Carr put on suicide watch in prison

THE woman charged in connection with the deaths of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman was put on suicide watch after prison officers spotted cuts on her wrist, it emerged yesterday.

Maxine Carr, 26, was placed under special guard after some cuts to her left wrist were discovered on May 25.

Two weeks later her boyfriend, Ian Huntley, who is accused of the murders of 10-year-olds Holly and Jessica, was taken ill with an overdose.

Huntley, of Soham, Cambridgeshire, was taken to Milton Keynes General Hospital on June 9 from top security Woodhill Prison, near Milton Keynes.

The cuts on Carr’s wrist were believed to be of a “self-harm” nature and were described as superficial.

She was put on suicide watch for 10 days following the incident at Holloway Prison, north London, where she is on remand awaiting trial.

A Prison Service spokesman said they could not comment on individual cases.

Holly and Jessica disappeared from their homes in Soham, Cambridgeshire, on August 4, last year. Their bodies were found on August 17.

Carr, also of Soham, Cambridgeshire, pleads not guilty to two charges of assisting an offender and one of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Huntley has admitted conspiring to pervert the course of justice but denies murdering the girls.

Both Huntley and Carr are in separate prisons on remand awaiting trial.

The Daily Mirror newspaper reported that the cuts were discovered when prison officers were called to her cell in Holloway Prison. Carr was taken to Holloway’s health centre.

Director of the Prison Reform Trust, Juliet Lyon, said: “This news comes at a point when self-harm in women’s jails has reached epidemic levels.

“One in three women prisoners injure themselves and in the last six months 10 women have killed themselves in prison, more than the highest number previously recorded for a whole year.”