing from their Brighton homes.

Bishop was cleared of their murders in 1987 but was ordered to stand trial again by the court of appeal in light of new advances in DNA testing.

Jurors have heard how a light blue paint-stained Pinto sweatshirt, allegedly discarded by Bishop as he walked home, had now revealed the transfer of fibres, paint comparisons and DNA.

Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, 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.”

A previously unexamined taping from Karen’s left forearm has provided a one-in-a-billion DNA match to Bishop, jurors were told.

The prosecutor highlighted the similarities with the kidnap, sex assault and attempted murder of a seven-year-old girl from Brighton three years later, which Bishop was found to have committed.

He was seen in Wild Park at the time and later described details about the murder scene that could only have come from the killer, the Old Bailey heard.

Altman noted contradictions and admitted lies in Bishop’s accounts. Concluding his opening, he said: “It is, say the prosecution, the overwhelmingly compelling and powerful nature of all the evidence in this case that can make you sure of this defendant’s guilt of these murders.”

Bishop, formerly from Brighton, has denied two charges of murder. The case continues.