24 December 2023 , 10:00
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Evil child killer Ian Huntley expects to be spending the rest of his days behind bars with many more isolated Christmasses on the horizon.
After being found guilty of murdering 10-year-old schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the caretaker was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment, with a minimum of 40 years behind bars. He will not be considered for release until 2042 and whilst imprisoned, the double murderer has been known to lead a sinister double life - with mood swings and drastic body transformations.
Unsurprisingly, he has had a target on his head and has reportedly been the victim of a string of grisly attacks. When the two best friends Holly and Jessica were reported missing from their family barbecue in August 2002, it sent shockwaves across the country.
Their disappearance sparked one of the biggest manhunts that saw 400 police officers descend on the sleepy Cambridgeshire town of Soham, working around the clock alongside local volunteers in a bid to find them. But it was the twisted school caretaker, Huntley, who joined in on the search and spoke to the press about last seeing the two girls outside his house, who turned out to be hiding a dark secret - he was their murderer.
Ian Huntley murdered 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman (PA)
Huntley worked as a caretaker at a school (PA Archive/PA Images)The girls left their family party in search of sweets from the vending machine at the local leisure centre. On their way back, the pair walked by where Huntley lived on-site in the school's caretaker residence. He lived there with his partner Maxine Carr, but on that fateful weekend, he was home alone as she had been back home in Grimsby, where the couple met.
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He spotted the pair and lured them into his house, claiming Carr, who was a teaching assistant at their school, was inside. Huntley murdered the girls and then hid their bodies in an irrigated ditch close to the RAF base about 10 miles from their home.
The entire nation reeled when the tragic news broke that their bodies had been found by a gamekeeper. It was revealed that Huntley, who had already been taken in for questioning, had gone back to where he dumped the bodies to cut off the girls' distinctive Manchester United shirts and tried to burn them in a bid to destroy any DNA evidence.
He then dumped the shirts in a bin at the school where he worked, covering them with another bag of rubbish, but the police found them in a watershed moment for the case. On August 20, Huntley was charged with two counts of murder and sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment, with a minimum of 40 years behind bars.
While Carr was charged with two counts of assisting an offender, she was found not guilty but was jailed for three-and-a-half years for perverting the course of justice after giving Huntley a false alibi. Upon her release, having completed just half of her sentence, she was provided with a new identity.
Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells were 10-years-old (Shutterstock)Huntley, who will not be considered for release until 2042 at the earliest, now resides in HMP Frankland, in Durham. The murderer is at constant risk of attack from other prisoners and has had a string of health problems and suicide attempts behind bars.
In 2005 while in HMP Wakefield, Huntley was scalded with boiling water by convicted spree killer Mark Hobson. Two years after being transferred to HMP Frankland in 2008, Huntley had his neck slashed by convicted armed robber Damien Fowkes and received hospital treatment.
In April 2007, Huntley confessed to having sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl whom he had dragged into an orchard in 1997. A former inmate at HMP Frankland told The Mirror in 2016 that Huntley was leading a sinister double life behind bars.
Fellow jailbirds never knew which side of the killer they would see emerging from his cell every morning – the strutting cocky king of the wing or the self-pitying suicidal zombie. The source explained: "He has constant ups and downs. On a high he’ll walk the corridors, mocking other prisoners and acting the big man.”
An artist's drawing of Ian Huntley in the dock at Peterborough Magistrates Court in 2002 (PA)But other times they would see the shambling loner, feeling sorry for himself over not being eligible for parole until he’s 71 in 2042. According to the ex-inmate, Huntley loved watching TV and playing video games on consoles he bought with his wages.
They added: "Huntley rarely gets involved in group activity and never goes to the yard. He stands around by the kitchens, moaning he wants more food. He's only about 5ft2in but he's over 15st." Then in 2017, The Mirror broke the news that Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe had a chilling jail run-in with Huntley.
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Sutcliffe called Huntley a "child killing b*****d" in the face-to-face flare-up and told him to "p*** off" during the altercation at their Category A jail. The astonishing clash was revealed by Sutcliffe's brother Carl, who said: "Peter thinks he’s a higher class of killer than Huntley, but a murderer is a murderer in my eyes."
Dismissing rumours the two killers had become pals, Carl added: "He doesn’t like Huntley at all. Peter’s always been good with kids and he must think killing two children is worse than 13 women. But it doesn’t make sense to me." During his trial, Huntley had claimed he had "killed the girls accidentally" but in 2018, he was heard apologising for the murders in leaked recordings from his prison cell.
Soham Killer Ian Huntley leaves Wakefield Prison in 2006 (Daily Mirror)"I know the people of Soham took me into their community, they trusted me, gave me a job and a home, and I betrayed them in the worst possible way," he said in the tapes. "And I am sorry for what I have done, sorry for the pain I have caused to the families and friends of Holly and Jessica, for the pain I have caused my family and friends, and for the pain I have caused the community of Soham.
"I am genuinely, genuinely sorry and it breaks my heart when it is reported I have no remorse, that I relish something. I do not." After saying he couldn’t change what he had done, the killer added: "I know I am never getting out. I have accepted that from day one."
In November 2019, Huntley was reportedly locked up in solitary confinement after swearing at an official and kicking a guard. The kick was described as 'pathetic' by a jail source, who also claimed the murderer was crying as he was dragged back to segregation, according to The Sun .
The monster's special privileges were said to have been taken away after the attack, meaning he lost his £20-a-week painting job and was not allowed to buy fish and chip dinners. The source added: "He's almost unrecognisable now from what the public would remember. He looks like a skinny old man with no fight left in him."