Ian Huntley attacked in Frankland Prison

Mar 22 2010 by Robert Weatherall, The Journal

CHILD killer Ian Huntley had his throat slashed yesterday in an attack in a North East prison.

The Soham murderer was attacked behind the walls of troubled Frankland Prison in Durham.

Officials at the Ministry of Justice said the injury suffered by the 36-year-old killer of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman is not believed to be life-threatening.

Huntley is being treated at an undisclosed hospital in the North East and is believed to be under armed guard.

The murderer has been an inmate at the Category A high security jail since being transferred there from Wakefield prison in West Yorkshire in 2008. He was given two life sentences for the Soham killings in December 2003.

In 2005, the courts ordered that he must spend at least 40 years behind bars before being considered for parole.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said last night: “A prisoner at HMP Frankland was assaulted by another prisoner at about 3.25pm on Sunday March 21.

“The prisoner was taken to outside hospital for treatment. His condition is not thought to be life-threatening.”

The assault is not the first time Huntley has been attacked in prison. An inmate threw boiling water on him while he was on the health care wing at Wakefield in September 2005.

Huntley has reportedly tried to commit suicide on three occasions while in prison.

The MoJ would not confirm if an investigation into the latest assault had been launched.

Frankland houses some of the most dangerous and notorious male prisoners in the United Kingdom. In 2008, HM Inspectorate of Prisons raised concerns about violence there.

Huntley’s murder of Holly and Jessica sent shockwaves across the country during the summer of 2002. Huntley, a caretaker at the secondary school in Soham, Cambridgeshire, and his then girlfriend Maxine Carr, a teaching assistant in Holly and Jessica’s junior school class, told police they knew nothing of the circumstances surrounding the girls’ disappearance.

But it emerged at their trial at the Old Bailey in London that Huntley had met Holly and Jessica as they walked past his home on the site of their school.

He enticed the girls inside and killed them before hiding their remains.

Huntley was given two life terms after being convicted of the girls’ murders. Described as “a timebomb just ready to go off” by his victims’ parents, he showed no emotion when he was sentenced.

Trial judge Mr Justice Moses told Huntley he had shown “persistent cruelty” and “merciless cynicism” towards the girls and their families.

In the witness box he told a tissue of lies meaning even at the end of the 30-day trial, he remained the only person to know why he committed the brutal murders.

But he could not hide his monstrous efforts to cover his tracks.

Carr was jailed after being convicted of perverting the course of justice. She was released in 2004 with a new identity.