Carr: lied to protect Huntley

MAXINE CARR choked back tears yesterday as she told how she was branded ‘Myra Hindley MkII’ by fellow inmates at Holloway prison.

Carr admitted she had lied to protect her ex-lover after Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went missing but insisted she had never known the 10-year-olds died in her home.

She said she would have told police “like a shot” if she had ever suspected the man she planned to marry had killed the schoolgirls.

Carr, aged 26, a former teaching assistant in the girls’ class, was giving evidence as her defence case began, on day 22 of the Old Bailey trial. The jury had heard Huntley admits Holly died accidentally in his bath and he killed Jessica as he tried to silence her screams on Sunday August 4 last year.

He bundled their bodies into his car, dumped them in the remote ditch where they were found, cut off their clothes and torched their corpses.

Carr said Huntley telephoned her at her mother’s house in Grimsby several times the next day and said two girls from her class had gone missing.

He told her in one of the calls they had been inside the couple’s home in Soham, one of the girls had suffered a nosebleed and had sat on their bed, but that they had left the house alive.

She said she flew into a rage , saying he should not have allowed a 10-year-old girl into their bedroom and it was against school rules, but insisted it had never crossed her mind that he may have killed the girls.

She also outlined the conversation on Tuesday August 6 when it was first suggested she could lie about her whereabouts on the day the girls went missing. “He kept saying he thought he was a suspect. He said ‘oh God, if I was the last person to see them, they are going to come after me’,” said Carr. “He started bringing up the allegation against him and how he was worrying about the police.”

The court has heard that Huntley was accused of rape in 1998, a case that was later dropped. “He said he was going to be fitted up when they found out about the allegation of rape against him,” said Carr.

“I said, ‘no, that is not going to happen’. I asked why he did not go to the police first and explain ‘I saw the girls and I have been accused of this before and I want it out in the open so they don’t point the finger at me’.”

Her lawyer, Michael Hubbard QC, asked what Huntley’s reaction to that had been. “No way. He would lose his job,” said Carr.

She said Huntley kept saying it would have been much easier if she had been there.

“But I said ‘if I was in the house, I would have spoken to them’.”

Carr recounted how Huntley suggested she could have been in the bedroom or the bathroom, but she had said there was no way she would be in bed at 6pm.

“So the bathroom was the only alternative,” she said.

“I said ‘everybody knows I wasn’t here, I was in Grimsby’,” but added that Huntley had told her no-one knew she had gone away.

“I said, ‘well, if I say I’m here who am I going to say this to?’ He said ‘anybody that asks’.”

She said the police were not mentioned except when she had urged him to explain his situation to them.

“I was really just thinking about the children. He told me those girls had left the house, they had gone, they weren’t in the house. So now it was just about stopping people spreading rumours about [Huntley] having children in the house.”

“I was just worried about everything really. I was worried about him, he wasn’t in any fit state,” added Carr.

I just agreed with what he said because I just wanted it to be all right.”