The survivor of murderer Russell Bishop has spoken out in her first ever broadcast interview.

In February 1990, Rachael Watts, then just seven years old, was out roller skating in Whitehawk.

She was bundled into a car by Bishop, who, due to a series of prosecution blunders, had been cleared of the Babes in the Wood murders three years prior.

Bishop then drove 14 miles to Devil’s Dyke and strangled her in the back seat of his car. She was stripped naked and sexually assaulted.

He then left her for dead in gorse bushes but unbeknown to Bishop, was still alive and managed to survive.

Now, Ms Watts has spoken out in her first ever broadcast interview in an effort to heal.

This morning, she told Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour about the moments after her assault: “I woke up, crawled my way out of the brambles which cut my arms and my legs and scratched me all over

“I felt dizzy and sick and couldn’t walk well it was very muddy. I stumbled more than walked.”

As a result of her attack Ms Watts suffers from agoraphobia and severe anxiety.

Ms Watts, now 40 years old, told Woman’s Hour: “I have kept quiet for many years and don’t really allow myself to get close to people

“I have held onto this secret for so long and tried to explain why I am the way I am.

“My husband spent many years trying to demolish the brick walls I built up. I built brick walls to stop myself from feeling.

“He smashed them down and now I allow myself to be loved and to love him.”

Ms Watts revealed that she only recently told her parents that she remembered her assault and had been fully conscious while Bishop raped her.

In 2018, only four years ago, Bishop was finally convicted of the Babes in the Wood murders, after advances in DNA technology and the prosecution said the similarities in both Rachael’s abduction and the murders in 1987 were clear.

When Bishop was retried for the murders of Karen Hadaway and Nicola Fellows in Wild Park it brought the ordeal back.

Bishop died of cancer in prison this year. He was 55 years old.

Asked whether this was a kind of relief to her, Ms Watts told Radio 4: “I was neither elated nor sad about it.

“I have unfortunately become very numb to the fact which is why I am able to speak about it so brazenly, that is how I have internally dealt with it.”

Severe agoraphobia means Ms Watts struggles to leave the house.

The journalist who originally told her story, Eileen Fairweather, has set up a GoFundMe to raise money so Ms Watts can create a healing garden.

Ms Watts told Woman’s House: “I am a prisoner. I am, unfortunately broken. But I wont always be.”

One of the ways Ms Watts deals with her mental health issues is to sit in the garden and get the sun on her face.

“The garden provides solace for me,” she told Radio 4.

Woman’s Hour host Emma Barnett asked her about Bishop’s notoriety as the Babes in the Wood killer.

Ms Watts said she disliked the name.

“It makes him sound infamous, like the Moors Murderers and gives him a title.

“It is as if he should be remembered. But he has died and his memory should go with that.”

The Ms Watts’ fundraiser has reached over £18,650.

To donate to the fundraiser, visit here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/rachael-russell-bishop-survivor