During the whole trial, I had deliberately kept a low profile. I stuck to my pledge to Sussex Police that I would not speak to any witnesses or family until it was all over. The sanctity of the trial and the delivery of the right outcome was more important to me than any book or TV documentary.
Such was the media frenzy, you had to run the gauntlet of news crews, paparazzi and countless press reporters. They were so desperate for stories that they would grab almost any passer-by in the hope they had some connection to the case – even me. I politely turned them down.
I walked into court early in the afternoon on Tuesday 11 December to ensure I had a seat. By the time 2.05 p.m. arrived it was packed. The only empty chair was the one where the coward had sat until it all got too much for him.
Despite the judge’s order he attend, he could hardly be dragged to court and restrained in the dock, so he exercised his last flex of muscle.
The day before, the judge had reminded the jury that they were welcome to return to court for sentencing, but there was no obligation. Their lives had been on hold for nearly nine weeks, and many would want to be at home, or to go back to work, to return to normality. Yet it was a testimony to how deeply they felt about the trial, underlined by the speed of their verdict, that they all turned up, taking their seats in the same jury benches as they had throughout.
A relatively recent, and very important, introduction to the criminal justice process is the reading of the victims’ personal statements. In a murder trial it falls to the family to explain to the sentencing judge exactly how the brutal execution of their loved ones has impacted on their lives. Brian Altman took to his feet. Reading slowly, deliberately, but without feigned emphasis, he first set out Michelle’s thoughts.
She described how devastated she was after the first trial, having lost her beautiful little girl Karen and her friend Nicky. She had become resigned to there never being justice although she had no doubts at all that Bishop was responsible. She described the emotional torture she had been through with this trial, the stress of travelling every day and the trauma of hearing what the little girls went through. She said it was particularly hard for Karen’s sister, Lindsay, to hear of the horrors her big sister had endured. She reminded the judge that if Bishop had pleaded guilty thirty-one years ago, the healing could have started then.
Susan said in her statement that her world had been turned upside down, that no one thought this would ever happen to them, but for her it did. She said that in 1987, having given evidence, she could not bring herself to attend the trial again, relying on updates from her family liaison officer, and could not believe he was found not guilty.
This time it had taken five years to get to trial. Five years of huge worry and old wounds being opened up. In that time her husband Peter had died and very recently her son, Jonathan, had also passed away, having never got over the murder of his little sister. She had hoped to face the trial with him but instead she had to go home alone every day and deal with the horror of what she had heard. Like Michelle, she had no doubt Bishop was responsible and should have admitted his guilt years ago.
Finally came Barrie, for whom the trial was even more painful. He said that he had endured thirty-two years of being suspected of murdering his daughter. His heart sank back then when Bishop was acquitted and he described living an everlasting nightmare. He shared the tragedy of his marriage break-up, his brother and second wife dying and of course the loss of Jonathan. All the while he waited for justice. He reminded the judge of the horror of walking into a clinically white room, seeing the battered and bruised body of his darling Nicola; the worst thing a parent can imagine. His heart shattered completely.
He talked of Bishop’s front in leading marches and campaigns for the case to be reopened and how he felt ridiculed by him and his family. He described the humiliation of his 2009 arrest, the search of his home and the probing of his children by social workers, eager to discover if they had been abused. The seizure of his computers meant his children had had nothing to study on for their GCSEs. All because of Bishop. He hoped that the doubters would now be hushed and that he could live from here on knowing Nicola could now rest in peace.
It now fell to the judge to reflect the mood of the families, and of a community, in handing down a sentence that mirrored Bishop’s evil, but that would withstand any attempt of an appeal.
Addressing the empty dock, he gave his withering judgement.