AN EX-LOVER has told how she was “besotted” by the man accused of the Babes in the Woods murders as she tearfully gave evidence in his defence 32 years later.

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Marion Stevenson was just 16 when Russell Bishop was arrested over the deaths of Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in 1986.

Days before he was found not guilty over the killings in 1987, Ms Stevenson gave an interview to the News Of The World, at his mother’s instigation, the Old Bailey heard.

It resulted in two stories - one alleging Nicola had been sexually abused on film, and another alleging police asked her to extract a confession from Bishop while his home was bugged.

Giving evidence in Bishop’s second trial for murder, Ms Stevenson alleged the nine-year-old’s father Barrie had watched the video featuring the lodger, Dougie Judd.

Under cross-examination, Ms Stevenson, now 48, tearfully denied the suggestion that none of it ever happened.

She told the court how she had been “besotted” by Bishop and he could “do no wrong in my eyes”.

Ms Stevenson added: “He was my first love.”

Prosecutor Brian Altman QC quizzed Ms Stevenson about the first time the allegations about the video emerged, in the News Of The World in December 1987.

When police asked her about the newspaper article, she said that “not everything” she said was true, the court heard.

Mr Altman said Ms Stevenson had given nine statements to police in 1986 but there was no mention of the allegations before.

He said: “Can you try to explain why there is not one mention at all about this video allegation?”

She replied: “I was young. I was scared. Two little girls I knew were murdered. My world was not like that.”

Mr Altman said: “You told the jury you saw this video a couple of months before the murders.

“If you saw what you told the jury you saw you must have thought to yourself that Nicky was in the greatest of danger. She was living in a house with a man that you saw was raping her while her own father was watching it on video.

“You must have thought to yourself that ‘this little girl I’m fond of is in danger of being sexually abused by a man who lives in the same house as her’, Dougie Judd?”

Ms Stevenson wept as she replied: “Yeah but I was scared. I was young myself.”

The prosecutor asserted: “Even at the age of 16, if you had wanted to, you could have reported what you told the jury you saw at any day, or any of the weeks or any of the months leading up to the girls’ murders.”

She said: “I could have done and maybe if I had they might be alive.”

The witness went on to claim Bishop’s “domineering” mother Sylvia suggested she speak to the News Of The World.

She did not recall if they discussed what she was going to say, but added: “They all used me. Everyone used me. Russell’s family, the police, everyone.”

When the prosecutor suggested there was no bug in Bishop’s home, the witness wept, saying: “It was. You are trying to make me out to be a liar.”

Mr Altman asked: “Did Sylvia use you, encourage you to go to the News Of The World before the jury found Russell Bishop not guilty, just in case he was convicted?”

The witness denied this.

Ms Stevenson was asked to explain why she had given “completely different” accounts of the video of Nicola to police in 1988 and 2007.

On the day of the alleged abuse, she told jurors she had been smoking and drinking.

She said: “I have explained that in 1988 I was heavily smoking pot and so my memory was not as clear as it was in 2007 when I was not smoking it. As the years went on, things have got a lot clearer to me.”

Convicted paedophile Bishop, 52, denies sexually assaulting and strangling the girls in Wild Park, Brighton.

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