A pensioner has admitted killing two women 34 years ago, in a case that became known as the "bedsit murders" and was one of the country’s longest unsolved double homicides.

       David Fuller, 67, from Heathfield in East Sussex, was arrested in December on suspicion of murdering Wendy Knell, 25, and 20-year-old Caroline Pierce in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in 1987.

       During a pre-trial review at Maidstone Crown Court, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC, said Fuller had now "admitted responsibility for both killings subject to the issue of diminished responsibility". He continues to deny murder.

       Miss Knell, a shop worker, was found dead in her ground floor flat in Tunbridge Wells in June 1987. She had been sexually assaulted, beaten and strangled.

       Around five months later, Miss Pierce, a restaurant manager, disappeared from outside her bedsit in Tunbridge Wells.

       Her partially naked body was found around three weeks later in a water-filled ditch around 40 miles away in Romney Marsh.

       Fuller, a married father, appeared frail during the pre-trial review in front of Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb and leant on the dock throughout the hearing.

       No formal charges in respect of the killings were put to the pensioner and he was remanded in custody at London's Belmarsh Prison until the start of his trial on November 1.

       Fuller was arrested following a series of cold case reviews by the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate.

       Mr Atkinson QC said the trial was now expected to be shorter than originally anticipated and completed within two weeks.

       Reports are currently being prepared by psychiatrists and psychologists.