Russell murder case will depend on Stone's prison confession, court told

Josie Russell was forced to listen to the final moments of a murderous hammer attack on her mother and sister while she was blindfolded and tied to a tree, a court was told yesterday.

In a police video interview filmed months after the attack which left her barely alive, Josie, who was nine years old at the time, said she heard her mother, Dr Lin Russell, calling out and gasping for breath as her killer struck her the head at least 15 times, Nottingham Crown Court was told.

Her sister Megan, aged six, was also savagely beaten to death but Josie survived despite horrific injuries.

The attack on the family as they walked home from school in rural Kent was committed by Michael Stone, said Nigel Sweeney QC, opening the case for the prosecution, but the case against him relies on a confession a fellow inmate at Canterbury Prison claims Mr Stone made to him.

Damian Daley, a prison "hard man", says Mr Stone, in the cell next door, told him through a tiny gap in the wall that the victims were "whores and slags" and "referred to smashing an egg and the inside being mush", Mr Sweeney said. That was a year after the murder and followed an identification parade in which Mr Stone, then under arrest, believed he had been identified by a witness. Mr Sweeney said: "Stone told Daley, 'If it wasn't for that slag I'd be okay'."

Mr Sweeney said Mr Daley claimed he realised what Mr Stone was talking about only when he read a newspaper with details of the murders, and he told him he would report the confession to the authorities. Mr Stone is said to have told Daley he would not be believed.

Mr Sweeney told the jury: "We must make you sure that he admitted it to Mr Daley. We accept that other evidence, whether taken individually or collectively, is not enough for you to be sufficiently sure of guilt." He said there was no conclusive scientific evidence to link Mr Stone with the scene and nobody had positively identified him as being there. He said the killer had tidied up after the murders, dumping bloodied strips of towel he used to tie the victims in a hedgerow. They gave no forensic clues to the killer's identity. But Mr Sweeney said Mr Stone had an intimate knowledge of the area because he had been brought up in children's homes nearby and a friend had seen him with blood on his shirt around the time of the attack.

"It's our case he was alone when he attacked the Russells, though whether he was alone in the area that afternoon will be a matter for you to judge in due course," Mr Sweeney told the jury.

Mr Stone, 41, is accused of attacking the three in a secluded copse at the village of Chillenden, near Canterbury, more than five years ago. Dr Lin Russell, 45, a geologist, had picked up the two girls up from school on 9 July, 1996, after a swimming gala and they were walking the two miles home when, the prosecution says, Mr Stone drove past them and blocked the track with his car. He is accused of getting out of the car with a hammer and demanding money from the family.

Mr Sweeney said Dr Russell told him she had no money with her but offered to go back to their cottage to get some. When he refused, Mr Sweeney said Dr Russell urged Josie to raise the alarm but the attacker chased after the girl, hit her on the head with the hammer and dragged her back to the rest of the family.

Mr Sweeney said Mr Stone then ordered all three into the copse off Cherry Garden Lane. The victims were blindfolded and tied with strips torn from Josie's wet towel, then repeatedly beaten with the hammer.

An autopsy showed Dr Russell's brain was almost severed at its root after she had been hit on the head at least 15 times. Megan's skull was split from side to side after seven blows, the court heard. The family dog, Lucy, was also battered and killed.

Josie, who had terrible injuries, was found nine hours later, after the girls' father, Shaun Russell, a doctor of philosophy, raised the alarm when he came home from work as a university lecturer in Canterbury and found them missing. The court heard that searching police officers found Megan's swimsuit close to the murder scene, then found the bodies in the copse.

Josie was initially thought to be dead but the officers swiftly realised she was still alive. Emergency surgery saved her life and now at 14, she is said to be recovering from the psychological damage as well as the physical injuries.

Unemployed Mr Stone, of Gillingham Kent, wearing a polo shirt and flanked by three security officers, scribbled notes throughout the hearing and occasionally glanced towards members of his family and supporters in the public gallery. He denies the murders and attempting to kill Josie.

The case continues today.