NATION HOLDS ITS BREATH AS IAN HUNTLEY AND MAXINE CARR FACE OLD BAILEY TRIAL OVER SCHOOLGIRLS’ MURDERS

Huntley and Carr to be tried at Old Bailey

The trial of Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr in the case of murdered schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman will take place at the Old Bailey next year after a judge ruled the pair could not stand trial at a provincial court for fear a jury might prove connected to the case.

The decision was made at Norwich crown court yesterday after Mr Justice Moses ruled there was a “real risk” that, if a trial were held in East Anglia, any juror might have been touched by the investigation, which became the biggest manhunt in British criminal history.

More than 441 police officers in 25 forces were involved in the search for the 10-year-old girls after they vanished from their homes in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in August, and 3,000 witnesses have been interviewed.

Yesterday lawyers on behalf of the crown and both defendants argued the trial should take place in London.

Granting the application, the judge said the investigation had been so widespread – both geographically and in terms of the number of witnesses – that there was “a real risk that jurors will discover some connection with the investigation”.

Neither Mr Huntley, 28, who is charged with murder and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, nor his girlfriend Ms Carr, 25, who is charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, attended the hearing. Both will have to appear together for the first time on December 20 when they enter their pleas at the Old Bailey. That date may be put back to the new year, however, and the trial is not expected until next autumn.

The court heard that the first of 80 video identity parades are to begin next week – witnesses will be shown Mr Huntley’s photo, alongside those of nine other men on a video.

Holly and Jessica disappeared on August 4. Their bodies were found 17 miles from Soham in woodland near Lakenheath, Suffolk, on August 17.

Trial and Sentencing

The parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman—Kevin and Nichola Wells and Les and Sharon Chapman—arrive for the first day of Ian Huntley’s murder trial in November 2003.

Despite Huntley’s attempts to destroy forensic evidence, extensive hair and fiber residue remained, linking Huntley to the girls. Huntley was formally charged with the girl’s murders and sectioned under the Mental Health Act at Rampton Hospital, pending a hearing to establish if he was fit for trial. Carr was arrested for assisting an offender, as well as conspiring to obstruct the course of justice, as she had initially provided Huntley with a false alibi for the time of their disappearance.

The trials of Huntley and Carr opened, to worldwide media interest, in London on November 5, 2003. Huntley was faced with two murder charges, while Carr was charged with perverting the course of justice and assisting an offender.

The prosecution entered exhaustive evidence linking Huntley to the girls, though he previously denied having any knowledge of their murders. Then, three weeks into the trial, Huntley suddenly changed his story. He admitted the girls had died in his house, but he claimed that both deaths were accidental. The defense called Huntley as their first witness, and he described how he had accidentally knocked Wells into the bath while helping her control a nosebleed and had accidentally suffocated Chapman when she started to scream and he tried to silence her. On cross-examination, the prosecution described his latest version as “rubbish.”

Carr’s testimony began three days later. She claimed she had no control over the events on the day of the murder and that had she known of Huntley’s murderous intent, she would never have lied to protect him.

Following her testimony, the prosecution presented their closing statements, claiming that both Carr and Huntley were convincing liars and that Huntley’s motive for murdering the girls was sexual, though physical evidence of assault was impossible to prove.

After five days of deliberation, the jury rejected Huntley’s claims that the girls had died accidentally and, on December 17, 2003, returned a majority verdict of guilty on both charges. Huntley was sentenced to life imprisonment, but there was a delay on the setting of his sentence, as the 2003 Criminal Justice Act took effect one day after his conviction.

At a hearing on September 29, 2005, a judge ruled that the Soham murders didn’t meet the criteria for a “whole-life” sentence that under the new act was reserved for sexual, sadistic, or abduction cases. Instead, the judge imposed a 40-year prison sentence, which offers Huntley very little hope for release. Huntley didn’t actually attend his sentencing hearing, because 15 days earlier he had been attacked by another inmate at Belmarsh Prison and scalded with boiling water.

Carr was cleared of assisting an offender but found guilty of perverting the course of justice and jailed for three and a half years. She was freed under police protection in May 2004, as she had already spent 16 months on remand pending the trial. Carr was given a new identity on her release and, on February 24, 2005, was granted an indefinite order protecting her new identity by the High Court on the basis that her life would be in danger were her new identity to be revealed.

A number of investigations, launched by then Home Secretary David Blunkett, looked into the failures of the police and other social and vetting agencies that should have stopped Huntley sooner. These investigations identified system-wide communication and intelligence-sharing errors, which led to the suspension and early retirement of the chief of Humberside Police.