Babes in the Wood killer left me for dead but I helped police convict him

Last victim of evil Russell Bishop describes ordeal

- VIKKI WHITE

THIRTY-FIVE years ago, Rachael Watts was kidnapped in broad daylight by a man who had already killed two little girls.

The seven-year-old was sexually assaulted and left for dead.

But thankfully, Rachael survived and was brave enough to give the evidence that would convict her attacker, Russell Bishop - dubbed the Babes in the Wood murderer.

In a bid to banish the shadow he has cast over her life, Rachael, now 42, is telling her story in a two-part Sky documentary called The Girl Who Caught a Killer.

She says of Bishop: "He disposed of me like he was fly-tipping. Just like I was an old mattress or something, thrown into a bush somewhere. He left me thinking I was dead."

In 1986, four years before Rachael was abducted, nine-year-old friends Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway went out to play in Brighton.

Their bodies were found at the city's Wild Park the next day.

TRAUMATISED

Bishop, then 20 and a local labourer and petty criminal, was tried at Lewes crown court in 1987 for what became known as the Babes in the Wood murders.

But during the trial, his then girl-friend Jennifer Johnson changed her story in the witness box, and he was acquitted by the jury.