The man accused of murdering two schoolgirls in Wild Park was a coward for refusing to face cross-examination, the prosecutor has told his trial.
Russel Bishop denies sexually assaulting and strangling nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in Brighton 1986.
On Tuesday, Judge Mr Justice Sweeney told jurors at the Old Bailey that Mr Bishop had “chosen not to attend”.
Prosecutor Brian Altman QC told jurors Bishop had killed Nicola and Karen for his own “sexual gratification”.
Mr Altman said: “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.”
Bishop’s former girlfriend old the Old Bailey Russell Bishop was her first love and could “do no wrong in my eyes”.
It has been found that Russell Bishop wrote to a girl, 13, while in custody awaiting a first trial in 1987 over Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway’s deaths. When prosecution started to read the letters, Bishop said: “It’s not agreed evidence. Stop it right now.”
Jurors heard how they were letters with hearts, kisses and expressions of love as well as warnings to keep the relationship secret. In these letters he also talked about spending time with the girl in a B&B and asked her to confirm she was still a “V”, the court was told. The jurors heard how Bishop urged the girl to go on the pill for when he was released.
He wrote: “I know how old you are baby, he he. Sixteen or seventeen more weeks and I will be out up to no good again.”
He also wrote: “I just hope you can handle it because I’m a man not a boy. I know you’ve been looking for it for a long time from me.”
Earlier, the court heard a statement from one of Bishop’s football team-mates in 1986. William Cutting said Bishop would watch young girls doing handstands and say “wait until she is 13 or 14”.
Mr Cutting said he would put the comments down to “lustiness” but the girls were so young.
The Old Bailey Court heard how an attack by Bishop was very similar to the two girls’ case. Both cases the children were strangled and molested while unconscious.
Prosecutor Brian Altman QC told the jury: “We say the similarities between these offences and the 1986 murders are so striking and obvious that they, in combination with other evidence… point to him and only him as their killer.”
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