KENT petty criminal Michael Stone has been found guilty for the second time of the brutal murders at Chillenden of Dr Lin Russell and her six-year-old daughter Megan, and the attempted murder of Josie Russell.

The jury at Nottingham Crown Court reached the verdicts after a second trial, ordered earlier this year after his original 1998 conviction was quashed on a appeal.

Stone, from Gillingham, was given three life sentences for the murders. The hearing was told heard how Josie, who was nine at the time of the attack, was found with massive head injuries in a copse in Chillenden, near Canterbury, next to the bodies of her mother, sister and the family dog, Lucy. She underwent emergency neurosurgery and slowly recovered.

The jury of nine men and three women visited the cell during the trial, along with the murder scene.