A convicted paedophile has told jurors he molested a seven-year-old girl to “belittle and shame” her after, three years after he was cleared of the so-called “Babes in the Wood” murders.

Russell Bishop, 52, is currently on trial for the second time for killing Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in light of new forensic evidence.

The nine-year-old friends, dubbed the “Babes in the Wood”, were sexually assaulted and strangled in Wild Park in Brighton in October 1986.

In the original trial Bishop was acquitted. Within three years, he was convicted of abducting, sexually assaulting and trying to kill a seven-year-old girl at Devils Dyke on the South Downs, the Old Bailey heard.

Under cross-examination on Monday in the fresh trial, Bishop insisted he was not a paedophile but was just “bloody angry” at a hate campaign against him and thought “I might as well do it”.

Prosecutor Brian Altman QC asked: “This was all about revenge?”

The defendant replied: “Partly.”

Altman went on: “So the attempted murder of (the girl) was born out of revenge by virtue of the three years of the hate you and your family suffered?

“You are portraying yourself as a victim.

“This offence was all about sexual gratification and you are a paedophile?”

Bishop denied it.

Altman continued: “You enjoy controlling children and one aspect of your control of children, particularly girls, is sexual gratification.”

Bishop said: “No, not in any way.”

The prosecutor asked: “Why did you choose a young girl who was two years younger than the age of the two girls you were accused of murdering?”

Bishop said: “It could have been anyone. Through the psychological trauma of the hate campaign and what everyone else was saying it came out in that behaviour.”

The defendant said he assaulted the girl to “belittle and shame her because I was bloody angry at everyone – at her and everyone who had done that to me”.

Altman asserted: “This is all rubbish. This is all lies.

“You attacked that young girl because you had a sexual interest in children. It had nothing to do with three years of hate but everything to do with Russell Bishop and your character, didn’t it?

“There are very good reasons for what I also suggest are obvious and striking similarities between the two offences because the killer of those two girls in October 1986 was the same person who attacked (the seven-year-old) in 1990. And that man is you.”

As he was being questioned about his “sexual interest” in children, Bishop became agitated and appealed to the trial judge.

He said: “Your honour. Is this legal? Is this correct?”

Mr Justice Sweeney told Bishop that it was, and if it was not, he would stop it.

Bishop denies murdering Nicola and Karen.