A jury watched yesterday as an 11-year-old girl re-enacted the hammer attack in which she was severely injured and her mother and sister were killed.
Josie Russell, who was nine at the time of the attack, used models of her family to show the jury in Maidstone Crown Court how a man repeatedly hit them with a hammer after tying them up and blindfolding her. The child cried out "Ow" as she remembered her mother screaming as she was hit by the attacker. Mrs Russell, Megan and Josie were bludgeoned as they walked along a country lane from school to their home in Chillenden, near Canterbury, Kent, on July 9th, 1996.
Michael Stone (38), of Gillingham, Kent, denies murdering Lin Russell (45) and Megan (6), and denies attempting to murder Josie, who survived the attack but is still suffering from the horrific head injuries she sustained.
Police officers who found the bodies initially thought Josie was dead. But after a faint pulse was detected she was rushed to hospital and made an extraordinary recovery.
Despite losing the ability to speak and suffering what the prosecution had called "intellectual impairment", just two months after the murders Josie began a series of videotaped interviews with police recalling the attack.
The jury of eight women and four men yesterday watched a four-hour compilation of interviews between Josie and two specially trained police officers.
The videotaped evidence was agreed on by both prosecution and defence counsel to avoid subjecting Josie to the trauma of having to testify. Police commissioned the construction of a model of the murder scene, along with tiny models of the Russell family to assist Josie in her interviews. Scrapbooks of photographs of her mother and sister, and model cars and other aids were also used.
Josie also used a basic form of sign language to communicate with the two police officers as she recounted details of the attack.
Ms Anne Rafferty QC, prosecuting, told the court: "The head injuries that Josie Russell sustained caused her to have significant expressive language difficulties and also affected her understanding of language."
The videotape shows Josie using the models to position her family in a lane, where they were confronted by a man who demanded money before tying Josie, her sister and her mother up and attacking them.