A convicted paedophile accused of the Babes in the Wood murders was branded a coward as he refused to attend court.

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Russell Bishop has been described in court as an "abusive, aggressive, controlling man" who killed two children for his own "sexual gratification".

The 52-year-old is on trial for the second time over the deaths of Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway, aged nine, 32 years ago.

The girls were sexually assaulted and strangled in a woodland den in Wild Park, Brighton, in October 1986.

Within three years of his acquittal in 1987, Bishop was jailed for life for the kidnap, sexual assault and attempted murder of a seven-year-old girl.

Mr Justice Sweeney told jurors Bishop had "chosen not to attend" his Old Bailey trial on Tuesday.

The judge said: "You must not, of course, treat that as providing any assistance to the prosecution. We shall simply continue in his absence."

In a closing speech, Brian Altman QC told jurors: "In this case, as you have witnessed yourself, the defendant chose to give evidence but within a relatively short time of my beginning my cross-examination of him he refused to return after the mid-morning break.

"During that time you may conclude he showed you his true colours - an abusive, aggressive, controlling man.

"He is a coward to refuse to continue his evidence before you and he is a cowardly paedophile who thinks nothing of attacking a seven-year-old child and, on the evidence we suggest, killing two nine-year-old girls purely for his own sexual gratification."

Mr Altman said Bishop's claim he attacked the seven-year-old out of rage to "shame her" was "ludicrous".

The prosecutor went on: "The 'deep shame' he said he felt was exposed not as shame but simply as a sham to play to his audience and try to provoke your sympathy while he continued to play the victim, just as he played the people around him in 1986 pretending to be shocked and grief stricken."

Mr Altman asserted Bishop was "capable of extreme sexual violence".

The lawyer highlighted Bishop's alleged comments about girls doing handstands in the park and his "grubby" letters to a 13-year-old girl full of "sexual innuendo" while on remand in 1987.

They "show his brazenness" and are a "window into his sexual interest", jurors were told.

Mr Altman said the defendant had nothing to explain the "multiple scientific findings" and instead put Nicola's father through the ordeal of being accused of the killings.

"What you have seen unfolding before your eyes is the creation of a smokescreen in the hope he gets away with murder for the second time," he said.

Bishop, formerly of Brighton, East Sussex, has denied two counts of murder.

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Share your thoughts about the case or memories from the time. Email: aidan.barlow@theargus.co.uk