Hammer killer: I was framed

The man convicted twice of the hammer murders of Lin and Megan Russell was framed by a heroin-addicted fellow prisoner, the Appeal Court heard today.

Michael Stone claims drug dealer Damien Daley lied to win police favour when he said Stone had confessed to him in jail. Stone, 44, who is serving life for the 1996 killings near Chillenden in Kent, today launched a new bid to win his freedom. Lin Russell, 45, and her daughter, Megan, aged six, were battered to death with a hammer in a wood outside the village.

Megan's sister Josie, then nine, was left for dead. Now 17, she has made a remarkable recovery and lives with her father Shaun in North Wales.

Stone was given three life sentences for the murders and the attempted murder of Josie in October 1998. He won an appeal but was convicted by a second jury in October 2001.

Today his lawyers opened the second appeal with a ferocious attack on the credibility of Daley, who claimed Stone had told him in Canterbury prison how crushing his victims' heads was like "smashing eggs".

It emerged that another prisoner, Paul Gilheaney, has come forward to say Daley had admitted to him that the Stone confession was "all lies and bulls**t". Edward Fitzgerald, for Stone, told the Appeal Court: "Daley is a career criminal who has admitted lying to get by in life and has shown to have perjured himself on at least one occasion during Stone's trials."

He added: "The prosecution's case depended on Daley's evidence that Stone had confessed to him. There was no physical, scientific or eye-witness evidence to link Stone to the crime. But we say there are two fundamental problems with Daley's evidence on which the case stands or falls."

Daley had concealed his addiction to heroin and his mental record from the two juries which had convicted Stone on his evidence, the court heard.

Mr Fitzgerald told the court that the judge in the second trial had failed to tell the jury of the extreme danger in trusting Daley's evidence - shown by the fact that the Crown dropped evidence from two other prisoners who claimed Stone had made admissions to them. Mr Fitzgerald said the court had accepted that cell confessions, particularly those not written down or taperecorded, "were inherently unreliable".

The hearing before Lord Justice Rose, sitting with Mr Justices Mitting and Walker, continues.