Stone wins right to appeal

The man jailed for life for the murder of Lin and Megan Russell has dramatically won the right to appeal against his conviction, it was revealed today.

Michael Stone claimed he did not get a fair trial because of publicity surrounding the case and because of the unreliability of a confession that helped convict him.

Stone, 42, was found guilty in 1998 of battering to death 45-year-old Mrs Russell and her six-year-old daughter with a hammer.

Mrs Russell's other daughter Josie survived the attack in a country lane but suffered horrific head injuries.

Stone, who has always denied charges, took his case to the Court of Appeal in London last week.

The appeal on the grounds of the publicity failed but Mr Justice Treacy has decided that Stone should be allowed a full appeal on the basis of his complaints over his alleged confession to fellow inmate Damien Daley at Canterbury Prison. Stone's lawyer Mark McDonald told the judge that the case stood or fell on the " confession".

Daley, who was in a neighbouring cell while Stone was on remand at the jail, claimed he heard a voice through a heating pipe admitting to the murders.

Mr McDonald argued that there was no evidence that the voice was Stone's. Daley, he said, had tested positive in prison for drugs and styled himself as a hard man.

The lawyer submitted that the "confession" should either have been excluded or the trial judge, Mr Justice Poole, should have given the jury a much stronger warning about the possible unreliability of Daley's evidence.

Mr McDonald said there was no forensic evidence against Stone and he maintained that Daley was lying. Stone, of Gillingham, got three life sentences for the murders of Mrs Russell and Megan and the attempted murder of Josie in Chillenden near Dover in 1996

His convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal after a witness at the first trial admitted lying and a retrial was ordered.

But another jury at a second trial returned guilty verdicts in 2001.

The Russells were attacked as they walked home from a primary school one evening.

A court heard that Stone demanded money from them, blindfolded and tied them up before battering them with a hammer. Mrs Russell was hit 15 times.

Stone, a convicted armed robber with a history of extreme violence, became a suspect after his psychiatrist saw a BBC Crimewatch programme on the first anniversary of the killings.