Jailed Michael Stone is staging a last-ditch legal battle to clear his name over the Chillenden Murders, pleading: “I didn’t do this.”
The 63-year-old has pointed the finger at Milly Dowler’s killer Levi Bellfield after he penned a signed confession to the grisly 1996 hammer attack. Stone is serving three life sentences for the murders of Lin Russell, 45, and her daughter Megan, six, and attempted killing of sister Josie, nine.
Now his legal team are launching legal action to challenge the Criminal Case Review Commission’s refusal to refer his conviction to the Court of Appeal. Kent Police have always maintained Stone’s conviction is safe, while twisted Bellfield has a history of playing mind games with officers with fake confessions.
Now Stone’s barrister Mark McDonald is demanding a judicial review that would force the CCRC to carry out forensic tests on broken strands of DNA found at the crime scene. They include fragments of DNA found on a bootlace that was discovered a short distance from the bodies.
Lin Russell and daughter Megan (PA)No forensic link has ever been established between ex-heroin addict Stone and the murder scene. In a written confession Bellfield, 55, claimed he used the lace to tie up Lin’s hands before the savage attack on the mother and her daughters.
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Stone’s legal team say that special DNA testing techniques – known as Y-STR – could prove Bellfield was responsible. The move comes as interviews with Stone from his prison cell in HMP Frankland are due to be aired in a Sky documentary, The Russell Murders: Who Killed Lin & Megan.
In the astonishing recordings, he pleads: “I never did this. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t there.” And referring to Bellfield’s confession, he said: “Bellfield is getting it off his chest and telling the truth. It should show that I’m not responsible.”
Mr McDonald told the Mirror: “The CCRC have said they will not be doing any further DNA testing. We are issuing a letter to force them to do testing that they haven’t done. There were broken strands of DNA found at the scene which did not belong to the family and did not belong to Michael Stone. It is that that we want testing.”
Levi Bellfield is said to have 'confessed' to the murders (PA)
Stone's sister Barbara (MDM)He added: “We want Mr Stone’s case to be sent directly to the Court of Appeal.”
Lin and her two daughters, as well as their dog Lucy, were tied up and savagely beaten with a hammer in the brutal attack in Chillenden, Kent. Only Josie survived, sustaining horrific injuries.
Stone, who was arrested a year after the murders, had served time in prison before, with convictions for robbery, burglary, GBH and assault. He was being held on unrelated charges when he is alleged to have confessed to fellow prisoner Damien Daley in Canterbury prison. Daley was convicted of murder in 2014 and is currently in prison serving a life sentence.
Barry Thompson, another prisoner who provided evidence supporting Daley’s account, admitted post-trial that he had made up a conversation with Stone under pressure from police. In a 2001 retrial, Stone was convicted by a 10-2 majority but was given leave to appeal in 2005, which was unsuccessful.
Former nightclub bouncer Bellfield is currently serving two life terms, also in Frankland. The monster killed 13-year-old schoolgirl Milly Dowler in Weybridge, Surrey, in 2002.
Lin Russell with her daughter Josie, who survived the attack (PA)He murdered Marsha McDonnell, 19, near her home in Hampton, West London, in 2003 and French student Amelie Delagrange, 22, in 2004. He also attempted to murder Kate Sheedy, 18, in 2004. Earlier this year it emerged he had also confessed to killing 19-year-old student Ms Chau in 1999 in Ealing, London.
But Met Police detectives have yet to start searching the area where Bellfield claims to have buried her body - even though he reportedly marked the spot on a map with an X.
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Mr McDonald said: “The CCRC primarily dismissed Bellfield’s confession because they say he has spoken to police in the past and he has made confessions which the police have investigated and which turn out to be not true. But they tell me what those cases are, what the allegations were and the extent of the police investigations. Bellfield has admitted to the murder of Elizabeth Chau. However the Metropolitan Police have refused to dig. That raises questions about the CCRC decision because we don’t know the extent of the police investigations.”
Lin Russell was brutally murdered with a hammer in 1996 (PA)Mr McDonald added: “The main person here that everyone seems to forget about is Damian Daley. Stone’s entire conviction is based on the testimony of a man who went on to murder someone else and who told numerous people he lied about Stone. That’s the thing that’s kept Stone in prison for the past 26 years. He has served his sentence but refuses to go parole because he says to do so would be to admit to guilt.”
Speaking to the Mirror, Prof Jim Fraser, the former Head of Forensic Investigation at Kent Police, said Stone was convicted on the “slimmest of evidence”. He said: “There was nothing that led us to any offender, including Michael Stone who was convicted.” He added: “Everyone wants the person who committed the crime caught and dealt with. I was always conscious that there wasn’t very much evidence in this case. But Stone has been convicted twice and the only people who have heard all the evidence and crucially who heard Damian Daley are the jurors in those trials. They believed Daley and that was their judgment.”
Stone’s sister, Barbara, 61, has campaigned for his freedom. She said: "When people ask me [why I’m so sure he didn’t do it], I say, how can you be so sure he did? Because I haven’t seen one scrap of evidence to show that he did it.”
*The Russell Murders: Who Killed Lin & Megan will air on Sky Documentaries and streaming service NOW from September 16
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