Over the weekend, those close to the case and those, like me, who were looking on, mulled over Bishop’s evidence. The words self-pitying, dissembling and evasive sprung to mind. He had clearly spent the first weeks of the trial absorbing witness testimony and shaping his pitiful answers accordingly. I mentioned to a few friends that I wondered how long Bishop would last under Altman’s scrutiny. I gave him an hour, tops. Others thought he would go the distance, burying himself in the process.
Once again, for this act, the court was rammed. With Bishop safely back in the witness box and the jury and families settled in their places, Brian Altman slowly got to his feet. ‘Mr Bishop, you’ve had all weekend to think about what you told the court on Friday.’
‘I haven’t given it a thought,’ he replied.
‘Is there anything you would like to change in your evidence?’
‘No.’
‘Did you tell the jury any lies?’ Altman asked.
‘No, I don’t believe so.’
‘What you said on Friday was you were in a bad state when you committed the offences in 1990.’
‘Yes.’
‘There was a hate campaign against you? You contemplated suicide and killing your children. Ending their lives.’
‘Yes.’
‘Things had got to such a state you were mentally ill.’
‘I was mentally unstable and deeply ashamed,’ Bishop expanded.
‘Your brake pipes had been cut on your car and not for the first time.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you not mention brake pipes to the police at the time?’
‘I didn’t answer any questions.’
‘Yes, you went “No comment” because you knew you were guilty, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I was guilty of the charges and convicted.’
‘You were given a discretionary life sentence and you are still serving it.’
‘It’s turning into a whole life sentence.’
This was a virtuoso cross-examination. Altman knew the answers to all of his questions and Bishop was too dense to realize he was being led down the garden path. He may have believed this was just fact-filling for the jury but for those of us who had seen this before, we knew he was being taken by the hand to a cliff edge.
Mr Altman fast-forwarded to Bishop’s efforts to secure parole and his excuse that it was the years of victimization that led him to attack Claire. For the first time, the public heard that Bishop had in fact admitted the facts of the 1990 offence earlier, but only when he believed his release on licence hinged on a confession. It seemed, as with everything, his sole motivation for doing anything was whether it would benefit him.
‘You said you agreed with what this court has been told about that case and what happened next. They are in the agreed facts,’ Altman reminded him.
‘I’ve always been deeply ashamed of what I done so I always try to cover things up. By denial.’
‘Is that why you appealed the convictions and sentence?’
‘It was more to do with sentence,’ insisted Bishop.
‘No, you have a choice. You can appeal against conviction, sentence or both. You appealed against both.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you remember denying the attempted murder of Claire?’
‘I do deny the attempted murder, but by my actions she could have died.’
Bishop then went into a rant about the incompetence of the police surgeons and pathologist who gave evidence in his 1990 trial. He tried to argue that, by putting his hands around Claire’s neck, thumbs to the front, and squeezing, he did not try to kill her.
Altman said that in 2006 Bishop had pressed his solicitor to revisit Claire in an attempt to elicit a statement saying he did not strangle her. She would have been in her early twenties by then, but even the thought of approaching her in this way could only come from a man with no comprehension or empathy for anyone but himself.
Despite him admitting the attack on Claire, while denying any intention to kill, he now denied a sexual motive. It emerged that his appeal was turned down at the first hurdle and the Criminal Cases Review Commission – the organization set up to investigate suspected miscarriages of justice – refused to take his case on.
‘You said you had no sexual interest in children?’ Altman asked.
‘I don’t have a sexual interest in children,’ Bishop confirmed.
‘Was your attack on Claire sexually motivated?’
‘No.’
Altman then showed Bishop the agreed facts document relating to the 1990 offence.
‘Your semen was found on Claire’s vest.’
‘The semen came from my tracksuit bottoms,’ replied Bishop.
Altman questioned whether semen on his tracksuit could be wet enough to transfer to Claire’s vest, then continued. ‘This was all about sexual motivation, Mr Bishop. You are a predatory paedophile. That’s why you stripped her naked, wasn’t it?’
Rather than deny it, Bishop made the mistake of attempting an intellectual joust with the eminent QC on the definition of a paedophile, spectacularly losing when his Parole Board notes were read back to him.
Brian Altman reminded the jury that in all three trials, 1987, 1990 and now, Bishop blamed police misconduct for putting him in the dock. Bishop was now admitting that was nonsense in 1990 and he was in fact guilty. Having made that point Altman returned to why Bishop chose Claire.
‘The victim on the fourth of February could have been anyone,’ Bishop claimed.
‘So why did you sexually assault her?’
‘That’s how the trauma came out.’
Altman then described the attack, step by disgusting step, emphasizing that it finished with Bishop inserting his finger in Claire’s vagina. ‘Why did you attack her in that way?’
‘To belittle and to shame her. It could have been anyone because of what happened to me,’ Bishop said.
I turned to the journalist on my right to check I had heard him correctly. None of us could believe what he was saying.
‘Why not a man?’ Altman asked.
‘Because there wasn’t anyone there,’ replied Bishop, as if that were obvious.
‘Why did you dump her in the bushes?’ Altman asked, drawing a parallel to how Nicky and Karen were left.
‘I left her on the pathway,’ he replied, making no attempt to explain why she was discovered with such livid fresh gorse scratches.
Suddenly, the cracks in his defence were beginning to show.
Bishop turned and glared at the judge. ‘What am I on trial for? Your honour, is this legal?’
‘Yes, and if it isn’t I’ll stop it,’ snapped Mr Justice Sweeney.
Altman continued. ‘You didn’t give evidence in 1987, did you?’
‘There was no need to.’
‘You did in 1990 and that was a load of lies, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your case in 1990 was based on alibi. You couldn’t have committed it because you were elsewhere. You were saying you couldn’t have been at Devil’s Dyke because you were elsewhere. That was lies, wasn’t it?’
‘I just said I lied. Are you deaf?’ Bishop barked.
I checked my watch. We were coming up to the hour mark. Maybe my prediction would be right.
‘You told that jury lies to get them to acquit you of an offence you did commit. Don’t you agree that what you did in 1990 was very similar to what the killer did in 1986? The killer of the two girls was the same person as committed the offences in 1990.’
‘No.’
Not for the first time, Altman spelled out each and every similarity between the attacks, including the sexual assaults. The more he could remind the jury of these, the more likely they would be to convict, especially on the back of Bishop’s momentous admissions.
‘Why did you take Claire to Devil’s Dyke?’
‘I didn’t have a plan,’ Bishop admitted.
‘You didn’t have a car in 1986, did you? It had broken down that morning. In 1990 you realized you made a mistake in 1986 by being on foot. That’s why you took your car and drove fourteen miles, wasn’t it?’
‘No.’
Some might have been surprised that Brian Altman had yet to even touch on the murders. There were so many targets to aim for in the current case – the DNA, the fibres, did he or didn’t he touch the girls and all those lies. Why did he not go straight for the jugular? He intended to come to that.
This provided the jury with something more. Throughout the trial, with one exception, Bishop had sat quietly, listened and not reacted. This entrée was a chance to showcase the man for what he was. A self-centred, arrogant, murderous paedophile. No amount of ‘Yes you did’, ‘No I didn’t’ would illustrate that as strongly.
Altman turned next to those letters from prison. We already knew Bishop had written the letters, because Bennathan had said as much. So, what about the girl’s age?
‘She was thirteen or fourteen in 1987,’ said Altman.
‘I believed she was close to sixteen,’ Bishop replied.
Altman spelled it out. When Bishop and Jenny moved into the bed and breakfast where the girl and her mum also lived it was 1984. She was born in August 1973. When Bishop used to babysit for her she was eleven. Therefore, how old was she in March 1987 when he was writing to her? Thirteen. Despite referring to the babysitting in the letters, Bishop maintained that when he wrote them he did not know her, so felt it reasonable to believe she was nearly sixteen. He agreed if she was thirteen it would have been wrong to sign his letters, ‘Lots of love and kisses xxx’.
‘Jenny must have told me she was fifteen,’ Bishop said.
‘She couldn’t have done as she wasn’t fifteen,’ argued Altman before continuing. ‘You wrote, “the last time you see me was at the bus stop about twenty weeks ago you did something.” What was that?’
‘Ain’t got a clue.’
‘ “The times when Jenny and I come up to see you.” Is that in the bed and breakfast?’
‘Ain’t got a clue.’
‘ “You know what we’ll end up doing”,’ Altman said, staring at Bishop. ‘Is that sex?’
‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t tell you.’
This was getting too personal for Bishop’s comfort now. Altman read on.
‘ “You will have to go on the pill. You know what I’m on about. You’ll have to get rid of this page.” ’ Again, he looked at Bishop. ‘Why did you suggest she go on pill?’
‘Because after sixteen I wouldn’t want her to have a child.’
‘What was the reference to “are you a . . .” with the letter V at the end of the page? Are you asking if she is a virgin?’
‘Probably.’
‘Were you suggesting you would take her to a bed and breakfast for sex?’
‘If she was of age, yes.’
‘ “I know how old you are hehe.” What’s that about?’
‘Fifteen or sixteen?’
‘Thirteen?’
‘No, I’d have stopped writing.’
This was certainly ticking all of Altman’s boxes, and rightly so, but Karen Hadaway’s mother and sister, Michelle and Lindsay, were becoming upset. It was hardly surprising, given what these revelations were saying about his designs on young children.
‘ “You won’t handle twelve inches. Jenny couldn’t.” What’s twelve inches?’
‘It’s obvious.’
‘Your penis?’
This was the final straw for Bishop. He refused to answer any more questions and talked over Mr Altman when he tried to put them. Mr Justice Sweeney felt compelled to intervene, chiding both for not listening to each other. He decided the court would take its customary mid-morning break and resume when everyone had cooled off. After the jury were escorted away to allow Bishop to be cuffed and taken to the cells, my prediction came to pass.
‘That’s it, I’ve finished giving my evidence,’ Bishop pronounced.