Serial killer Levi Bellfield has claimed fellow convict Michael Stone is trying to bribe him to confess to the Chillenden murders.

Bellfield, who is serving a full-life term for three murders, says Stone is passing notes between their maximum security cells at HMP Frankland.

According to reports in the Daily Mirror, Stone offered Bellfield a cut of the cash he expects to make from press interviews if he is cleared.

Gillingham resident Stone was convicted of the hammer murders of Lin Russell, 45, and her daughter Megan, six, in a country lane in Chillenden near Canterbury in 1996 as they returned from a swimming gala.

Megan’s sister Josie, then aged nine, survived the attack, and Stone was handed a life sentence in 1998, but has always maintained his innocence.

His case was featured on a BBC documentary earlier this month which aimed to explore if the right man was in prison for the murders, and questioned whether Bellfield could have been a more likely suspect.

But the accusation has reportedly angered Bellfield, who was convicted of the 2002 killing 13-year-old Millie Dowler, and the murder of Marsha McDonnell in 2003 and Amelie Delegrange in 2004.

Bellfield has reportedly penned letters to Stone’s lawyers asking for the notes to stop and described the situation as “quite intolerable”.

He wrote: “Over the past 18 months your client has bombarded me with verbal messages and notes.

“Within the smuggled note he is asking me to watch the second part of his forthcoming programme on BBC2 and to take down details of his crimes.

“He wants me to lie and confess to the Russell murders with the promise of a later payout from his media deals. This has to stop.”

The case was the focus of a BBC Two documentary screened earlier this month, in which independent experts re-examined evidence.