Evidence from a remarkable seven-year-old girl put double murderer Russell Bishop behind bars – and she tells her harrowing but incredible story in a documentary that started streaming today (Sunday 25 May).

Rachael Watts was rollerskating outside her home in Whitehawk in February 1990 when Bishop snatched her and bundled her into the boot of his car.

Bishop, who was 23 at the time, drove to a secluded spot near the Devil’s Dyke where he sexually assaulted Rachael, strangled her and left her for dead in gorse and brambles.

Miraculously, she survived and was able to give detectives enough crucial details to enable them to bring Bishop to justice later the same year.

He should never have been free to abduct her, having murdered two nine-year-old girls, Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway, in Wild Park, Moulsecoomb, in October 1986.

But at his trial in 1987, a key prosecution witness, Jennie Johnson, also known as Jennifer Robinson, lied under oath and the jury acquitted the double killer.

The case became known as the Babes in the Wood murders. It would take a change in the law of double jeopardy, fresh advances in forensic science and 32 years before a jury finally convicted Bishop of murdering the girls.

Thanks to Rachael Watts, though, he was never free to harm any other girls after kidnapping and trying to kill her.

Two-and-a-half years ago, she said: “I gave up my right to anonymity in 2022 when he died and I finally felt I was safe enough from him.

“But for the last eight or so years I have been living with complex PTSD, acute anxiety, agoraphobia and major depressive disorder.”

The documentary marks the first time that she has spoken on camera. Why now? One reason was that Bishop’s death from cancer three years ago, at the age of 55, relieved her of that lingering fear that he might still one day find her.

There were other reasons. She said: “I was tired of simply being referred to as the seven-year-old victim. I wanted people to realise that there was a person behind that footnote.

“My mental health has deteriorated significantly and I hoped that, by no longer carrying this burden alone, it would help me to heal and move forward without carrying this weight by myself any more.”

Rachael, now 42, lived in fear after the she was kidnapped and left for dead, even though Bishop was behind bars – outwitted by a seven-year-old girl, as one police officer said.

She said: “I used to have nightmares that he would climb the ladder and get up to my bedroom window and would come and finish me.

“Nobody knew how much it affected me. I didn’t know how much it affected me.”

Although Bishop was jailed for life in 1990, that didn’t put an end to her nightmares.

She married and had three children – and buried the terrible truth for years and years – but the past came back to haunt her.

In the documentary, she said: “For God knows how many years, I lived what I would consider to be a perfectly normal life.

“I just assumed there would never have to be a reason why I’d have to tell anybody and give up my right to anonymity. I never had the intention of telling my children ever.”

But Bishop came up for parole – and brought the old fears flooding back. She said: “I was so scared that he was going to come and find me.

“I thought a life sentence was a life sentence. Then I found out life in Russell Bishop’s case meant only 14 years just because he didn’t actually kill me.”

Rachael became frightened, fell into depression and became afraid to go out.

Now, she said: “I’m hoping that I can release myself of this secret that I’ve held for so long, that it would help remove this mental roadblock I seem to have hit.”

She also said: “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to be a properly functioning individual again. I’m hoping that I will end up being able to get a job and get a proper career. Something with animals.

“I want to be able to go out and spend time with my family and have dates with my husband.”

Asked what she would say to Bishop if he were still alive, she said: “I’m still here. And I’ve got a fighting chance.”

In October 2022, a crowdfunding appeal started to raise money to turn Rachael’s garden into a therapy garden – something that has since happened.

The crowdfunding page included the original message from Rachael explaining what she needed and why. And she posted her thanks and news about the documentary in an update last month.

She said: “I have embraced the opportunity to tell my own personal story in so much intricate detail for the very first time on television since my attack for this documentary.

“Although having this opportunity is something I never expected, it has been incredibly cathartic and also a new learning experience.

“I have spent so long in the shadows that stepping into the light has created new challenges for me to face and overcome.