Soham murders trial -- "I cut clothes off bodies", says Huntley
Leonard Pulver
[It would seem that UK has creatures just as barbaric
as IRA or Hamas. At least they prosecute them when
they can catch them - LP]
"I cut clothes off bodies", says Huntley
(Filed: 25/11/2003)
Sean O'Neill and Sue Clough report from the fourth week
of the Soham murders trial where forensic scientists
were giving evidence.
Ian Huntley admitted yesterday that he cut the clothes
from the bodies of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman and
burnt them in a plastic bin.
Stephen Coward, QC, for Huntley, told the Old Bailey
that his client removed the schoolgirls' clothing at
the remote ditch where he dumped their bodies. Huntley
also admitted driving his red Ford Fiesta there.
The court has already been told that Huntley is
unlikely to dispute that Holly and Jessica, both 10,
died in his house in Soham, Cambs, when he was alone
with them.
Huntley's admissions came during a day of detailed
forensic evidence at the beginning of the fourth week
of the Soham murders trial.
The evidence concentrated on the discovery in August
last year of the girls' clothing in the hangar, an
outbuilding in the grounds of Soham Village College
where Huntley was caretaker.
On Holly's shirt and tracksuit trousers and on
Jessica's underpants, scientists found five hairs from
Huntley's head - two of which provided DNA matches.
On clothes and carpets in Huntley's house at 5 College
Close, forensic examination found 49 fibres from the
girls' red Manchester United shirts. Another 77 fibres
from clothes and carpets in the house were found on the
girls' shirts.
"There is very strong scientific evidence that Mr
Huntley has been in direct contact with the clothing of
Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman," said Peter Lamb, a
senior forensic scientist.
"There is strong evidence that the clothes of Holly and
Jessica were in contact with the upstairs and
downstairs of Mr Huntley's home," he said.
Dr Helen Davey, a forensic scientist, said the girls'
clothes were cut from them item by item but in a
hurried manner. As she spoke, pictures of the ragged
and charred shirts appeared on screens in the court.
"The location of the cuts on the garments indicates
that they have been made to allow their removal from
the wearer or wearers while they were immobile," said
Dr Davey.
Jessica's shirt had been cut along the front from
hemline to neckline, across each shoulder and roughly
across the back.
Holly's shirt was cut up the front and along each
shoulder but the back was intact. There were no other
tears or rips in the shirts.
The parents of the dead girls - Kevin and Nicola Wells
and Leslie and Sharon Chapman - listened from their
seats in the well of the court.
Dr Davey painstakingly detailed the other items of
clothing found among the charred remains in the bin.
Jessica's Umbro tracksuit bottoms had also been cut
from her body.
In a zipped pocket Dr Davey found a half-eaten packet
of Polo mints and a bracelet with a dolphin lozenge.
Other sweet papers were found in the bottom of the bin.
Part of an inside pocket was missing but a piece of
material recovered during the post-mortem examination
on Jessica's body provided a match.
A missing part of the tracksuit logo was found in soil
at the spot near Lakenheath where the bodies were found.
Holly's tracksuit trousers had been cut off as had the
black Marks & Spencer bra bought for her by her mother
the day before she disappeared. It was fastened at the
back and had been cut between the cups - causing a
decorative embroidered flower to fall off - and on both straps.
Her pink and white underpants, decorated with a crown
and the word "princess", were cut twice along the
waistband. Similar cuts had been made to remove
Jessica's white Tesco pants.
A small bloodstain was discovered on one of Holly's
trainers but no DNA match was possible.
From all the clothes in the bin and from hair samples
recovered from the ditch, scientists found traces of
petrol which had been used to try to burn them.
No semen was found on any of the clothing.
Dr Davey said she believed that the girls' clothes had
been placed in a binbag, which was knotted and then
placed inside the bin before an attempt was made to
burn them.
Another bag placed over the burnt fragments had six
fingerprints and two palm prints made by Huntley.
The Crown claims that the school caretaker attempted to
burn the clothing inside the hangar building. But Mr
Coward disputed this, saying the fire was lit outside
the building.
Mr Coward said: "My client's case is that having cut
off the girls' clothes at the deposition site, he
brought them back to Soham, put them inside one of the
bins outside the hangar, set fire to the contents and
then replaced the bin inside the hangar."
He also said that Huntley admitted driving his car down
the rough track - known as Common Drove - to the place
where the bodies were discovered. Mr Coward told the
jury that he would make a further series of 21 admissions.
Huntley, 29, denies two charges of murder but has
admitted conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Maxine Carr, 26, his ex-fiancee, denies two counts of
assisting an offender and one of conspiring to pervert
the course of justice.
The trial continues.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.
che guevara
<red...@gta.igs.net> writes
>
>[It would seem that UK has creatures just as barbaric
>as IRA or Hamas.
oh and you don't?
hahahaaaa.
you are stooping pretty low today...
che
Leonard Pulver
che guevara wrote:
>
> In message <3FC38CB9...@gta.igs.net>, Leonard Pulver
> <red...@gta.igs.net> writes
> >
> >[It would seem that UK has creatures just as barbaric
> >as IRA or Hamas.
>
> oh and you don't?
And we/they prosecute them when they are caught. but
certain people in UK and UK media think their own shit
don't stink.
> hahahaaaa.
>
> you are stooping pretty low today...
Nowhere as low as you
che guevara
>
>
>che guevara wrote:
>>
>> In message <3FC38CB9...@gta.igs.net>, Leonard Pulver
>> <red...@gta.igs.net> writes
>> >
>> >[It would seem that UK has creatures just as barbaric
>> >as IRA or Hamas.
>>
>> oh and you don't?
>
>And we/they prosecute them when they are caught.
and we don't?
hahahaaaaaaaaaaa.........
> but
>certain people in UK and UK media think their own shit
>don't stink.
and you don't, oh holier than thou one.
>
>> hahahaaaa.
>>
>> you are stooping pretty low today...
>
>Nowhere as low as you
take the meds, dude, looks like you need em.
che
Leonard Pulver
How they died - Huntley's story
By Sean O'Neill and Sue Clough
(Filed: 26/11/2003)
The Soham schoolgirl Holly Wells died when Ian Huntley
accidentally knocked her into a bath as he treated her
for a nosebleed, his counsel told the Old Bailey yesterday.
"He has no recollection of a bang but he does remember
a splash," Stephen Coward, QC, told the hushed
courtroom at Huntley's trial for the murder of Holly
and her friend Jessica Chapman, both 10.
"When Holly went in the bath, which had roughly 18in
of water in it because Mr Huntley was going to wash the
dog, Jessica stood up and started screaming: 'You
pushed her, you pushed her.' "
Huntley, a school caretaker, then put his hands over
Jessica's mouth to keep her quiet, after which she collapsed.
Holly's parents, Kevin and Nicola Wells, and Sharon
Chapman, Jessica's mother, were among those listening
to the account.
Neither the police nor the prosecution have been able
to offer the families a definitive explanation of what
happened in Huntley's house on the night the girls died.
Huntley's version was given on the 16th day of the
trial as the jury heard gruesome details of the state
of the girls' bodies when they were found in a ditch 13
days after they vanished from their homes in the
Cambridgeshire fenland town last August.
The court heard that Huntley admitted taking the
girls' bodies to the drainage ditch off a track called
Common Drove, near Lakenheath, Suffolk, in his Ford Fiesta.
Huntley, 29, and his former fiancee Maxine Carr, 26,
sat in the dock flanked by seven prison officers.
Huntley denies murder but admits conspiring to pervert
the course of justice. Carr denies two counts of
assisting an offender and one of conspiring to pervert
the course of justice.
Dr Nathaniel Cary, the Home Office pathologist who
conducted post mortem examinations on the bodies, said
the remains were so severely decomposed that it was
impossible to ascertain a definite cause of death. He
could, however, rule out gunshots, stabbing, poisoning
or a blunt instrument.
Dr Cary, who had previously told the jury that he
thought asphyxia was the most likely cause of death in
both cases, said the defence's account had never been
suggested to him before.
"I am slightly concerned that this is the first I have
heard of quite a detailed scenario," he said. "Ideally,
I would like some kind of written account to go over,
because it is rather on the hoof otherwise.
"I might consider such a scenario had it been put
earlier, with forensic scientists who had examined the
scene, the bathroom and the clothing. I do not think I
can give it fair credit otherwise."
The judge, Mr Justice Moses, adjourned the court and
said that Dr Cary could discuss the case with others,
provided he told the court whom he spoke to and what
was discussed.
It was during cross-examination of Dr Cary that Mr
Coward presented his client's version.
He said that the children were in Huntley's house in
College Close, Soham, and had gone with him to the
upstairs bathroom because Holly's nose was bleeding.
Huntley was said to be running tissues under the tap
and helping Holly dab her nose. When turning around, he
knocked her backwards and Jessica began screaming.
Mr Coward said that Huntley could not recall how long
he kept his hands over Jessica's mouth. He became aware
that she was motionless and when he loosened his grip
she fell. He then realised that Holly was still in the
bath "apparently dead".
The prosecution alleges that Huntley murdered the
girls but admits that it cannot say exactly what
happened after they entered Huntley's home some time
after 6.30pm on Sunday, Aug 4.
Richard Latham, QC, prosecuting, told the jury at the
start of the case that the defence might claim that the
deaths were "a ghastly accident". The prosecution
insisted that they were not.
Ian Bailey
Good defence. That'll get him off.
Ian
Leonard Pulver
By Sean O'Neill and Sue Clough
(Filed: 27/11/2003)
Ian Huntley was accused of rape in 1998, four years
before he is alleged to have murdered the Soham
schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the Old
Bailey heard yesterday.
Huntley was also revealed to be the father of a
daughter whose mother - a former girlfriend - refused
to allow him any contact with their child.
The bath where Ian Huntley claims that Holly drowned
after slipping into the water
Details of the school caretaker's past in Grimsby were
disclosed in extracts from police interviews with
Maxine Carr, Huntley's former fiancee, read to the jury
in the Soham murders trial.
The interviews were conducted on Aug 17 2002, the day
Huntley and Carr were arrested in connection with the
girls' murders.
Carr told police officers she had not been in Soham on
the day Holly and Jessica went missing and could no
longer provide an alibi for Huntley.
"The reason why I told the police that I was at home
was because my partner Ian was accused in 1998 of
attacking a girl, raping a girl," Carr said. "It went
to court, he was put in a prison and bail hostel."
Carr also said Huntley was cleared when CCTV evidence
placed him elsewhere at the time of the incident. But
he suffered a nervous breakdown.
"I didn't lie to protect him from you lot . . . not in
anything to do with the girls. I just wanted to protect
him from having all his past thrown back in his face."
Huntley has claimed that Holly drowned when he
accidentally knocked her into his bath and he smothered
Jessica to stop her screaming.
Dr Nathaniel Cary, a Home Office pathologist, said he
had studied this scenario and rejected it as "wholly
implausible". It was "unlikely at the least" that Holly
could have drowned in Huntley's bath as a result of a fall.
On Huntley's account of how Jessica lost
consciousness, he said: "The only way she could have
been smothered to death would have been through forced
restraint against vigorous struggling."
Huntley, 29, denies two charges of murder but has
admitted conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Carr, 26, denies that charge and two counts of
assisting an offender.
The trial continues.
Leonard Pulver
Huntley's account of how girls died is
dismissed as implausible and unlikely
By Sean O'Neill
(Filed: 27/11/2003)
A senior Home Office pathologist described Ian
Huntley's account of how Holly Wells and Jessica
Chapman died in his house in Soham as implausible,
unlikely and contrary to common sense.
Dr Nathaniel Cary held the Old Bailey spellbound
yesterday as he embarked on a point-by-point response
to Huntley's claims that Holly drowned accidentally in
his bath while he smothered Jessica to stop her screaming.
Dr Cary, 46, said that if Huntley's intentions were
good - the school caretaker claims that he was treating
Holly's nosebleed in the bathroom - it would have been
"easy" for him to have helped her out of the bath.
"If the whole thing was only the innocent help being
given with a nosebleed I see no reason why that
goodwill should not be continued to lift her out of the
bath," Dr Cary told the court. "It is a matter of
common sense, it is a matter for the jury. All I can
say is that the drownings that I have described in
bathrooms are solitary because by definition human
beings rescue each other."
Huntley's version of events in 5, College Close on the
evening of Aug 4 last year had been advanced on Tuesday
afternoon by Stephen Coward, QC, his counsel. Huntley
denies murdering Holly and Jessica.
Mr Coward said his client's case was that the two
10-year-old girls had gone upstairs to his bathroom
because Holly's nose was bleeding.
They sat on the edge of the bath while he dampened
lavatory tissue and passed it to Holly. Then he
accidentally knocked her backwards into the bath.
Jessica screamed at him and Huntley reached out and
covered her mouth with his hand or hands. He stayed in
that position and the next thing he recalled was that
Jessica was motionless. Then he realised that Holly was
dead in the bath. Dr Cary said he had considered the
scenario overnight and spoken to other forensic
scientists involved in the double murder inquiry. He
had also examined the bath, which is being held in the
Old Bailey as an exhibit.
He said Huntley's account was consistent with the lack
of pathological findings available because of the
advanced decomposition of the girls' bodies when they
were found 13 days after their deaths. Other
explanations were also consistent.
Then the pathologist dissected and analysed each aspect
of Huntley's account, saying why he found it unlikely.
Dr Cary said that if Holly's nose had been bleeding he
would have expected to find blood on her clothing and
at the house.
In particular it was unusual that despite sensitive
forensic testing there were no traces of blood on
Holly's Manchester United shirt.
"It would be surprising if at some stage there had not
been contamination of the scene by blood - from the
threshold through the house up to the bathroom - or
contamination of the deceased's clothing.
"The bloodstain evidence would seem to me to be against
the scenario."
In his experience of drownings in baths, Dr Cary said
they happened when people were alone and often drunk or
drugged, or after epileptic seizures.
He said: "In all these instances the drowning occurs as
a solitary affair. I would associate drowning when a
third party is present, and I have experience of this,
with forced drowning.
"In other words the third party holding you under the water.
"I am not aware of any previous case I have dealt with
where someone has died in a bathroom in the presence of
two other persons."
The jury was shown pictures of the bathroom at
Huntley's home - a small, white-tiled room equipped
with a narrow bath and washbasin. It was, said Dr Cary,
very compact.
He added: "There is not much room for her to slip
backwards and then somehow become immersed in the bathwater."
Dr Cary said Holly would have had to have twisted as
she fell backwards and, even then, he could not see how
her legs could have got into the bath.
"Were the legs in fact lifted over to get her more into
the bath?" asked Dr Cary.
He told Mr Coward: "I am sure I could work out a
theoretical way of her being propelled into the bath so
that she ends up immersed.
"But if you look at the population at large, if this
happens at all, it must be vanishingly rare."
Children ran in and out of bathrooms and sat on the
edge of baths all the time but Dr Cary said he was "not
aware of any scenario quite like the one you raised".
He added: "It cannot be an exceptional accident for a
child to fall into a bath. I would suggest that what is
exceptional is the proposition of a fatal drowning."
The level of water in the bath also made Huntley's
scenario unlikely.
Huntley had claimed that the water in the bath was 18
inches deep because he was preparing to wash his dog,
Sadie. Dr Cary said he had measured the bath and
discovered that it could hold only 11 inches of water
before the level would reach the overflow.
He added: "Unless the overflow is in some way blocked
the suggested 18 inches does not exist as a realistic possibility.
"If the depth is only 11 inches then the opportunity
for the nose and mouth to become completely immersed
simply through a passive accident becomes in my view
more unlikely."
Turning to Huntley's claims about Jessica's death, Dr
Cary said smothering fatalities were normally
associated with very young infants, the elderly and
sometimes the intoxicated.
He said: "Jessica was none of these. She was a fit,
conscious young girl.
"In my view the only way in which she could have been
smothered to death would have been through forced
restraint against vigorous struggling.
"You cannot just smother someone in mid-air sitting on
the edge of a bath," he said.
"You would have to either force them up against
something in order to cover the nose or mouth, perhaps
a wall, or put your hand behind the head and smother
with the other."
Dr Cary said it was "wholly implausible" that Jessica
could have been smothered in an upright posture and he
thought it unlikely that her death would have occurred rapidly.
Re-examined by Richard Latham, QC, prosecuting counsel,
Dr Cary repeated that Huntley's scenario could not be
ruled out because the decomposition of the bodies made
establishing the cause of death impossible.
Mr Latham asked: "Does it rule out deliberate
strangulation on one or both of these children?"
Dr Cary said: "No it does not."
Mr Latham: "Or indeed sexual assault on one or both children?"
Dr Cary: "No it does not. It not only does not rule out
deliberate strangulation, it doesn't rule out - as a
possibility recently raised - deliberate drowning."
Leonard Pulver
to mother
By Sean O'Neill
(Filed: 29/11/2003)
Ian Huntley told his mother that he remembered
everything about the night Holly Wells and Jessica
Chapman disappeared and pleaded with her to believe
that he could never have killed them, the Old Bailey
heard yesterday.
"I don't think I'm strong enough to restrain two
screaming kids especially without somebody hearing
something," he told Lynda Huntley during a
covertly-recorded prison visit.
He added: "I don't ever want you to think again that I
might have done this because I haven't. I could never
hurt anybody, I never have, never will."
Extracts from the conversation were read to the jury in
the Soham murders trial at the end of the prosecution
case against Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr. Richard
Latham, QC, will formally close his case on Monday.
Talking to his mother in October 2002 - two months
after he had been charged with the murders of Holly and
Jessica - Huntley gave an account of what had happened
on the night they went missing.
The girls went into his house at 5 College Close
because one had a nosebleed. He took them upstairs to
the bathroom to get some tissue. But Huntley distinctly
recalled the girls leaving at 6.35pm before he cooked
his tea and spent the evening watching a video.
Huntley admitted, however, that his recollection was
hampered by mental "shutdowns". The version of events
he gave his mother differed significantly from the
account offered this week by Stephen Coward, QC,
Huntley's counsel.
In that scenario Huntley said that he had killed Holly
accidentally and covered Jessica's mouth to stop her screaming.
The conversation between Mrs Huntley and her son was
recorded on Oct 23 last year at Woodhill prison, Milton
Keynes. He began by telling her he had seen legal
papers in the case and was confident the police "have
got nothing".
Huntley said he remembered "everything about Sunday
now" and wanted to tell the police but was deemed unfit
for interview because of his mental health. The day
before his mother had visited he said he had "shut
down" again.
Sobbing, he told her: "One minute I was just sat on my
bed or something and the next minute, about two hours
later, I just found myself huddled up next to a toilet
and me just crying my eyes out in a ball."
Huntley claimed he had been brushing down his dog on
his front doorstep when the girls approached and one
had a nosebleed. Mrs Huntley told her son that it did
not appear that either girl had a bleeding nose on the
CCTV footage of them outside Soham's sports centre. He
insisted that he had gone to fetch some tissue but the
girl's nose continued to bleed.
Huntley said: "I took them upstairs because the kitchen
sink was full of pots because I'm a bugger when
Maxine's not there for not washing up... So I come up
into the bathroom, some cold water on some tissue, put
it on the nose."
Holly and Jessica had arrived at his house between 6.20
and 6.25pm and he remembered them leaving. "I know they
left at 6.35pm because I had my tea at 7pm." Huntley
claimed he spent the evening watching a rented video -
The Last Castle.
"I'm going to put this to Roy to see what he thinks,"
Huntley said referring to Roy Foreman, his solicitor.
Continuing to develop his scenario, Huntley said: "I
wonder if somebody was following them, they've picked
the girls up, they've done whatever they've done with
them, yeah, because they've seen them go into my house."
Huntley then suggested that the killers had hidden the
girls' clothing in the hangar - a school building - "to
make it look like its me". He added: "Now because the
police can't find the real fucking person that's done
any of this they want me."
If the girls' bodies had been removed in the boot of
his car, Huntley told his mother, traces of their hair
would have been found there. But no hairs had been recovered.
Huntley asked his mother not to tell Wayne, his
brother, about their conversation. Mrs Huntley said:
"No I won't, on my mother's life."
Her son added: "If this comes from Wayne to the police
rather than me it's just hammering nails in my coffin .
. . it will help put me in prison if Wayne goes to the
police with what I've told you."
Huntley told his mother that he thought his mental
health was improving. The shut downs were occurring
less frequently. Mrs Huntley asked: "If this happens do
you know how often it's happening?"
Huntley said: "All I know is when I shut down I am not
capable of doing anything. So if what you're thinking
is, is it possible for me to shut down and hurt somebody..."
Mrs Huntley: "Yes I am thinking, I am, of course it's
gone through my head."
Huntley: "No. Because when I shut down I don't move.
I'm just sitting there staring blankly at a wall or something."
Huntley, 29, denies two counts of murder but has
admitted conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Maxine Carr, 26, his former fiancée, denies two charges
of assisting an offender and one of conspiring to
pervert the course of justice. The trial continues.
Leonard Pulver
I wish I could turn back the clock. I'm ashamed of what
I did
By Sean O'Neill and Sue Clough
(Filed: 02/12/2003)
Ian Huntley walked from his seat in the dock yesterday
to stand in the witness box at the Old Bailey and give
his first public account of how Holly Wells and Jessica
Chapman died at his hands.
The jury in the Soham murders trial had previously
heard his version of events on the evening of Sunday
Aug 4, 2002, in the form of legal admissions and
barristers' questions.
But this was Huntley's story in his own words.
Huntley was led one step at a time through his story
by Stephen Coward, QC, his counsel.
Mr Coward said: "Mr Huntley, here you are in the
witness box at No 1 court in the Old Bailey charged
with two offences of murder.
"Can you try to convey to the members of the jury your
overall feelings about all of this?"
Huntley fought back tears as he replied: "I wish I
could turn back the clock. I wish I could do things
differently. I just wish none of this had ever
happened. I am sorry for what happened and I am ashamed
of what I did.
"I accept that I am responsible for the deaths of
Holly and Jessica but there is nothing I can do about
it now. I sincerely wish there was."
Huntley admits causing the girls' deaths at his home
in College Close, Soham, but denies murdering them.
Mr Coward asked: "Did you intend to kill Holly and Jessica?"
Huntley replied: "No, I didn't."
Mr Coward: "Did you intend to cause them really
serious bodily harm?"
Huntley: "No, I didn't."
During three and a half hours of evidence, Huntley's
voice faltered and there were long pauses before he
answered many questions. The dryness in his throat was
almost audible and he constantly clutched a plastic
water cup that was regularly refilled.
A silent courtroom strained to hear as the school
caretaker denied planning the girls' deaths and
repeated his claims that Holly died accidentally in his
bath and that he smothered Jessica to stop her screaming.
"I was thinking of calling the police," Huntley said.
"But I . . . I couldn't believe what had happened and I
kept thinking, 'How do I explain this to the police?'
"If you cannot believe what's happened yourself, how
do you expect the police to believe it either?"
Instead he "panicked and froze". For a time he had
blacked out, he said, and when he came to he was
sitting on the floor staring at Jessica's body. He had
been sick.
Rather than call the police, Huntley hid the girls'
bodies and set them alight to try to destroy the
evidence of his involvement.
Mr Coward asked what he would do if he found himself
in the same situation again.
Huntley said: "I wouldn't even be in this situation
now if I had the time over again because I would have
pulled Holly out of the bath."
After his arrest, Huntley said his memory of events
failed and it was not until he made a suicide attempt,
by taking an overdose of pills in prison in June this
year, that details of the night the girls died began to return.
The recollection came back to him like pieces of a
jigsaw puzzle, he said, and it was difficult "to know
the difference between reality and imagined things".
Huntley said that after the suicide attempt he knew
that he wanted to recall events.
"I made my Mum and Dad a promise that I would . . .
get to the trial and tell Holly and Jessica's parents
what had happened."
Both children's parents and other members of their
families were in court to hear Huntley give evidence.
Kevin Wells, 40, and his wife Nicola, 36, watched from
a seat at the back of the courtroom but left before the
completion of the day's evidence.
Leslie Chapman, 52, and his wife Sharon, 44, sat with
Jessica's elder sisters, Rebecca, 18, and Alison, 16,
in seats to the right of the dock.
Watching from the dock as her former fiance gave
evidence was 26-year-old Maxine Carr. She was a
teaching assistant in Holly's and Jessica's primary
school class.
Carr denies conspiring to pervert the course of
justice and two counts of assisting an offender.
Huntley has admitted conspiring to pervert the course
of justice but has pleaded not guilty to two charges of murder.
Richard Latham, QC, prosecuting counsel, is expected
to begin his cross-examination of Huntley when the
trial continues today.
Graham Trimmer
Why so much interest in this case, Lenny? Does it give you a boner?
Leonard Pulver
I was cold and ruthless, admits Huntley
By Sean O'Neill
(Filed: 03/12/2003)
Ian Huntley admitted yesterday that he had behaved
coldly and ruthlessly in hiding and burning the bodies
of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman and embarking on a
calculated cover-up of how he killed them.
In the face of a methodical cross-examination by
Richard Latham, QC, prosecuting, Huntley disclosed more
details about the deaths of the Soham schoolgirls in
his home in August last year.
Mr Latham told Huntley he was "a liar" and made it
clear that he did not believe the school caretaker's
account that the deaths of the 10-year-old girls were accidental.
"You have lied from start to finish in this case," he said.
Time and again during the four-and-a-half hour session
when Huntley answered "I don't know" the QC responded:
"Don't know isn't good enough." He repeated or
rephrased the question until he received an answer.
On one occasion Huntley was silent for more than 30
seconds as Mr Latham asked his question four times.
How had it felt to carry the bodies of the children
down the stairs in his house?
Swaying in the Old Bailey witness box, his hands
clasped in front of him, Huntley did not answer.
"How did it feel?" Mr Latham asked again. Still there
was no answer.
"How did it feel to carry Jessica's dead body down the
stairs?" Huntley did not reply.
"Well?" challenged Mr Latham.
"Not good," said Huntley in a low voice.
He was then asked to explain how he had carried the
bodies to his Ford Fiesta. He said he had to bend their
legs to fit them in the boot. "You were behaving quite
ruthlessly, weren't you, Mr Huntley?" asked Mr Latham.
Huntley said: "Yes, what I did was ruthless."
Mr Latham: "Cold and ruthless?"
Huntley: "Yes."
Mr Latham: "You did not care a bit for the two girls,
did you?"
Huntley: "That's not true."
In an earlier, angry exchange, Huntley's temper flared
and he raised his voice towards Mr Latham.
"You just lost your temper with me, didn't you?" said
the QC.
"Did you lose your temper with one of the girls that
Sunday evening? Did you become the assertive individual
you became two minutes ago?"
Huntley denied losing his temper and repeatedly denied
that he was sexually motivated and had lured Holly and
Jessica into his house. Confronted with questions about
Jessica's death he said he believed she had struggled
as he placed a hand over her mouth and suffocated her.
Mr Latham asked: "If you had given that girl the
slightest chance she would have lived, wouldn't she?"
Huntley replied: "Yes."
Mr Latham: "You did not give her the slightest chance."
Huntley: "No."
He disclosed more information about what happened on
the night the girls died and he dumped their bodies.
He probably had worn rubber gloves when he drove to
the isolated spot near Lakenheath airbase, Suffolk,
where they were found 13 days later.
When he cut off their clothes he was worrying that
fibres from his house carpets might be left on their garments.
Huntley admitted he spent a fortnight lying to police,
diverting attention from himself and fabricating evidence.
Mr Latham had begun by asking Huntley why his defence
had changed. In April, the defence team lodged an
eight-line statement saying their client had had
nothing to do with the deaths of Holly and Jessica.
Since then, however, Mr Latham said, the disclosure of
scientific evidence had placed the girls in Huntley's
house and his car at the site where the bodies were found.
Mr Latham said: "Any thought of suggesting it was
someone else who had framed you went out of the window
. . . Ian Huntley has had to come up with an entirely
new defence."
Huntley, 29, denies two charges of murder but has
admitted conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Maxine Carr, his former fiancee, denies conspiring to
pervert the course of justice and of assisting an offender.
The trial continues.
Leonard Pulver
Maxine Carr:
I lied to protect the man I loved very much
By Sean O'Neill and Sue Clough
(Filed: 04/12/2003)
Maxine Carr told the Old Bailey yesterday that she had
been very much in love with Ian Huntley and had
destroyed her life by repeatedly lying to protect him.
Her voice cracked as she spoke for the first time since
her arrest about her relationship with Huntley, who is
accused of murdering the Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells
and Jessica Chapman, and how it had led to her being
likened to Myra Hindley, the Moors murderer.
Close to tears, she told the jury how she had been
totally unprepared for the hostility she encountered
when she was taken to Holloway prison in August last year.
"It took me about four days after I got there to
realise that the person they were shouting at was me,"
Carr said.
"All the women shouting out the windows . . . I had
never even heard the word 'nonce' [prison slang for
child molester] in my life.
"I was being branded Myra Hindley mark II and things
like that. I could not go out of the segregation unit
for my own protection."
Carr, 26, said that in her first months in prison she
was frightened and worried for Huntley, who had been
taken to Rampton special hospital.
They had been a couple since February 1999 when they
met at a nightclub in Grimsby. They lived together and
moved frequently before he became caretaker at Soham
Village College in 2001.
Michael Hubbard, QC, her defence counsel, asked: "Did
you love him?"
Carr: "Very, very much."
Mr Hubbard: "Did he appear to love you?"
Carr: "I thought so."
She said they had planned to get married when they were
settled and financially stable.
She wanted children but Huntley said they would have to wait.
Carr said: "I want children. I've got two nieces now,
but I've only seen one of them because I've been in
prison. But I want children."
She said that Holly, who was in her class when she was
a teaching assistant at Soham primary school, was the
kind of daughter she would have wanted.
Huntley told her soon after they met that he had been
falsely accused of raping a girl and had been sent to
jail and to a bail hostel. He was acquitted after
closed-circuit television evidence was presented but
the experience had marked him deeply.
Carr said: "He would talk about it a lot. He said the
police would always be after him because they could not
pin him down for that rape. They had it in for him."
Carr said she wrote "loads of letters" to Huntley from
her cell in Holloway.
"I was worried about him, very worried. He had been
taken to this hospital, this mad place. I just wanted
it to be over. I wanted the police to come and say:
'That's it, all over. You can go home now.' "
Towards the end of last year she ceased all contact
with Huntley. She said: "I just didn't want anything to
do with him any more."
Huntley, 29, watched from the dock as his former
fiancée gave evidence.
Carr, a slight, pale figure, wore a black trouser suit
and answered Mr Hubbard's questions clearly. He had
reminded the jury that she was not in Soham when Holly
and Jessica died and played no part in their deaths.
Mr Hubbard said: "While she was away from Soham, events
unfolded that weekend of which plainly she had no
control. Within two weeks of coming back the course of
her life had changed for ever."
Carr admitted that she had lied repeatedly to police,
journalists and anyone who asked her about the events
of that weekend.
But she insisted that, although Huntley told her Holly
and Jessica had been in their home at College Close,
she did not know that he was responsible for their deaths.
If she had suspected that he had killed them, "I would
have been out of the house like a shot straight to the
police or straight to the nearest person I could talk
to, to tell them."
Kevin and Nicola Wells, Holly's parents, and Leslie and
Sharon Chapman, Jessica's parents, watched Carr give
evidence in Court No 1.
She denies two charges of assisting an offender and one
of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Huntley admits conspiring to pervert the course of
justice but denies two counts of murder. He has
admitted responsibility for the deaths of both girls
and that he hid and burned their bodies in a ditch.
The trial continues.
Leonard Pulver
Carr points finger at 'that thing' Huntley
By Sean O'Neill
(Filed: 05/12/2003)
Maxine Carr jabbed her finger at her former lover Ian
Huntley yesterday and said she would not accept blame
for what "that thing" did to Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
Carr's outburst in the Old Bailey witness box came as
she was being asked if she had interfered with justice
by lying to police investigating the disappearance of
the Soham schoolgirls.
"I know exactly what I have done, sir," said Carr,
addressing Stephen Coward, QC, Huntley's defence
counsel. She then raised her hand and gestured towards
Huntley, sitting flanked by prison officers in the dock.
Her voice wavering, she said: "I have come in this
witness box to say what I have done and I am not going
to be blamed for what that thing in that box has done
to me or those children."
Huntley has admitted responsibility for the deaths of
the girls while they were alone with him in his house
at College Close, Soham, in August last year.
He denies that those deaths were murder and has told
the court that Holly drowned accidentally in his bath
and that he smothered Jessica to stop her screaming.
Carr has admitted lying to police by telling them she
was with Huntley in Soham at the time of the girls'
deaths when she was in fact visiting her mother in Grimsby.
But she is adamant that until Huntley gave evidence
this week she had never heard him speak of killing the children.
The lies she had told, Carr said, had been troubling
her greatly. "I have been feeling very guilty for a
long, long time; if I was there I could have stopped
them from dying," she said.
Carr said she had been "pushed into a corner" by
Huntley and had no option but to lie for him. When she
first outlined the false story to a police officer,
Huntley told her she had "cocked it up" and made her
write down the false alibi, she said.
"I was trying to make Ian look better than he actually
is - you have no idea about the relationship I had with
Mr Huntley. . . He had a very controlling attitude
towards me."
After 16 months away from Huntley, Carr now felt that
she had "a mind of my own".
Cross-examined by Richard Latham, QC, prosecution
counsel, Carr accepted that she was angry when Huntley
had told her that the missing girls had been in their
house, which she thought inappropriate.
She was aware that people sexually assaulted children
but it never crossed her mind that Huntley was that
sort of person.
In three days of police interviews after her arrest,
Carr admitted that she withheld vital information.
Although promising to tell the truth, she did not tell
detectives that the girls had been in the house, that
when she returned from Grimsby Huntley had washed all
the bedding nor that he had thoroughly cleaned his Ford
Fiesta car.
Carr said that at the time she still believed what
Huntley had told her: that the girls had called at the
house because one had a nosebleed but then left
happily. She said she was "scared" to tell police
everything she knew.
Mr Latham said: "To feed a police investigation false
information can have a tendency to make that
investigation stumble."
Carr replied: "Yes."
Mr Latham: "It could send police off in a different
direction." Carr: "Yes."
Mr Latham: "When you told those lies orally and in
writing to the police you appreciate that had a
tendency to do precisely what I have just mentioned?"
Carr: "Yes."
Mr Latham: "You did it deliberately - your lies were
deliberate?" Carr: "Yes."
She agreed under further questioning that she and
Huntley planned to tell lies to deflect attention from him.
But under questioning from Michael Hubbard, QC, her own
counsel, Carr maintained that she did not know or
suspect that Huntley had killed the schoolgirls.
Mr Hubbard asked: "Did you sleep in the same bed as Ian
Huntley that night?" Carr said: "Yes."
Mr Hubbard: "And on the days up to your eventual
arrest?" Carr: "Yes."
Hubbard: "Would you have been in the same bed if you
believed for a moment that he had unlawfully killed
those two children?"
Carr: "I wouldn't be in the same house as him."
She denies conspiring to pervert the course of justice
and two charges of assisting an offender. Huntley, 29,
denies two counts of murder but has admitted conspiring
Leonard Pulver
Soham juror illness delays closing speeches
(Filed: 08/12/2003)
The jury in the Soham murder trial has been sent home
after the case was adjourned because a juror was taken ill.
Trial judge Mr Justice Moses said it would be
impossible for the jury to go ahead with hearing
closing speeches in the trial, which was due to enter
its final phase.
He said a further decision on the progress of the
trial and whether it would be necessary to sit with an
11-person jury would be taken once a doctor's report
was received.
Ian Huntley, 29, a former caretaker at Soham Village
College, denies the double child murder of Holly Wells
and Jessica Chapman on Sunday August 4 last year but
has admitted a single charge of conspiring to pervert
the course of justice.
His ex-girlfriend Maxine Carr, 26, a former classroom
assistant in Holly and Jessica's class, denies
conspiring to pervert the course of justice and two
counts of assisting an offender.
Mr Justice Moses told the jury: "The position is, as
you will appreciate, one of your number is not well
today. She has seen the court nurse and she has been
sent home and is going to see her doctor."
The judge said it would not be right at this stage to
continue with just the 11 of them and therefore the
case would not be going on today.
Leonard Pulver
Huntley driven by a sexual motive, says prosecuter
By Sue Clough and Sean O'Neill
(Filed: 11/12/2003)
Ian Huntley was motivated by "something sexual" when
he encountered Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman and
ruthlessly murdered them when his scheme went wrong,
the Soham trial was told yesterday.
Richard Latham, QC, prosecuting, in his final speech
to the jury, said the Crown rejected Huntley's
explanation that the 10-year-olds died accidentally;
Holly when he knocked her into the bath while tending
to her nose bleed, and Jessica when he put a hand over
her face to stop her screaming.
"We invite you to reject his account of both deaths as
so many desperate lies. It was the only way out for
him. We suggest the whole business in the house was
motivated by something sexual.
"But whatever he initiated with one or the other or
both girls plainly went wrong and thereafter in this
ruthless man's mind, those girls had to die. They had
to die in his own selfish self interest. Each was a
witness to a potential complaint. He was quite merciless."
Reminding the Old Bailey jury of the day Huntley lost
his temper while being cross-examined, Mr Latham said:
"You remember his body language. We say you saw a
complete change and a very different person in that
witness box. For some reason, we suggest, that's what
happened in that house and we suggest it was murder,
indeed double murder."
Mr Latham said that although it would be more
intellectually satisfying if the jury was able to fill
in all the blanks in the case - for example deciding
that the motive was the attempted rape of one girl in
room A followed by strangulation and then the
suffocation of the other in room B - "we do not suggest
you are ever going to be able to be that precise. You
don't have to be. All you have to be sure of in each
case is that he murdered that girl".
He said the central plank of the caretaker's defence
case was that he was "frozen in panic and fear and
unable to recollect the details surrounding the deaths
of the girls".
But Mr Latham alleged that Huntley behaved "like a man
under control, thinking, thinking very hard indeed".
Within minutes he had made the decision to burn the
bodies and after making sure he was unobserved put them
in the boot of his Fiesta. He then went to Soham
Village College where he worked and got a can of
petrol, bin liners to put on his feet so he would not
leave prints at the spot where he dumped them, and
gloves. He drove to a remote fenland track and dumped
them in a ditch, cutting off their clothes to avoid
forensic links with carpet fibres and set them on fire.
"Is this the mind of a man who has closed down and
can't think rationally?" asked Mr Latham.
Huntley then displayed "nerves of steel" and "cynical
deception" giving media interviews in the 13 days
before the bodies were discovered. "He lied over and
over again."
Throughout, he was trying to learn what the police
knew and "tailoring his account" to fit, displaying a
"manipulative, careful and thinking mind". While
playing the role of helpful caretaker Huntley was
cleaning his home, his car and arranging his alibi with
his then fiancee Maxine Carr.
The pair washed and vacuumed the home they shared in
"a massive clean-up". They were so thorough that not a
head hair, a fingerprint nor blood nor saliva to give
DNA from either girl was found.
Mr Latham reminded the jury that Carr had admitted
providing a false alibi for Huntley by saying she was
in the house when the girls called although she was
with her family in Grimsby, more than 100 miles away.
Carr has claimed that she did it to protect Huntley
from being "fitted up" by police because he had
previously been accused of raping a woman in Grimsby,
although the charge was later dropped.
Mr Latham asserted that by the day after the girls
disappeared she had agreed to provide the alibi for
Huntley and when he arrived to collect her in Grimsby
she knew he had cleaned the car and replaced the boot
carpet. On her return to Soham she saw Huntley had
changed the duvet and cover on their bed and put them
in the washing machine even though he had never used it before.
What she did to impede her lover's arrest was without
lawful authority or reasonable excuse and she had no
defence to the charge of conspiracy to pervert the
course of justice.
Turning to two charges of assisting an offender he
said the issue was whether she knew or believed that he
had killed the girls. He said Carr "had worked it out
from information provided to her by what Huntley said,
and what she saw the evidence in front of her eyes".
Her motive he said was "her own self interest. The
girls, in her own words, were out of the equation". He
continued: "In her own self interest, she had the
prospect of marriage, of a baby, a nice home, a new
start and the prospect of new employment as a child
minder. Unpleasant as it is, we suggest that was her motive."
Leonard Pulver
Huntley gets life for Holly and Jessica murders
(Filed: 17/12/2003)
Ian Huntley has been found guilty of the murders of
Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, and given two life sentences.
Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley
Maxine Carr, his ex-girlfriend, has been found guilty
of conspiring to pervert the course of justice, and
sentenced to three and a half years in jail.
Carr was cleared of charges of assisting an offender.
All decisions were by an 11-1 majority.
Seven women and five men at the Old Bailey rejected
29-year-old Huntley's claim that the best friends died
accidentally at his home, 5 College Close, in Soham on
August 4 last year.
Mr Justice Moses told him: "You murdered them both. You
were the only person who knows how you murdered them.
Your tears have never been for them, only yourself.
"In your lies and manipulation up to this very day, you
have increased the suffering you have caused the families."
Huntley, the former caretaker at Soham Village College,
claimed the 10-year-olds went inside the college-owned
three-bedroom detached house because Holly had a nosebleed.
He tried to convince the jury that Holly drowned in the
bath and that he killed Jessica by accident as he tried
to silence her screams.
The last picture taken of Holly and Jessica. Within
hours they were dead
But the jury took over 17 hours to conclude he was
lying. The jurors knew Huntley had once been charged
with raping a teenager - a charge that was later dropped.
They did not know was that he was also accused of
indecently assaulting an 11-year-old and having sex
with a string of other schoolgirls.
An inquiry will now attempt to establish how a sexual
predator with a history of targeting under-age girls
managed to get a job as a school caretaker.
_______________
Deception got him school job
(Filed: 17/12/2003)
Ian Huntley came across as "thoughtful and mature" in
his interview with school officials at Soham Village College.
The school-owned house where Huntley killed Holly and Jessica
But he got the job at the school only after police
checks failed to reveal his past, which showed a sexual
obsession with girls.
Senior staff at the Soham school filled in a standard
form in his presence during the interview. The form was
passed to police to check for a criminal record.
Huntley was using his mother's name Nixon at the time.
He gave his home address as Ribston House, High St,
Barrow-upon-Humber, North Lincs.
He was also required to give any other address in the
past five years and any previous names he had used in
his past. He gave none.
He named his previous employer as Kimberly Clark,
Falkland Way, Barrow-upon-Humber, and described his job
as an "operative".
The checks were administered for the school by a
private educational personnel agency, as is usual, and
carried out by Cambridgeshire and Humberside Police.
The results were made available to education authority
officials at Cambridgeshire County Council.
To establish his identity, he was required to provide a
birth certificate, passport or driving licence. He also
gave his national insurance number.
He was offered the caretaker's job and began work on
Nov 26, 2001, even though at that stage the police
checks had not been completed.
The results of the police checks were returned on Jan
4, 2002, and revealed nothing of concern.
"His application showed a consistent history of
education and employment in the Grimsby and Immingham
areas," said an education authority source.
"There were no unexplained gaps or inconsistencies. He
made it clear he wished to settle down with his fiance Maxine."
Cambridgeshire County Council already knew of the
Huntley family. Huntley's father, Kevin Huntley, had
been the caretaker at nearby Littleport primary school
for several years.
His mother, Lynda Nixon, was a cleaner at Soham Village
College. The couple were at the time living apart in Littleport.
In the spring of 2002 Huntley told his bosses that he
was changing his name to Huntley - his father's name -
for "family reasons".
Education authority officials decided a second round of
police checks under the name Huntley was not necessary.
"As far as we were aware, we had already checked him
out under both names," said a spokesman.
________________
The authorities involved have admitted that the system
of checks failed, allowing a man who had come to the
attention of Humberside Police on 10 occasions to get
the job.
Police searching for Holly and Jessica only found out
about the rape charge when members of the public rang them.
The inquiry was announced by David Blunkett, the Home
Secretary. He said there were "real concerns" about the
way police handled intelligence on Huntley's past.
________________
Leonard Pulver
Sexual predator targeted girls
(Filed: 17/12/2003)
Ian Huntley was a sexual predator obsessed with young
girls, it can be revealed today.
The Old Bailey jury knew he had been charged with
raping a teenager - a charge that was later dropped.
What they did not know is that he was also accused of
indecently assaulting an 11-year-old and having sex
with a string of other schoolgirls.
In total, he came to the attention of Humberside Police
on ten occasions.
These comprised the rape allegation, an arrest for not
appearing at court and eight other offences allegedly
committed by Huntley.
In addition, between August 1995 and July 1998 he was
reported to North East Lincolnshire Social Services
five times - once for the alleged indecent assault and
four times for underage sex with girls.
Three of the girls involved were aged 15 and one was 13.
Each time social workers began investigating Huntley
would move on and pick up another girl.
No link was made between the cases because each was
dealt with by different social workers and they kept no
record of alleged offenders.
Three of the underage sex allegations cases were passed
on, independently of each other, to Humberside Police.
The first allegation of sex with a schoolgirl was made
by her family in August 1995 when Huntley was 21.
In April 1996 social services became aware of another
girl involved with Huntley whose family reported their
concerns to her school.
The girl refused to speak to social workers and avoided them.
She was eventually seen by her GP who decided there was
no further need for social workers to be involved.
There were two further allegations to social services
from the families of other girls, both in May 1996,
before the indecent assault was reported in July 1998.
The alleged indecent assault victim, who cannot be
named for legal reasons, was 12 at the time the
allegation was made but 11 when the assault was alleged
to have happened in 1997.
Humberside Police investigated the allegation but never
sent a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for
lawyers to consider criminal action against Huntley.
The allegation came a month after Huntley had appeared
in court in Grimsby charged with raping another girl, a
petite 18-year-old. That case was dropped by the Crown
Prosecution Service.
Huntley, who was by then 24, was accused of pouncing on
the girl in a back alley, dragging her to the ground
and launching a vicious sex attack.
The woman, who still lives in Grimsby, had been on a
night out with friends at Hollywoods nightclub.
maria.thomson
<red...@gta.igs.net> wrote:
There are a number of posts of this nature here and they are all
packed to the gunwhales with the word 'alleged' and 'accused'.
Doesn't anyone find it surprising that not *One* of these allegations
made it to even a charge or a trial?
"The alleged victims in most cases did not pursue formal complaints,
and on one occasion when the police investigated, no prosecution
followed."
steven x brown
> On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:08:10 -0500, Leonard Pulver
> <red...@gta.igs.net> wrote:
>
> There are a number of posts of this nature here and they are all
> packed to the gunwhales with the word 'alleged' and 'accused'.
> Doesn't anyone find it surprising that not *One* of these allegations
> made it to even a charge or a trial?
But doesn't it alarm you that there were eleven incidents
altogether? If it was one, then fair enough, but eleven?
--
steven x brown
unique new york
maria.thomson
It does and it doesn't.
It depends if you look at it as 'this man pursued under age girls
because has paedophiliic tendencies', or
'this man had friendships and relationships with pubescent girls'.
Even when I was at school, 13 and 14 year old girls like to hang about
with older boys/young men - it made them feel more mature to have the
attentions of an older man.
IIRC There is a 5 year difference in mentality between men and women,
so it is not an unnatural relationship 13/18 or whatever.
I woud imagine that the only reason there were no prosecutions is
because the girls were consenting (in as much as they could be).
Why does Huntley like younger women? Because they do not try to or
cannot to control him/he has more control over them, or because he is
simply immature. Some women who like toy boys are like that too.
We have gangs of older boys roaming around with pre-16 girls in my
town - it doesn't seem unnatural.
I would have thought that if there was the merest sniff of anything
paedophilic there, he would have been at least charged, even if it
ended in an aquittal.
Leonard Pulver
"maria.thomson" wrote:
>
> On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:08:10 -0500, Leonard Pulver
> <red...@gta.igs.net> wrote:
>
> There are a number of posts of this nature here and they are all
> packed to the gunwhales with the word 'alleged' and 'accused'.
> Doesn't anyone find it surprising that not *One* of these allegations
> made it to even a charge or a trial?
>
> "The alleged victims in most cases did not pursue formal complaints,
> and on one occasion when the police investigated, no prosecution
> followed."
>
It is obvious that you have not worked in either
journalism or the legal profession. "Alleged" simply
means that it has not yet been proven, and protects
allegor from a libel suit as you can see from the
dictionary definition below
Main Entry: al損ege
Pronunciation: &-'lej
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): al損eged; al損eg搏ng
to assert without proof or before proving
<the newspaper alleges the mayor's guilt>
che guevara
<pl...@plonk.co.uk> writes
C'mon Maria, you know there are others. Why avoid the issue?
e.g.
They are a big time turn on for him.
He fantasises about them and wants to do act out those fantasies.
He has an obsessive compulsive disorder involving girls.
etc.
Why do you seem to go for the "he's sorta innocent" suggestions?
che
ClippertyClop
maria.thomson <pl...@plonk.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3fe095d6...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
> On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 17:36:54 +0000 (UTC), steven x brown
> <steven...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >maria.thomson wrote:
> >> On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:08:10 -0500, Leonard Pulver
> >> <red...@gta.igs.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> There are a number of posts of this nature here and they are all
> >> packed to the gunwhales with the word 'alleged' and 'accused'.
> >> Doesn't anyone find it surprising that not *One* of these allegations
> >> made it to even a charge or a trial?
> >
> >But doesn't it alarm you that there were eleven incidents
> >altogether? If it was one, then fair enough, but eleven?
>
> It does and it doesn't.
> It depends if you look at it as 'this man pursued under age girls
> because has paedophiliic tendencies', or
> 'this man had friendships and relationships with pubescent girls'.
>
> Even when I was at school, 13 and 14 year old girls like to hang about
> with older boys/young men - it made them feel more mature to have the
> attentions of an older man.
How much older?
> IIRC There is a 5 year difference in mentality between men and women,
> so it is not an unnatural relationship 13/18 or whatever.
> I woud imagine that the only reason there were no prosecutions is
> because the girls were consenting (in as much as they could be).
>
> Why does Huntley like younger women? Because they do not try to or
> cannot to control him/he has more control over them, or because he is
> simply immature. Some women who like toy boys are like that too.
Strange how so many of his assocaiations with under-age girls came to the
attention of the Police. Was it all so innocent?
>
> We have gangs of older boys roaming around with pre-16 girls in my
> town - it doesn't seem unnatural.
And do these associations with under-age girls come to the attention of the
Police?
>
> I would have thought that if there was the merest sniff of anything
> paedophilic there, he would have been at least charged, even if it
> ended in an aquittal.
Not if the "victim/witness" refuses to take part in a prosecution.
CC
maria.thomson
Because there is no evidence to suggest otherwise?
maria.thomson
<smelly...@baa.com> wrote:
>
>maria.thomson <pl...@plonk.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:3fe095d6...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
>> On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 17:36:54 +0000 (UTC), steven x brown
>> <steven...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> >maria.thomson wrote:
>> >> On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:08:10 -0500, Leonard Pulver
>> >> <red...@gta.igs.net> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> There are a number of posts of this nature here and they are all
>> >> packed to the gunwhales with the word 'alleged' and 'accused'.
>> >> Doesn't anyone find it surprising that not *One* of these allegations
>> >> made it to even a charge or a trial?
>> >
>> >But doesn't it alarm you that there were eleven incidents
>> >altogether? If it was one, then fair enough, but eleven?
>>
>> It does and it doesn't.
>> It depends if you look at it as 'this man pursued under age girls
>> because has paedophiliic tendencies', or
>> 'this man had friendships and relationships with pubescent girls'.
>>
>> Even when I was at school, 13 and 14 year old girls like to hang about
>> with older boys/young men - it made them feel more mature to have the
>> attentions of an older man.
>
>How much older?
AIUI he was 18 when he was associating with 13 year olds.
I met my husband when I was 15, he 21 (25 years ago).
My friends daughters of 14 hang around with 21 year olds.
My son of 20 is living with a 37 year old woman.
Why are you so hung up about age?
>> IIRC There is a 5 year difference in mentality between men and women,
>> so it is not an unnatural relationship 13/18 or whatever.
>> I woud imagine that the only reason there were no prosecutions is
>> because the girls were consenting (in as much as they could be).
>>
>> Why does Huntley like younger women? Because they do not try to or
>> cannot to control him/he has more control over them, or because he is
>> simply immature. Some women who like toy boys are like that too.
>
>Strange how so many of his assocaiations with under-age girls came to the
>attention of the Police. Was it all so innocent?
If it was not innocent, why no prosecutions?
Do you not think the parents of those girls would have pushed for a
prosecution if they thought it was anything out of the ordinary?
>>
>> We have gangs of older boys roaming around with pre-16 girls in my
>> town - it doesn't seem unnatural.
>
>And do these associations with under-age girls come to the attention of the
>Police?
For heavens sake...it's normal behaviour.
Perhaps you have identified another use for the ID card - evenin' all.
Your card says you are 21 - you are walking down the street with a 15
year old girl, and you are breaking the law.
Is that what you want?
>>
>> I would have thought that if there was the merest sniff of anything
>> paedophilic there, he would have been at least charged, even if it
>> ended in an aquittal.
>
>Not if the "victim/witness" refuses to take part in a prosecution.
When the 'child' is under 16, it is nothing to do with them - it is up
to their parents.
che guevara
well, there are the deaths of two girls.
you asked:
>>>Why does Huntley like younger women?
and you answered:
Because they do not try to or
>>>cannot to control him/he has more control over them, or because he is
>>>simply immature.
where is the evidence to support that view?
you answered your own question with a reply that begged a broadening of
the possibilities.
che
maria.thomson
<cubedr...@cubedrum.doc> wrote:
With no apparent sexual motivation or evidence of sexual attack.
>you asked:
>
> >>>Why does Huntley like younger women?
>
>and you answered:
>
> Because they do not try to or
> >>>cannot to control him/he has more control over them, or because he is
> >>>simply immature.
>
>where is the evidence to support that view?
Sorry...I was postulating a possibility.
The evidence is there, if you look at his life.
People who have control problems often associate with people they can
either
1) control, or
2) avoid being controlled by them.
It seems fairly self-evident that Huntley has a control problem. (to
me at least)
Leonard Pulver
Checks missed Huntley's past as a violent sexual
predator
By Sean O'Neill
(Filed: 18/12/2003)
Ian Huntley, who was jailed for life yesterday for
murdering the Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica
Chapman, is a violent serial sex offender who should
never have been given a job as a school caretaker.
Before moving to Cambridgeshire in 2001, Huntley, 29,
had been investigated by police and social services
over a string of sexual offences, including four
allegations of rape and one of indecently assaulting an
11-year-old girl.
On Humberside, where he was born, he preyed on young
girls. Social services spoke to him five times about
allegations of sexual intercourse with under-age girls.
Police dealt with him 11 times, charging him with rape
and identifying him as a suspect in a series of rapes
of women walking home from a Grimsby nightclub.
When he was interviewed by Humberside police over a
rape allegation in 1999 he indicated that he used the
alias Nixon, but no note was made on police records
connecting the names.
Many offences, including the physical abuse of young
girls, went unreported. Huntley, who was very
forensically aware, was only ever convicted of a
driving offence and not having a television licence.
All the intelligence held by police was deleted from
computer databases because data protection legislation
was interpreted to mean that non-conviction information
could not be retained.
When Huntley applied for the caretaker's job in Soham,
police were asked to vet him and were told that he had
used the alias Nixon. A search was done only on that
name, so no record of his dealings with the police
emerged. Soham Village College, which had asked for the
statutory checks, was told there was no police record.
Howard Gilbert, the school's head teacher, said he was
"physically sick" to learn last week the extent of the
previous suspicions.
Had Huntley not taken the job, he would never have met
Holly or Jessica, whom he murdered on August 4, 2002.
The children, both 10, were pupils in the class where
Maxine Carr, 26, Huntley's fiancée, was an assistant.
She was jailed for three and a half years for
conspiring to pervert the course of justice but cleared
of two charges of assisting an offender. The jury
accepted that, when she lied to police, she did not
know that Huntley had killed the girls. Having been in
custody since last year, she will be freed in five months.
Shortly after the jury delivered its three 11-1 guilty
verdicts on the couple, David Blunkett, the Home
Secretary, announced an inquiry into the errors in the
vetting process. "I am determined to uncover the full
facts," he said.
Mr Blunkett also asked Her Majesty's Inspectorate of
Constabulary to examine the findings of a Metropolitan
Police review of the investigation into the
disappearance of Holly and Jessica.
The 178-page report is understood to be highly critical
of the £10 million Cambridgeshire inquiry and its
failure for 10 days to identify Huntley as a suspect.
In the first week of the investigation a dozen officers
spoke to him. Despite his odd behaviour, none
identified him as a suspect nor took a note of
conversations with him.
Tom Lloyd, the Cambridgeshire chief constable,
apologised for his decision to go on holiday during the
investigation. He said he realised that his action
could have been regarded as "insensitive".
The girls' families looked on as the jury delivered its
verdicts at noon, 16 months to the day after the
charred and decomposed remains of Holly and Jessica
were found in a ditch near Lakenheath air base in Suffolk.
Outside court, Jessica's father, Leslie Chapman, said
the families had been shocked to learn of Huntley's past.
"He was a time bomb waiting to go off and unfortunately
our girls were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Our life sentence started last August; his is only just
beginning today."
The trial has still left the families with unanswered
questions. Huntley's motive and the manner of the
girls' deaths are not known. Huntley admitted killing
them but said it was accidental. He stuck to an account
of how Holly drowned in his bath and how he smothered
Jessica to stop her screaming.
But The Telegraph has learned that pathology evidence
not disclosed to the court suggested that one of the
children was the victim of a sexual attack.
Detectives believe that three rooms in Huntley's house
that were subjected to intensive cleaning - the dining
room, main bedroom and bathroom - were crime scenes.
Officers also believe that Huntley had not planned the
killings nor tried to "groom" the girls. When they
wandered across his path that evening he had just had a
row with Carr on the telephone to Grimsby, where she
was visiting her mother.
Their sexual relationship was poor at the time: he had
been trying to persuade a local woman to sleep with him
and in Grimsby Carr was seen passionately kissing two men.
James Hammerton
>
> Checks missed Huntley's past as a violent sexual
> predator
>
> By Sean O'Neill
> (Filed: 18/12/2003)
>
> Ian Huntley, who was jailed for life yesterday for
> murdering the Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica
> Chapman, is a violent serial sex offender who should
> never have been given a job as a school caretaker.
ISTM Huntley killed those 2 girls. He gave a cock and bull explanation of
what happened. He went to great lengths to conceal his involvement in
their deaths and only created his story after the forensic evidence
indicated his involvement. I'm happy with his life sentence and murder
convictions on that basis.
But, unless I missed it, there was no evidence presented in court of a
sexual motivation over the killing of Holly and Jessica. That part is
speculation. Thus we're left with his reported background to justify
the claim that Huntley is a violent *sexual* offender.
> Before moving to Cambridgeshire in 2001, Huntley, 29,
> had been investigated by police and social services
> over a string of sexual offences, including four
> allegations of rape and one of indecently assaulting an
> 11-year-old girl.
Allegations.
> On Humberside, where he was born, he preyed on young
> girls. Social services spoke to him five times about
> allegations of sexual intercourse with under-age girls.
Again allegations.
> Police dealt with him 11 times, charging him with rape
> and identifying him as a suspect in a series of rapes
> of women walking home from a Grimsby nightclub.
Allegations again.
> When he was interviewed by Humberside police over a
> rape allegation in 1999 he indicated that he used the
> alias Nixon, but no note was made on police records
> connecting the names.
A mistake on the part of the police.
> Many offences, including the physical abuse of young
> girls, went unreported.
And are thus unproven.
> Huntley, who was very
> forensically aware, was only ever convicted of a
> driving offence and not having a television licence.
Convictions that are irrelevant to his capacity to murder or commit
sexual offences.
So a string of allegations have been made against him of under age sex
and sexual offences. Can we safely conclude from that that he's a
paedophile?
ISTM we can only do so in the light of his conviction for Holly and
Jessica's murder as part of an explanation of why he did it. By
themselves allegations are just that, allegations.
[snip]
> The trial has still left the families with unanswered
> questions. Huntley's motive and the manner of the
> girls' deaths are not known. Huntley admitted killing
> them but said it was accidental. He stuck to an account
> of how Holly drowned in his bath and how he smothered
> Jessica to stop her screaming.
>
> But The Telegraph has learned that pathology evidence
> not disclosed to the court suggested that one of the
> children was the victim of a sexual attack.
What is this evidence and why wasn't it presented to the court?
James
--
James Hammerton, http://jameshammerton.blogspot.com/
Contributor to http://www.magnacartaplus.org/
Email address displayed at http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~james/address.html
I don't read jamesha...@yahoo.co.uk.
Leonard Pulver
James Hammerton wrote:
>
> Leonard Pulver <red...@gta.igs.net> writes:
>
> >
> > Checks missed Huntley's past as a violent sexual
> > predator
> >
> > By Sean O'Neill
> > (Filed: 18/12/2003)
> >
> > Ian Huntley, who was jailed for life yesterday for
> > murdering the Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica
> > Chapman, is a violent serial sex offender who should
> > never have been given a job as a school caretaker.
>
> ISTM Huntley killed those 2 girls. He gave a cock and bull explanation of
> what happened. He went to great lengths to conceal his involvement in
> their deaths and only created his story after the forensic evidence
> indicated his involvement. I'm happy with his life sentence and murder
> convictions on that basis.
>
The real problem is that the police and other
authorities messed up royally, many times over. The
Home Office has to straighten out the law enforcement,
etc, operations to prevent these things from recurring.
Nick Cooper 625
> maria.thomson <pl...@plonk.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:3fe095d6...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
> > On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 17:36:54 +0000 (UTC), steven x brown
> > <steven...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > >maria.thomson wrote:
> > >> On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:08:10 -0500, Leonard Pulver
> > >> <red...@gta.igs.net> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> There are a number of posts of this nature here and they are all
> > >> packed to the gunwhales with the word 'alleged' and 'accused'.
> > >> Doesn't anyone find it surprising that not *One* of these allegations
> > >> made it to even a charge or a trial?
> > >
> > >But doesn't it alarm you that there were eleven incidents
> > >altogether? If it was one, then fair enough, but eleven?
> >
> > It does and it doesn't.
> > It depends if you look at it as 'this man pursued under age girls
> > because has paedophiliic tendencies', or
> > 'this man had friendships and relationships with pubescent girls'.
> >
> > Even when I was at school, 13 and 14 year old girls like to hang about
> > with older boys/young men - it made them feel more mature to have the
> > attentions of an older man.
>
> How much older?
When I was 16, I was on a school trip abroad and almost got off with a
girl from another school/town who was 14 that week. She bottled out
because she didn't want her 19/20 year old boyfriend back home finding
out. This was in 1984, by the way. It's hardly a "new" thing.
> > IIRC There is a 5 year difference in mentality between men and women,
> > so it is not an unnatural relationship 13/18 or whatever.
> > I woud imagine that the only reason there were no prosecutions is
> > because the girls were consenting (in as much as they could be).
> >
> > Why does Huntley like younger women? Because they do not try to or
> > cannot to control him/he has more control over them, or because he is
> > simply immature. Some women who like toy boys are like that too.
>
> Strange how so many of his assocaiations with under-age girls came to the
> attention of the Police. Was it all so innocent?
There seem to have been others that didn't come to the attention of
either the police or the Women with Close-Cropped Hair & Big Dangly
Earrings (a.k.a "social services")
> > We have gangs of older boys roaming around with pre-16 girls in my
> > town - it doesn't seem unnatural.
>
> And do these associations with under-age girls come to the attention of the
> Police?
The once were noises were made mostly seem to be on the part of the
parents, not the girls themselves. "Yeah, my boyfriend Ian's ace -
he's got a car and his own place, etc."
> > I would have thought that if there was the merest sniff of anything
> > paedophilic there, he would have been at least charged, even if it
> > ended in an aquittal.
>
> Not if the "victim/witness" refuses to take part in a prosecution.
Probably because you're barking up the wrong tree.