THE man accused of murdering two schoolgirls told witnesses and police information that only their killer could have known, a court has heard.

>> NEXT DNA EVIDENCE WILL PROVE BISHOP MURDERED SCHOOLGIRLS, JURY TOLD <<

Russell Bishop is standing trial at the Old Bailey in London, accused of murdering nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in Wild Park in Brighton in 1986.

On the second day of presenting evidence to the jury, Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, has described 52-year-old Bishop’s behaviour as he joined search parties for the missing girls.

Bishop claimed to a neighbour Geoffrey Caswell that it was his “mates” who had found the body, and claimed to have checked the girls for a pulse.

Mr Altman said:“Mr Caswell recalls asking the defendant if the girls had been badly injured, to which

the defendant replied they did not appear to be. But he also said that the girls were lying across each other and that it was a sight that he would never forget.

“He also claimed that he had felt for a pulse on one of the girls, but he did not elaborate.”

He also explained the girls positions in the den where they died.

Bishop then later spoke to his friend called Michael Evans that he was not bothered about finding the girls bodies.

Bishop told Evans: “One was lying on her back and the other one was lying across the other one’s stomach. One had blood coming from the corner of her mouth.”

Mr Altman said: “The prosecution suggests that the only way the defendant could have known the detail of the girls’ positions in relation to each other was not because he saw it at the time of finding, but quite simply because that is how he left them, having killed them.

“Mr Evans asked him if he had been upset about finding the bodies and, in stark relief to the grief-stricken impression Mr Caswell had gained from him on 10 October, the defendant told his friend that it did not bother him at all.”

The prosecutor previously said that Bishop had raised the prospect that the girls were dead with a police officer, which the police thought was strange as the thought they were dead had not entered anyone’s mind.

Later he gave a description to police of his movements on the evening that the girls went missing, and signed a witness statement.

He told police that he saw “blood coloured foam” from Nicola’s lips.

Mr Altman said: “As I have said before, there is simply no possibility that the defendant could have been in possession of the detail of the precise situation and positioning of the girls and the foam on Nicola’s lips unless he had seen it with his own eyes from very close.

“The difficulty is he just could not have seen, far less done, what he claims at the time of the finding as he did not get close enough to see it with such detail.

“That leaves only one possibility: he was able to describe what he did because that is how he left those two little girls, having killed and sexually assaulted them.

At that stage, Bishop did not know that a blue Pinto sweatshirt had been found by the public and handed in to the police.

>> NEXT DNA EVIDENCE WILL PROVE BISHOP MURDERED SCHOOLGIRLS, JURY TOLD <<