Holly’s father was armed with baseball bat

HOLLY Wells’ parents spoke of the murder of their daughter for the first time at the weekend, and her father described how he had gone looking for Holly armed with a baseball bat.

“How could I stop looking, how could any father stop looking?” said Kevin Wells.

“I went armed with a baseball bat, I honestly didn’t care what the police said.

“I. . . [had] an image in my head of Holly bound, perhaps gagged, tied to a chair in someone’s front room, and I thought I might catch a glimpse of her through a chink in the curtains and I could smash my way in, take her in my arms and tell her it was OK because Daddy had come.”

He was so frantic with worry, he said, that he even hoped she had been taken by a paedophile, because at least she might not be killed.

“I was so very desperate I even consoled myself with the thought that is she was with a paedophile, then at least they like children, and he would feed her and keep her warm. I know that sounds incredible but you will do and think anything when you are as wretched as we were.”

Mr Wells is still tortured by what might have happened to his daughter and her friend. He does not believe Ian Huntley, who was sentenced to life for murdering the girls, is telling all the truth.

“Did he try to imprison one or both? Did he sexually assault one and cause a scuffle? Did he rape one of them? Did he rape both? Did he rape them after death?

“All these things we can never know because only one person is sure and I will never, ever, believe a word that cold, calculating pervert utters. He took our daughter from us and lied and lied and lied.”

He also described how he felt when Holly wasn’t home by 9pm on the day she disappeared, which was half an hour later than her curfew.

“I had that butterfly feeling you get for a second when you can’t see your child, but it stayed with me and got more and more brutal,” he said.

The couple disagree over whether or not Mr Huntley should be executed. Nicola wells said she believed detection methods have reached a stage where people will not be falsely executed.

“I would therefore like to see capital punishment brought back,” she said. “If it was I would see Huntley put to death for what he did. It is just.”

Kevin does not support execution. “I harbour an intense hatred for Huntley,” he said. “I begrudge him every breath he breathes, but hanging him changes nothing.”