Lin Russell was walking her two daughters home from school along a country lane when the attack took place.

Her older daughter, Josie, then nine, suffered severe head injuries and the family’s dog, Lucy, was killed.

They had moved to the area from Gwynedd just a few months before.

Stone has always protested his innocence over the murders and his conviction for the attempted murder of Josie Russell.

Stone had an appeal against his conviction turned down in 2019.

In July 2025, the CCRC ruled there was “no real possibility” the Court of Appeal would quash his convictions but then in October the watchdog confirmed they were once again reviewing the convictions.

In October, the CCRC said in a statement that “previous reviews found no credible evidence or argument that raised a real possibility of the convictions being quashed, these conclusions are not affected by the new review”.

Commenting on the latest review, a CCRC spokesperson said: “We are exploring all of the possibilities the application raises to determine whether Mr Stone may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.

“Our test for referring a case is that there is a real possibility that the Court of Appeal would overturn his conviction, a test which was not met in any of the earlier applications.”

They said it would be “inappropriate for us to discuss the case or make any further comment while the application is being reviewed”.