Prosecutor Brian Altman QC continued his address to the jury at the Old Bailey in the afternoon.

He said: I am now going to come on to summarise to you the key scientific findings in the case from 1986 and 1987. You now know that significant items have undergone examination and analysis since 1986 to the present day. Science has moved on since 1986. As I have said,

DNA profiling though available was in its infancy in 1986 and 1987 and did not form any part of the scientific analysis at the time. So, against that background, let me describe to you the examinations and key findings that took place in 1986 and 1987.

Fibres and debris were removed from the clothing for further examination either by Dr Peabody himself or by an assistant, Nicola Gagie. Similar to the process at post mortem, this was achieved by the use of lengths of wide adhesive tape, like sellotape, pressed on to the item to remove fibres or other material, such as hair, which is loosely adhering to it.

Blood

Dr Peabody examined Nicola’s pink jumper, her vest, her skirt and pants. The pink jumper had blood staining on both shoulders on the right front and on the right sleeve. The blood on the shoulders appeared to be mixed with vomit. There were no bloodstains on the vest or the skirt.

The contents of Nicola’s stomach were examined and found to contain a mass of partially digested food with the appearance of chips. There were also fragments of meat. Meat pie or bacon with chips would have this appearance according to Dr Peabody. The finding of digested food with the appearance of chips is in keeping with what the girls seemed to have been seen eating that Thursday evening.

Dr Peabody described the Pinto sweatshirt as a mid-blue sweatshirt with long sleeves and a round neck. It was made from blue acrylic fibres with a pale blue cotton fleecy lining. It was well worn and in poor condition. There were also several areas of red paint-like staining particularly on both cuffs and on the front. Fibres and debris were removed from the item for further examination, again, as I have just described, by taping it.

As for the defendant’s trousers, Dr Peabody found them to be well worn and in very poor condition. There were several areas of red paint-like staining on the trousers, particularly in the seat, thighs and left calf areas. Fibres and debris were removed from the item for further examination, as before by taping them. A sample of the fibres on the towelling top and skirt belonging to Marion Stevenson was also taken.

Devastating

The evidence on those tapes was in effect locked in place and in time. These are the tapings taken by Dr West during the course of the post-mortem examinations of both girls on Friday 10 October and the tapings taken by the scientists at HOFSL.

So, the tapings represent a time capsule. And this is important, because, as you will hear, items were re-examined in 2005 and again, most recently, in 2012 and after by other scientists using modern techniques and science and the conclusions they arrive at in not one, but in several different scientific disciplines, are devastating for the defendant because they prove scientifically not only that he was the wearer of the Pinto (DE/1) and that that garment was connected to his home environment, but also that it is linked to the two girls and therefore their murder. Quite simply, its wearer (the defendant) wore it at the time of the murders and he was their killer.

Having said that, it is important I remind you that the scientific evidence is not the only evidence in the case. When you combine it with the evidence of the defendant’s words and actions and the fact that he struck again in a strikingly similar fashion but three years later in 1990 following his 1987 acquittal, it proves this man, to the exclusion of anyone else in the world, was the killer.

Fibres and hair

Dr Peabody examined items to see whether matching fibres had transferred between garments, indicating possible contact between them. Dr Peabody’s fibres examination centred on the Pinto, Karen’s green sweatshirt, Nicola’s pink jumper and Marion Stevenson’s skirt.

Dr Peabody found on the Pinto sweatshirt 11 green polyester fibres which were microscopically indistinguishable from the fibres of Karen’s green top. Also, found by Dr Peabody on the Pinto were four pink polyester fibres microscopically indistinguishable from the fibres of Nicola’s pink jumper as well as five pale green polyester fibres that were microscopically indistinguishable from the fibres of Marion Stevenson’s towelling skirt.

So, 11 fibres which were microscopically indistinguishable from Karen’s top, four from Nicola’s top and five from Marion Stevenson’s towelling skirt had transferred to, and were recovered from, the Pinto, in all but the case of the towelling skirt recovered from tapings taken by 11 December 1986. Those findings represent microscopically indistinguishable fibres from the Pinto travelling in one direction to three other garments. What about fibres travelling in the other direction?

On Karen’s green top, Dr Peabody found 11 blue acrylic fibres (from which the Pinto was made) which were microscopically indistinguishable from the fibres of the Pinto. So, there was also a two-way transfer of fibres in Karen’s case in that there were microscopically indistinguishable fibres from Karen’s green top found on the Pinto and, as was determined at that time, an identical number, 11 microscopically indistinguishable fibres from the Pinto on Karen’s green top.

Also, Dr Peabody found four fibres that were microscopically indistinguishable from the fibres of the Pinto on the defendant’s trousers handed to police by Jenny Johnson.

These findings led Dr Peabody to the view in 1986 and 1987 that the sweatshirt may therefore have been in contact with the defendant’s trousers and Marion Stevenson’s clothing; also, that the sweatshirt may also have been in contact with the clothing of the two dead girls. In a further detailed report, he said that there was strong evidence to indicate that the sweatshirt had been in contact with the clothing of the two dead girls.

Dr Peabody sought also to see if there were microscopic matches to be made between hairs found on clothing and reference samples that were available to him. As for that, Dr Peabody found eight hairs on the inside of the Pinto sweatshirt and one hair on the outside of the garment. These hairs had, he said, the same microscopic appearance as the sample from the defendant (RG/7) and therefore, said Dr Peabody back then, they could have come from him.

As we will hear, rather than taping hairs off the Pinto sweatshirt (DE/1), it appears quite likely that these hairs were individually recovered from the sweatshirt on Friday 31 October 1986 and then stored or mounted straight on to microscopic slides for examination before the Pinto sweatshirt (DE/1) was taped. So, whether the hairs were taped off the garment or, as seems likely, recovered directly and mounted on slides these hairs were also locked in place and in time.

Two hairs were found on Karen’s T-shirt (IEW/11) and one hair was found on Nicola’s skirt (IEW/39) which had the same microscopic appearance as the hair sample from Karen (IEW/44) and therefore could have come from her, according to Dr Peabody.

Four hairs were found on Nicola’s pink jumper (IEW/37), one hair was found on her vest,

(IEW/38) and one hair was found on her skirt (IEW/39). The hair on the vest (IEW/38) was

animal hair. The remaining five hairs had the same microscopic appearance as the sample from Nicola herself (IEW/48) and therefore could have come from her.

At that time, as Dr Peabody commented, it was not possible except in unusual circumstances to determine definitively by microscopic examination that any hair came from a particular person.

Botany tests

When Dr Peabody attended what he called the den at the murder scene on Saturday 11 October, he found ivy to be in abundance at its entrances and on the approaches to it.

He conducted a comparison of the plant epidermal hairs found on the sweatshirt, the green sweatshirt belonging to Karen, the pink jumper belonging to Nicola, as well as on other garments worn by the girls and tapings from their bodies.

The plant epidermal hairs were identified as ivy.

Star-shaped ivy hairs were found on the Pinto. Similar ivy hairs were found on exhibits attributed to the girls. Dr Peabody said that although ivy was a relatively common plant they were not commonly encountered on clothing. He said he had no recollection of ever having seen those distinctive structures before on any clothing he had examined.

It was his opinion that the high numbers of ivy epidermal hairs on the Fellows and Hadaway items and on the sweatshirt were the result of extensive contact with ivy, adding they were not the result of merely walking through the undergrowth where ivy was present.

Contact

David Cutler, a research botanist, was asked on 7 November 1986 to consider the tapings taken from the Pinto as well as slides made of microscopic debris taken from the Pinto.

Mr Cutler was of the view that it would have been necessary for there to have been close contact between the Pinto sweatshirt and the plant material for there to be such a high number of plant hairs on the garment.

Defendant’s convictions in 1990

Let me divert temporarily from the scientific evidence before I return to it.

Three years after his acquittal in December 1987, on 13 December 1990, at Lewes Crown Court, the defendant was, as I have said, convicted of offences of attempted murder, kidnapping and indecent assault.

The victim was seven years old at the time that she was attacked by the defendant on Sunday 4 February 1990. Shortly before 4pm that day, she left her home address on roller skates to go to a nearby shop in the Whitehawk area of Brighton.

At about the same time, a red Ford Cortina (which was a stolen car bearing false plates) was seen in the area which was attributed to the defendant and which he accepted driving that day. At about 4pm, the car was seen parked and with the boot open. The victim also noticed the car. As she passed, the defendant grabbed her and lifted her into the boot, telling her to be quiet and threatening her that he would kill her if she was not quiet.

He drove the car, with the victim in the boot, 14 miles to an area known as Devil’s Dyke on the South Downs.

When the car arrived at Devil’s Dyke, the defendant parked on a path running through the woods. He took her from the boot and forced her into the back seat of the car, telling her to keep quiet. He put his hand over her nose and mouth. He then put his hands around her throat and strangled her with his thumbs at the front.

Unconscious

She fell unconscious and while unconscious he stripped her naked and then he sexually assaulted her. She suffered genital injuries.

Shortly after 4.30pm, a couple walking in the woods noticed the red Ford Cortina car. They saw that the windows were steamed up and so they could not see inside. They could make out shapes moving up and down on the back seat, but they did not look closely inside. There was a sign on the rear window which read ‘For Sale £750 O.N.O’. This sign would later be recovered from the car.

After sexually assaulting her, the defendant took the victim’s unconscious naked body from the car and dumped her in dense, gorse bushes in the woods, where he left her for dead.

He threw the roller blades she had with her into the woods before driving away from the scene at 4.45pm.

Survived

Despite her injuries, she survived. She regained consciousness and managed to struggle out of the gorse bushes where she was found by some passers-by. She told them what had happened to her and she provided a description of her attacker.

They called the police who attended the scene and she repeated her account to them. She said that the man who attacked her was wearing black trousers.

As for the defendant, he drove to his parents’ address at 46 Coldean Lane where he was seen carrying a bucket to his car.

Forensic evidence would later indicate that the boot lid and the inside panels of the car had been wiped clean with a wet cloth.

The next day, a taxi driver found a pair of black tracksuit trousers bearing white piping abandoned in Mill Lane about 100 yards from Devil’s Dyke Road .

A near neighbour of the defendant described him wearing a similar pair of trousers on the day of the attack.

The defendant was spoken to by the police and asked to account for his movements on the day of the attack. He was arrested and interviewed. At that stage he declined to answer any questions asked of him.

Three days following her attack, on Wednesday 7 February 1990, She identified the defendant as her attacker.