Maxine Carr's life after prison as mum in seaside town with 'besotted' husband
It's set to be another difficult Christmas for the distraught parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, who will be mourning the loss of their daughters during this special time.
It has now been more than two decades since the 10-year-old schoolgirls vanished from the sleepy streets of Soham, Cambridgeshire, on their way to buy sweets. Their stripped bodies were discovered in woodland two weeks later following one of the country's biggest manhunts.
After helping with the desperate search, and talking to press, it was discovered that evil caretaker Ian Huntley had callously murdered the pair and left them in a ditch in a nearby woods. His fiancée Maxine Carr, now 46, lived with Huntley at the school's caretaker's residence, which came with his job, and provided him with a false alibi, saying she was home the night of the murders when she was in fact back home in Grimsby - where the couple had met.
Carr, who said she had been in the bath whilst he spoke to the girls on the front drive, was found not guilty of assisting the murders but was jailed for three-and-a-half years for perverting the course of justice. She was released from Foston Hall prison in Derbyshire in May 2004 after having served just half her sentence.
Carr was jailed for perverting the course of justice (Press Association)
Following Ian Huntley being jailed for murder, an inquiry into how he was able to get a job as a school caretaker was launched (PA Archive/PA Images)But the strength of public hatred meant she had to be given a new identity by the courts along with round-the-clock protection. Over two years, Carr was moved to more than 10 different safe houses for her safety and in 2011, it was reported that she had given birth to her first child - a son - in a secret safe house. In 2012, she was believed to have started a serious relationship with a man who is aware of her horrifying past.
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As of 2014, she was said to have been living in a seaside town. And in the Netflix true crime drama - titled Maxine - she is depicted by the sea, with someone calling her name, saying they knew it was her. The town cannot be named by officials because of the lifetime anonymity order granted to Carr by the High Court more than 10 years ago.
She is just one of four ex-UK prisoners protected by lifelong anonymity – along with James Bulger's murderers Robert Thompson and Jon Venables and child killer Mary Bell. In the same year, she started a life by the sea, she reportedly got married to a man in a £2,000 wedding with all the trimmings.
According to the Daily Mail, the pair tied the knot at a secret hotel, with the bride wearing a £2,000 ivory dress. Her husband-to-be walked her down the aisle, sources said, adding that they feasted on a three-course wedding breakfast and drank £10 bottles of sparkling wine before honeymooning at a family-friendly resort.
Insiders claimed her husband was fully aware of who she is and was 'absolutely besotted' with her. However, the news is said to have been a bitter pill for the heartbroken mothers of Holly and Jessica, who never got to see their daughters grow up and build a life of their own.
Maxine Carr is photographed following her arrest in August 2002 (Getty Images)"The families of Holly and Jessica will never get to see their daughters marry," a source told the newspaper. "They will never get to enjoy their big day. They have nothing to look forward. Why should she?"
The search for Holly and Jessica was one of the biggest the country has ever seen. Hundreds of local people volunteered along with US Air Force staff from a nearby base to trawl the countryside. Every registered sex offender in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire was interviewed but there seemed to be no trace of the primary school pupils. A massive media appeal kept Holly and Jessica on the front pages of every paper and in every news bulletin and for 13 days no stone was left unturned.
Chillingly, Huntley himself was interviewed by reporters and even helped in the search for Holly and Jessica. Carr was also keen to speak to the press and in one interview, she bragged about how much she had clearly meant to little Holly especially.
She showed reporters a card Holly had made for her on the last day of term to thank her for being such a good teaching assistant. Speaking to a TV reporter, Carr said: "No one believes they would ever run away. They were very close to their families. This is something that I will keep for the rest of my life.
"It's what Holly gave me on the last day of term and there's a poem written inside saying 'to a special teaching assistant' and that we will miss her and we will see her in the future. That was the kind of girl she was, she was just really lovely."
Her chilling slip was spotted almost instantly - she had referred to Holly in the past tense. Only those who knew what had really happened to the best friends would know that they had been killed.
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Suspicion started to fall on the pair, who were taken in for questioning 12 days after Holly and Jessica disappeared. The following day a gamekeeper made a harrowing discovery - Holly and Jessica were found lying side by side in a ditch close to an RAF base in Suffolk, 10 miles from Soham. On August 20, Huntley was charged with two counts of murder and Carr was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.
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