‘Yesterday, thirty-one years to the day after your acquittal for the same offences, you were convicted – on now overwhelming evidence – of the murders of Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway, both aged nine, in Wild Park, in Brighton, on Thursday 9 October 1986. You were twenty years old at the time. You are now aged fifty-two.
‘I have no doubt that you were a predatory paedophile; that, having seen Nicola and Karen playing near the entrance to the park . . . you remained in the area in case a chance arose to lure them into the woods in the park; that chance did arise at around 6.30 p.m . . . You then lured them to a secluded den in the woods; that there, entirely for your own pleasure, you subdued them . . . and then, in turn, strangled and sexually assaulted each of them . . .
‘The terror that each girl must have suffered in their final moments is unimaginable. You then left their bodies where they were and walked home, dumping your Pinto sweatshirt en route to avoid anything incriminating on it being linked to you . . .
‘The following day you pretended to take part, as an innocent helper, in the search for the girls . . . After the discovery of the bodies you pretended that you had checked their pulses so that you would have an excuse if anything linked to you was found on them . . .
‘I am fortified . . . by the similarities between the murders of Nicola and Karen and the offences that you committed . . . in 1990 . . . You have been serving a sentence of life imprisonment for that offence since your conviction for it later that year.
‘During this trial you again falsely pretended that you were innocent and made the allegation . . . that Nicola’s father, Barrie Fellows, could have been the murderer instead . . .
‘Indeed, I observe that Barrie Fellows stood in the witness box and dealt with all the questions that were asked of him in cross-examination despite the understandable distress that it caused him whereas, after your initial cross-examination by the prosecution had exposed you as a paedophile and a liar, you refused to answer any more questions and have subsequently refused to attend court at all – or even, today, to attend by video link. Hence, I am sentencing you in your absence.
‘The victim personal statements of Susan Eismann, Barrie Fellows and Michelle Johnson speak with great dignity and force of the extent of the loss suffered by each of their families and of the suffering that they have endured over so many years. The court pays humble tribute to them for their fortitude and determination to see justice done.
‘The penalty for murder is fixed by law and thus I must and do impose concurrent terms of life imprisonment on each count. I must also fix the minimum term that you must serve, from today, before the Parole Board could consider your release. The minimum term is intended to reflect the seriousness of your offences.’
He then spelled out the complexities that Bishop’s age at the time of the offences and the legal framework of the 1980s added to his task. It is likely that, were Bishop to have committed these offences today, he would have received a whole-life sentence and would have had no prospect of parole. That was not an option for the reasons Mr Justice Sweeney provided, so he continued.
‘Against that background, and given that your offences are such serious ones of their type – involving two child murders, each of which was sexually motivated, each of which involved a degree of premeditation and each of which was substantially aggravated by your offences in relation to Claire, I have concluded, with your age in mind, that the minimum term that would have been notified by the Secretary of State in 1986 would have been one of thirty-six years.
‘Accordingly, that is the minimum term that I impose on each count.’
With those concurrent sentences passed, the judge rose and left the court having handed down the heaviest sentence he could. Thirty-two years, two months and two days after the most brutal double child murder Brighton had seen, Bishop finally received his just desserts and was condemned to wallow in prison until at least the age of eighty-eight, but hopefully until his dying day.