Russell Bishop trial: Ex-girlfriend tells court she saw girl’s father watching daughter in child sex abuse video

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A convicted paedophile’s ex-girlfriend has told a court how she saw the father of a murdered nine-year-old girl watching her in a child sex abuse video two months before she was killed.

Marion Stevenson fought back tears as she recalled the incident while giving evidence for the defence at the trial of Russell Bishop, 52, who is accused of sexually assaulting and murdering the “Babes in the Wood” Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in Brighton in October 1986.

Ms Stevenson told the court when she was 16 she had stumbled upon Barrie Fellows in his front room watching a video of his daughter Nicola being abused by the family lodger Dougie Judd.

Ms Stevenson, now 48, said she had been smoking pot with Mr Judd and her then boyfriend Bishop, when she went to get a glass of water from the kitchen.

Stifling tears as she gave evidence from behind a screen, Ms Stevenson told the Old Bailey: “Barrie Fellows was sitting on the sofa, and another man was to his left. I heard sexual noises and turned towards where the noise was coming from, the television.

“Nicky was on Dougie’s bed with him. Dougie touched her and got on top of her having sex. They were both undressed.”

Ms Stevenson said she remained unobserved for two minutes as she watched Mr Fellows and the other man viewing the video.

The witness told jurors she then went home because she felt sick.

Ms Stevenson told the court she had given statements to police about the video allegation in 1988, two years after the murders, and again in 2007.

She was giving her evidence a week after Mr Fellows and Mr Judd issued categorical denials from the witness box, saying emphatically that there had been no video and they had never sexually abused Nicola.

Joel Bennathan QC, defending, however, has invited the jury to consider the possibility that Mr Fellows might have killed Nicola and Karen to cover up his “guilty secret”.

Ms Stevenson was called as a defence witness, but she has long since stopped having anything to do with Bishop, who in 1990 was convicted of abducting, sexually assaulting and attempting to murder a seven-year-old girl.

She told the Old Bailey of how she had witnessed Bishop kick, punch and slap his adult partner Jenny Johnson while she was pregnant with the couple’s second child.

Prosecutor Brian Altman QC invited Ms Stevenson to confirm she had given a statement on 31 October, 1986, in which, recalling a conversation with Bishop on 11 October, 1986, she had told police: “I said how awful it was and how could anyone do it?

“He said, ‘They deserved it, and I blame the parents for allowing them out at night.’”

In the same statement, the court heard, the 16-year-old Marion Stevenson had told police: “He asked me to make love, but I wasn’t interested because I was upset about the murders.

“Russell was unhappy and said I wouldn’t see him for much longer because he was going to be put down for the murder. He said, ‘You think I have done it, don’t you?’ I told him not to be silly.”

Ms Stevenson confirmed for the court that this had been the content of her statement in 1986.

She broke down in tears as she also confirmed that Bishop had claimed to her that he had seen Nicola and Karen’s dead bodies and added: “They looked so lovely lying there.”

Bishop appeared to be listening intently in the dock to what his former teenage girlfriend was saying from behind the screen. He denies murder.

The trial continues.