The families and friends of two girls murdered in a Brighton park gathered to remember them 40 years after their lives were cut short.
The girls, Karen Hadaway and Nicola Fellows, went missing after going out to play after school on Thursday 9 October 1986, prompting a huge search.
The bodies of the two nine-year-olds were found the next day in Wild Park, a few hundred yards from where they lived in Moulsecoomb.
For many years, the anniversary of their deaths – known as the Babes in the Wood murders – was marked to keep alive not just their memory but a decades-long battle for justice.
The man who murdered them, Russell Bishop, was tried and astonishingly acquitted in 1987 before going on to abduct another young girl in 1990.
Bishop left seven-year-old Rachael Watts for dead at the Devil’s Dyke but, miraculously, she survived and remembered key details that led to him being jailed for life for kidnap, indecent assault and attempted murder.
The Hadaway and Fellows families kept up their fight for justice and – after a change in the law and advances in forensic science – Bishop went on trial for their murder again eight years ago.
This time, the jury convicted him and he was jailed for life again. He died in 2022 while still serving his sentence.
Yesterday (Friday 9 October), Karen’s mother, Michelle Hadaway, and their family and Nicola’s uncle, Nigel Heffron, and their family gathered at the bench placed in memory of the girls in Wild Park.
The bench is just yards from the tree where flowers and tributes were placed 40 years ago – as close to the crime scene as the families were allowed to go.
The tree, the bench and the hillside were decked with photographs and flowers and other tributes to Karen and Nicky once again this weekend.
Father James Harding, the rector of St Andrew’s, Moulsecoomb, led a service that started at 5.15pm on Friday, 40 years after the girls were last seen alive, with a candle lit in their memory.
Some members of the girls’ families kept a vigil in the park through the night and until this afternoon when Father James led a second service.
During the service, the candle was blown out at 4.21pm, the time when Karen and Nicky’s bodies were found.
Michelle Hadaway thanked everyone who had come along to remember the girls and support the two families including one of Karen’s old school friends.
Others included the Mayor of Brighton and Hove Theresa Fowler, Chief Superintendent Adam Hays, the police divisional commander, and Councillor Jacob Taylor, the deputy leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, who represents Moulsecoomb and Bevendean.
She and Mr Heffron praised local hire firm GigLoo who stepped in at late notice to provide toilets for those keeping the overnight vigil.
And as an emotional two days drew to a close, she said that the pain had never gone away.
It was hard to say how many more years she and the other older members of the two families would be able to return but, regardless, Karen and Nicky would continue to be remembered.
