Child killer Huntley dies after attack by fellow inmate

Ian Huntley, the notorious Soham murderer and one of Britain’s most reviled killers, has died following a vicious prison attack.

- TOM WILKINSON HOLLY BANCROFT

The former school caretaker’s horrific murder of 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman shocked the nation in 2002, prompting widespread questions about how a man with a history of sexual allegations could have been employed in a school.

He received a life sentence with a minimum term of 40 years for the murders after a jury dismissed his fake story about Holly falling into his bath and drowning.

Huntley, who resided with Maxine Carr - a teaching assistant at Holly and Jessica's primary school - lured the best friends into his home in Soham, Cambridgeshire.

The girls, dressed in Manchester United shirts, had left a family barbecue on 4 August to buy sweets, encountering Huntley by chance while Carr was away for the weekend. For reasons known only to him, Huntley murdered the girls before dumping their bodies in a ditch 10 miles away. They were not found for 13 days.

Their disappearance sparked a search involving hundreds of police officers. The nation's media descended on Soham, and it was not long before Huntley drew suspicions about his agitated demeanour.

Reporter Brian Farmer, who worked for the Press Association in East Anglia at the time, interviewed Huntley and was so concerned afterwards that he went to the police.

Mr Farmer, who initially hoped to speak to Carr, was surprised when Huntley began to tell him how he imagined the girls would react to a stranger approaching them, despite not knowing them or working in their school.