Name: Soham murderer Ian Huntley dies after prison attack | BBC News
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Ian Huntley, the former school caretaker who murdered two 10 year old schoolgirls in Soham, has died.

He suffered significant head trauma after being attacked with a makeshift weapon by another inmate at HMP Franklin on 26 February.

Past perfect

He had been on life support in hospital since then.

He was serving a life sentence for murdering best friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002.

Senior UK Correspondent Seema Katecha has the story.

Soham in Cambridgeshire, an ordinary Sunday in August.

Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells were best friends mad about Manchester United.

That afternoon at around 6, they left Holly's home, it's thought to buy sweets.

Thank you all for coming down tonight amid huge public concern, it became one of the biggest operations of its kind.

A school caretaker, Ian Huntley, said he'd seen the girls before they disappeared.

I certainly wouldn't say there was planning on running away.

From what I see, his girlfriend, Maxine Carr, was Holly and Jessica's teaching assistant.

It's just very upsetting to think that I might be the last friendly face that these two girls had to speak to.

The girls bodies were finally found by a gamekeeper dumped in a ditch around 10 miles from Soham.

Huntley was arrested the same day he'd lured Holly and Jessica into his home, claiming his girlfriend was inside.

He was sentenced to life with a minimum of 40 years.

The judge said his continuing lies and manipulation had deepened the family's suffering.

Maxine Carr, who'd given him a false alibi, was sentenced to three and a half years for conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Huntley, as one of Britain's most notorious prisoners, was always a target.

He was slashed across the throat in 2010, needing 21 stitches.

The man who senselessly stole the futures of two happy, carefree girls enjoying their summer holidays.

Well, let's speak now to Danny Shaw, former BBC correspondent who covered this case at the time and is now a policing and crime commentator.

Just for those who maybe don't remember this crime, just bring us a bit more detail about the impact this crime had on this country.

Back in 2002, it was a shock to the country that this crime took place.

You know, two 10 year old girls who were brutally murdered by Ian Huntley.

There was a search for them for about two weeks.

National headlines, front page news every single day.

And the way in which he had manipulated the media as Seema Katetsch's report explains, was just shocking.

And it led to searching questions about how Huntley, against whom sexual assault allegations had been made while he was living in the Humberside area, had managed to get a job as a school caretaker in Cambridgeshire, in Soham.

And that led to an inquiry known as the Bishard Report, which ultimately resulted in the formation of a nationwide police intelligence database and various other changes to improve intelligence sharing amongst police forces, because there had been some serious gaps which had allowed Huntley to get that job and put himself in a position where he could lure those two girls to their deaths.

also, I think, a recognition just of how manipulative some people can be, some, you know, evil people like Ian Huntley, in order, you know, in the way in which he groomed those, you know, manipulated those two girls.

Let's talk a little bit about what happened to him in prison.

He'd had boiling water thrown at him at one point.

At another point, he'd had his throat slashed.

What does this tell us about the way in which these attacks are possible in prisons of this nature?

Well, Ian Huntley was always going to be a target in prison because of the crimes he committed and his notoriety.

And you've outlined those two very serious attacks on him.

There may well have been others that we don't know about.

And the fact is that because prisoners are serving very, very long sentences and some are given whole life sentences, meaning they're never going to be released, they have so many hours, you know, in which to think about how they can attack other inmates, how they can try and plot an escape, or how they can get drugs into prison and so on.

They've got a lot of time in their hands.

And also, a prisoner serving a whole life tariff has got nothing to lose by carrying out an attack.

And so, you know, if they manage to seriously assault another prisoner or murder another prisoner, that might give them some kudos in the prison establishments, it might give them some status.

Now, we don't know if that was the motive behind this particular attack, but

the alleged assailant is a man, Anthony Russell, who is serving a whole life order.

He has got nothing to lose by carrying out other attacks.

So that's a problem for the prisoners state.

And also, we can see from the statistics there is a rising level of violence in prisons.

Last year there were seven homicides, cases of murder and manslaughter in prisons.

The usual rate in prisons is between 1 to 3 every year.

So we can see that there are more killings in prison and we can also see from the figures that there are more assaults on prisoners and more serious assaults going up as well.

Now, no one is going to mourn the death of Ian Huntley, an evil man who committed the most barbaric, awful murders.

But rising levels of violence in prisons are a key concern and a problem because they make prisons more unstable, which makes rehabilitation harder for those prisoners who are going to be released and staff have to pick up the pieces.

And it's very, very difficult for prison officers to deal with serious violence, deaths in prison and the aftermath of that.

And one would have thought someone like him would have been, would have had a close eye kept on him, to be honest, given what you said in terms of him being an obvious target.

Well, this is a high security prison and that's why it's deeply concerning that it happens in a high security prison.

Although they're high security for a reason, they are containing some of the most violent and dangerous and reviled people in the country.

So there has to be close monitoring of these individuals.

But also at the same time, they can't be locked in their cells for 24 hours a day.

They have to be let out at various points.

And I'm sure there will be an investigation as to the way in which this, this attack happened.

If you know, reports are correct that there was some kind of makeshift weapon used, a metal pole with a spike on the end.

How did that get into the hands of the alleged assailant?

So all of those questions will have to be looked at.

It is a concern that Frankland has been the scene of two other very, very serious attacks.

Just last year, Hashim Abadi, the terrorist prisoner, allegedly attacked three prison officers.

And the year before that, Damian Bendel, a life sentence prisoner, recently convicted of attempting to murder a prisoner, also at Frankland.

So I would have thought there needs to be an urgent review into conditions at Franklin Prison and the way in which security is being maintained at that jail.