Two ten-year-old girls went missing yesterday evening
in Soham, Cambridgeshire. It's Holly and Jessica from my class.
They came by our house. I-I-I spoke to them.
I'll say I was here.
You were here. I was in the bath.
A 28-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman
have been taken to help the police with our enquiries.
Maxine Carr, I am arresting you on suspicion of abduction and murder.
No, no!
They're not dead, though. How do you know if they're dead?
INSECTS BUZZ
MAN COUGHS
Oh, God! Oh, my God.
Oh! Police!
Two bodies have been found.
I want to change my statement.
I said I was in Soham that weekend...
..but I wasn't. I was in Grimsby.
He told me last night, "If they arrest you, tell the truth."
So I am now, and I am sorry I did lie,
but only to stop Ian being accused when he's done nothing, and...
And it's better for you to go and find the real person.
The real person?
Who's done it.
This'll be read out in front of the church.
"I suggest that we pause for a moment of silence
"in memory of these two little girls.
"The heartfelt sympathy of the whole police service
"goes out to Holly's parents and brother
"and to Jessica's parents and sisters at this ghastly time.
"A man and a woman are under arrest for their murder."
Has Ian ever expressed interest in children?
Yeah.
We wanna start a family.
I mean a sexual interest.
No, that's disgusting.
He says them people want shooting or castrating,
like what everyone says.
See, I know him, better than anyone, better even than his mum.
And he couldn't have done what you're saying he's done
and then carry on as normal.
He couldn't...unless you helped him.
I didn't bloody help him.
You did. You admit it.
You lied for him. Because I know he's innocent.
You cleaned his house.
It's my flaming house! I'm the cleaner!
What, am I not allowed to clean my own house now?
And even now Sadie's in season, you know, spreading everywhere.
What, just leave it?
Well, you think that I'd get on my hands and knees
and scrub something that I knew had happened?
Well, would you?
No, I bloody wouldn't.
I haven't got anything at all to do with this
and he ain't got nowt either.
We can tie him to the girls' clothes.
We found their bodies dumped in a ditch
where we now know he goes plane-spotting.
It's not nice to think of children you know, that you've hugged.
It wasn't him.
Come on, Maxine. You're wearing blinkers.
I'm not wearing blinkers. You are. I'm not!
Well, we have to tell you that he has now been charged
formally charged, with the two murders of Holly Wells
and Jessica Chapman.
Mm-mm.
No! SHE SOBS
No!
SOBS: He can't have.
He can't have!
SHE SOBS
Maxine, over here! SHOUTING
MAGISTRATE: Maxine Ann Carr, you have been charged
with conspiring to pervert the course of justice
by lying about your whereabouts on August 4th
and August 5th of this year.
You will be remanded in custody at Holloway Prison until your trial.
ON TV: "How has this happened?"
This is the question and thought that one can see
on all the faces in Soham.
It is not just the locals who are wondering this
but the many hundreds of visitors who have travelled
from far and wide to the small Cambridgeshire village
to sign books of condolence.
The long queue that forms outside St Andrews Church
is a quiet and sombre procession.
Hey. Hey. You seen all the flowers at the church?
Yeah, amazing. They just keep coming, don't they?
It's like Diana.
National grief and rage.
Yeah.
You see the Attorney General's warning? Yeah.
"Condemn Huntley or Carr in print and you jeopardise the trial."
Outrageous! Protect press freedom.
What, to publish, "My kinky night with Maxine"?
Get the feeling you want to defend her.
What, like a damsel in distress?
No, no, I just...
I don't wanna see her get torn limb from limb.
She's not the one who's been charged with murder.
Mm.
Well, Soham will be glad to see us gone. Mm.
You off back to London?
Maybe one more trip up to Grimsby.
OK, well, maybe see you next year at the trial.
Yeah. Hey, before you go, if you were me,
how would you approach the bereaved families?
I wouldn't. People want to hear their story.
And so, reluctant as you are to intrude on private grief...
I can offer big money.
Sorry. Wish I could help you.
No, you don't.
INMATE: Maxine! Hey! We're going to get you!
SECOND INMATE: You hurt kids, we hurt you.
SHOUTING CONTINUES
ON PHONE: Ian should be standing up for you.
Ian wasn't even at the court. He's not well enough, mentally.
Oh, so he's left you to carry the can.
It's not his fault, Mum! He's traumatised.
And no wonder - being blamed for something he's never done.
Right.
His worst nightmare come true.
POUNDING ON DOOR Come on, Shirley!
Let's have an interview!
My neighbour's told the police
she saw you and Ian looking in the boot of his car and you were crying.
KNOCK ON DOOR
And there's reporters knocking, day and night.
Maxine? Maxine?
So she saw me crying.
It's not a crime to cry.
No, but the question arises, "Why were you crying?"
Are we to believe that you never suspected
Ian could have killed Holly and Jessica?
Correct.
Not for a second. Not in a million years.
And now?
He's being framed.
Someone else put their clothes in that hangar and them in that ditch.
Well, I have to tell you that's a theory
a jury may find hard to believe. He didn't kill them.
OK. What you will say is that all you know,
the only thing he told you, is what he told everybody else.
He talked to the girls outside the house
and then they walked away.
Correct.
REPORTER: Ely Cathedral has been a site of prayer
stretching back many centuries.
Today, it was a place of mourning for the people of Soham.
Hundreds travelled from the small village
to pay their respects and share their grief.
They were joined on the journey by two families,
their fellow townsfolk,
two families who have lost beloved daughters
in the inexplicable tragedy.
"Dear Ian, I think about marrying you every day.
"I love you, Ian, and I miss you with my whole heart.
"Your letters are what are keeping me going in here.
"Soon, we'll be together again, my love."
Huntley's been transferred to prison and declared fit to stand trial.
Oh, and by the way, his phone records show
he was trying to cheat on Carr that weekend but had no luck.
Right. She won't like that.
How are we doing putting the girls in the house?
Working on forensics, but it's been so thoroughly cleaned.
By the immaculate Miss Carr.
Who worked franticly to remove all traces while claiming, like him,
the girls never went inside.
We need to refute that. We need them in there.
SHE RETCHES
"Dear Ian, why are you not responding to my letters?
"Is it true what my solicitor told me?
"Were you trying to see another woman on Saturday night when I was in Grimsby?"
Thank you. That was very nice.
"After everything I've done, it's not fair."
I'm worried, Lynda.
It's been two months. Is he getting my letters?
ON PHONE: I'll ask him when I see him, darling.
I know it's hard.
So, that weekend...
..was it the Monday he called you to discuss lying?
Yeah, he said he wanted me to come home.
He says, "There's kids gone missing," and the thing is...
The thing is?
The bad thing is...
..they came in our house.
They came in the house? Yeah, they did.
One of them had a nosebleed.
You know I've had blackouts.
But I remember now why they came into the house.
I... I don't know if Maxine told you that.
No. No, she... She didn't, lovey.
One of them had a nosebleed.
But on the CCTV thing on the telly...
..they're leaving the sports centre just before getting to you
and none of them have a nosebleed then.
Well, no, that's because it started
when she was talking to me about Maxine.
And they say they found fibres from the football shirts
in the boot of my car. That's because the girls
sat on the edge of it when I went indoors to get tissue.
So the boot was open?
Yeah. And the bleeding didn't stop and I said, "Come in."
I haven't done this, Mum.
Cos I remember them leaving my house.
Well, if you're adamant on that... I am adamant.
I am 100% remembering them girls leaving my house.
And would I be physically capable
of restraining two healthy young girls?
Yeah, it's not like you're a 15st guy.
Well, I am 12st and fit.
But, yeah, question is, was someone following them?
Don't look at me like that.
What I need...
What I need from you lot is some bloody faith and confidence in me.
I am telling you the truth, Mum, as best I can, what I remember.
I don't ever want you to think that I might have done this -
because I haven't. I could never hurt anybody.
I never have, I never will.
Finally, I am telling you this, about them coming into the house.
I weren't gonna, but I felt...
..that's the risk I had to take just to put your mind at rest.
Thank you.
ON RECORDING: Don't say anything, Mum. It will give the police time
to counteract everything I'm saying and build the case against me.
The girls are in the house.
CLATTER
The papers are calling it a suicide attempt?
"She's guilty and she can't live with it."
It's my eating disorder, I can't help it!
Well, yes, there should be some...sympathy.
I'm like Princess Diana.
So, things have changed a little bit.
The prosecution have tape recordings of you talking to Ian's mother Lynda
over the phone.
What? That can't be legal.
Recording a private conversation? That's shocking.
Well, it is legal, I'm afraid,
and they have you admitting to knowing the girls were in the house.
So, as well as conspiring to pervert the course of justice,
you're also being charged with assisting an offender.
But I haven't assisted an offender.
You cleaned the house,
hid the traces of two dead young girls, girls you knew,
making you in the eyes of many as bad as him, or even worse.
He's not bad. They went in the house.
They went out again, on their merry way.
Really? Because if they didn't... They did.
..your life together is over.
Acknowledge he's done what he's done and distance yourself from him
and you can still survive. Ian's not a...
He's not interested in young girls.
He's got no whatsit - no previous, no history.
That's not true.
What I'm about to tell you can't be used in court against him.
Enquiries through Humberside Police and social services
are revealing several cases against him involving sex
with underage girls whilst in his 20s.
These are girls he groomed, one as young as 13,
and allegations of rape.
He took a girl for a walk in an orchard,
where she says he sexually assaulted her, when he was 24...
..and she was 11.
Let people see - he's the monster, not you.
SHE SOBS
SOBBING CONTINUES
I think I've made a huge mistake, Mum.
CRIES: I thought he was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Tell anyone who asks it's over.
She wrote to the prison governor. It was read out to me -
"I no longer wish to have any communication with Mr Ian Huntley."
Oh, Ian, that's all you need.
Yeah.
What a fucking bitch.
So we now have fibre transfers to and from the football shirts.
And thanks to Pat, pollen from the deposition site on Huntley's shoes,
car footwells and petrol can.
Plus, chalk from the track caught under the car. PHONE VIBRATES
And the fact that he changed all four tyres on the Monday,
that'll speak to the jury.
I'll share duties with Karim in court. What?
Well, how did he do it? He's on suicide watch.
Huntley's taken an overdose.
He sees this as his only option,
testament to the work we're all doing.
So we keep doing it and pray he pulls through.
He can't escape justice.
REPORTER: It's a short journey for Huntley from hospital
back to Woodhill Prison, where he will again be put on suicide watch.
He will spend the next number of days and nights
in the hospital wing.
The Home Secretary has demanded that the Prison Service...
It's all over the news.
Have you seen it? Oh, love, it's terrible.
Typical him, Mum.
Trying to take the easy way out, leaving me to carry the can.
Too bad, Ian.
Didn't work.
Tough fucking luck.
I'll see you in court.
Thanks for meeting me. Still waiting for that scoop?
Eve of the trial, emotions running high, maybe a chink opens up.
And then you pounce, yeah?
That's my job.
The judge rejected the defence claim.
They've already been convicted by the media.
But he still criticised them.
Them?
Us.
So the editors just ignore the sub judice laws, do they?
No, not totally.
And all this stuff coming out now about Huntley's past in Humberside,
we're sitting on it until after the trial.
Mm. The authorities are going to get roasted.
They weren't communicating.
Police, social services, schools.
How did he get a job as a school caretaker with his history?
No actual convictions.
There was one though, for burglary.
I mean, that should have flagged up and barred him from the job.
All those other complaints though.
I mean, all those girls.
Mm, I mean it needs a public inquiry.
Needs a whole new system.
You're not coming down to cover the trial?
I'm not allowed to. I'm a witness.
Of course. You met them.
Mm. I talked to his parents.
They showed me this Christmas card Maxine sent them
after she dumped him.
"I shared my life, my bed and all my dreams with that man.
"I have been living a lie."
Wow. Tragic heroine.
Rehearsal for the courtroom.
Now, a warning to media.
Report this trial dispassionately,
or jeopardise it.
Do not describe emotion.
The Crown may present it's opening statement.
It may not be disputed that Carr provided a false account
of Huntley's movements that Sunday night,
but we have to prove that she did so knowing,
or believing that he had a hand in the killing of the girls.
She lied and covered up for him.
Forensically cleaned the house of the man
who murdered two ten-year-old girls.
The man who dumped and burned their bodies in a ditch.
You say there was significant press presence,
hundreds of reporters every day.
Did this put a strain on the caretaker at the school?
He did seem stressed.
He said he felt harassed by the press and...
..by the daily press conferences the police were holding.
And one time asked me if they could be held elsewhere.
And you appointed him?
Correct.
Would you say he struck you as a very good candidate
when you appointed him?
Yes. He did.
And that's a decision I live with every day.
That's all.
Thank you.
All done.
Love you. Love you.
How did Miss Carr seem when you spoke to her?
Smiling.
Cheerful, friendly.
Eager to help.
And what about Mr Huntley?
He was very wary.
He refused to have his photo taken.
She was much more convincing.
Happy to pose with the card Holly had made her.
So when she told me she was in the house, in the bath,
when the girls came by...
..it was easy to believe her.
God, I can't do anything right.
She was too close to the kids. They loved her too much. Ooh, sorry.
And that reporter, the press, they sweet-talk you,
they manipulate you to get what they want.
You know, they say I'm bad. They're worse.
You're doing well in there.
Keeping calm. Used to it.
You know, be nice, look nice. No-one likes you when you're mad.
So swallow it.
You should be prepared for the discoveries of the bodies and the pathologist's evidence.
It could be quite upsetting. Should I not get upset?
No, it's fine to get upset.
Shows you care.
You the jury have been provided with evidence packs?
Could you please refer to the pathologists report by Dr Nat Carey?
As you have told the court,
the bodies exposed for so long were too badly decomposed even for you,
an experienced pathologist to determine the cause of death.
But the skulls and skeletons revealed no signs
of blunt force trauma or stabbing.
Which leaves us with?
Something involving interference with the mechanism of breathing.
Such as?
Strangulation or smothering.
And as for sexual assault?
Due to decomposition I cannot, from the physical findings,
confirm or refute that possibility.
Thank you, Dr Cary.
Erm...
My Lord, my client would be grateful for a very short break.
Very well, Mr Coward.
This is the last time Mr Huntley will be permitted
to disrupt the court.
The court will reconvene in 15 minutes.
Should possible causes of death not include drowning?
Yes, it should be on the list.
Thank you.
I'm going to put to you my client's account
of what actually happened on 4th of August last year.
At the material time Holly Wells had a nosebleed.
And because it wouldn't stop,
she and Jessica and the defendant, Mr Huntley,
went up to the bathroom,
where the girls sat on the edge of the bath
while he cooled pieces of toilet paper under the tap in the basin
and handed them to Holly.
And on one of his turns, he slipped.
And it seems he may well have banged into her and she went backwards.
He has no recollection of a bang, but he does remember a splash.
When Holly went into the bath,
which had roughly 18 inches of water in it
because Mr Huntley was going to wash the dog,
Jessica started screaming, "You pushed her, you pushed her!"
He then turned towards Jessica putting his hand, or hands out,
his memory is, over her mouth, to stop her screaming.
He let her go and she went to the ground.
He then lifted Holly out of the bath...
..and looked for signs of breathing and found none.
He turned his attention towards Jessica,
looked for signs of breathing and found none.
That is the whole account.
I don't believe a word of it.
As an experienced pathologist, I find it wholly implausible
that Jessica could have been smothered to death as described.
And as to the suggested drowning of Holly,
I measured the bath overnight.
The overflow is 11 inches.
Even if that was blocked,
the depth you mentioned of 18 is unrealistic.
And at a depth of barely a foot,
total immersion of the nose and mouth through a passive accident
is very unlikely.
And the nose, we are told, is bleeding.
And she is fully clothed.
So there would be blood in the water soaking the clothes.
Even extremely diluted, this would be detectable.
None was.
And why no rescue?
Accidental drownings in bathrooms tend to be solitary affairs
because, by definition...
..human beings rescue one another.
What's he like? Trying to get off murder with a story like that.
"It was an accident, it was only..." What is it? Manslaughter.
The evidence suggests that if the bodies had been less decomposed
it might be clearer what happened.
Some people may blame you for that
because your lies delayed his arrest.
But his arrest didn't lead to the bodies.
They were found by accident.
And he'd never have admitted where they were, so...
Not as thick as I look.
I was knelt down on the doorstep, brushing Sadie,
directly behind the car.
I heard two voices and I stood up to look
and there was two girls in football tops stood there.
They asked me how Miss Carr was and I found that quite funny
because I weren't used to hearing Maxine referred to in that way.
I noticed Holly put her hand up to her face
and there was some blood on it and under her nose.
I asked if she would like some tissue.
To which she replied, "Yes, please".
So what did you do?
I said, "Plonk your bums on there and I'll get you some."
Could you repeat that?
A lot of us didn't get that.
Yes, erm...
I said, "Plonk your bums on there."
Plonk your bums there?
Yes.
On the rim of my boot.
What did you do with Sadie?
Secured her in the downstairs toilet.
You came out and gave the tissue to Holly.
Did it do the trick?
Sorry?
Did it stop the bleeding?
No.
So what happened next?
It was threatening rain and if anything it was getting worse.
So, I... I said, "Would you like to come inside and put some wet tissue on the nose?"
What did they say?
They said yes.
You returned home after depositing the bodies.
Then what did you do?
Had several cigarettes.
And what were you thinking?
What have I done?
Have you ever told Maxine what you've told us here today?
I wanted to.
But I couldn't.
You approached Holly's father, Kevin Wells,
near the school three days after she disappeared.
You said, "I'm sorry Kev, I didn't know it was your daughter.
"I hope they come home soon".
What should we call that?
An apology? Inexcusable?
Yes.
Like this story you've come up with to fit the evidence.
What does a ten-year-old girl do when she's got a nosebleed
and is a few hundred yards from home?
I can't speak for the mind of ten-year-old girls.
Go into a stranger's house? Did you tell them that Maxine was inside?
No. You knew, as school caretaker,
you were forbidden from having schoolchildren in your house?
Yes. And yet you invited them in.
Yes.
You have been telling lies from start to finish in this case, haven't you?
You say you somehow suffocated Jessica,
trying to stop her from screaming.
Screaming because you were murdering Holly? No.
And when you accidentally knocked her into the bath, why couldn't you just reach out and help her?
That would have been the normal...
In these circumstances it is very rational to know what you were doing.
In those circumstances it is not so rational.
Believe me, I know.
You can get very angry, can't you, Mr Huntley?
That's because you...
You have your opinion.
Did you lose your temper with one of the girls that Sunday evening?
Did you become the assertive individual that you became just now?
You lied to the journalists.
You lied to the police?
Yes, sir, I did.
You now admit you knew a lot.
The girls had been in the house, which he'd cleaned.
The car, too.
There was bedding in the washing machine.
He was the last person to see them and he wanted you to lie.
And yet, you claim you had no suspicions?
Suspicions he had a woman round, maybe.
But no, not that.
You claim that all the guilt should be his to bear
and you should go scot-free?
I know exactly what I've done, sir.
And I cannot be blamed for what that thing in the box
has done to me or those children.
It is noticeable, Miss Carr, how much you embellished your lies
to the press and the police to make them more convincing.
Not only were you in the house, but you were in the bath
and "wished I had popped out and had a chat with the girls".
I do wish though I had been there.
I'll be feeling very guilty, sir,
for a long, long time that if I was there
I could have stopped them from dying.
You were so obsessed by him
and so obsessed with preserving your relationship
and your home and your future,
that you had to divert attention away from him.
Only because I truly believed he was innocent.
Mr Latham has suggested to you
that by that Tuesday evening, the 6th,
you had worked it out that the children were dead... No.
..and that Ian Huntley was responsible. No.
Now, let's just examine that.
Did you sleep in the same bed as Ian Huntley on that Tuesday night?
Yes. And all the following days?
Yeah.
Mm.
Would you have been in the same bed if you believed for a moment
that he had killed those children?
I wouldn't be in the same house.
No further questions.
The court will take a break and reconvene in 30 minutes.
You should fucking hang!
You bastard!
Given you admitted you conspired with Ian to lie
and he's already pleaded guilty to that charge,
I have to advise you as your counsel that perhaps you should, too.
But I wasn't perverting the course of justice.
I was trying to stop the police from wrongly accusing him, I thought.
OK, but you do realise the jury are likely to find you guilty?
Of that charge, yeah, OK. If they do, they do.
But not assisting an offender,
not cleaning up after knowing he'd killed the girls, because I didn't.
And I don't want to be damned for what I never done.
Miss Carr, Maxine,
feels guilty every day,
wishing she had been there that day and saved those children's lives.
Is it not now time to release her from this man and his crimes?
If you think she has continued right through her evidence to tell lies,
that she is not being frank with you...
..you have to ask why?
Defendants rise.
How do you find the defendant, Ian Kevin Huntley,
on the charge of the murder of Jessica Chapman?
Guilty.
The murder of Holly Wells? Guilty.
How do you find the defendant, Maxine Ann Carr,
on the charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice?
Guilty.
How do you find the defendant, Maxine Ann Carr,
on the charge of assisting an offender in the case of Jessica Chapman?
Not guilty.
In the case of Holly Wells?
Not guilty.
Forget her. She doesn't matter.
We will take a short adjournment
and sentencing will commence tomorrow morning.
To the parents of Holly and Jessica,
your grief at the loss of such bright
and life-enhancing daughters cannot be imagined
and cannot be shared.
Those of us who have been compelled to listen to
so dispiriting and merciless a tale
will have had some glimpse
of what you have suffered and continue to suffer.
Our thoughts are with you all.
Hi, Principle Gilbert.
Just a few words, now that the verdict's in?
No. Thank you.
How have the students and community reacted to it?
The girls' siblings go to the school. Can you comment
on how they're coping? The families must still have questions.
I'd rather just get on with it.
Right, there we go. That's everything.
PHONE RINGS
I'll get it.
Brian Farmer's phone, this is Millie.
Hi, Millie, can I speak to your dad?
Here he is. Thanks.
For you. Thank you.
Hello. Hey, it's Jane. I'm in Soham.
But I don't, I don't feel...
CAR HORN Sorry. Hang on a sec.
Have you got everything? Yep. Bye. Bye.
Hey, hey, hey, hey. Don't stay up too late.
I will.
Sorry.
You don't feel what?
Right. I'm supposed to be knocking on the parents' doors
to offer them a million quid for their stories.
Well, it's not for me to tell you what to do, is it? No.
But you know they don't want money. I know, but...
They want their daughters back.
And they'll never know what really happened to them.
Would you want to know if it was your daughter?
The truth?
Yeah.
The whole truth? Every detail?
Yeah.
Just to be there with her.
Yeah.
Maxine?
I know it's you.
One question and I'll leave you alone.
Did you know?
Did you know he'd killed them?
No comment.
Mum!
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