Jury shown girls’ burnt clothes

A PHOTOGRAPH of the blackened remains of the Manchester United shirts worn by murdered schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman was shown yesterday to the jury trying their alleged killer.

All the girls’ clothing was cut from their bodies and burned in a bin at Soham Village College, prosecutor Richard Latham QC said.

He said police made the grim discovery on Friday, August 16 last year in a bin in a hangar at the college after finding the keys in the house of Ian Huntley, the college caretaker.

Huntley, 29, denies murdering the two girls but admits conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Huntley’s fingerprints and hairs from his head were found inside the bin with the clothing in it, the court heard. Mr Latham said: “We place very considerable reliance on the fact Mr Huntley’s fingerprints were on the inside of the bag... There are numerous links between the clothing at the bin and Huntley, his Fiesta and 5 College Close.” The girls vanished after leaving Holly’s home in Soham, Cambridgeshire, on Sunday August 4.

Maxine Carr, 26, the former classroom assistant at the girls’ school in Soham, denies conspiring to pervert the course of justice and two charges of assisting an offender. The court was also told Huntley’s home smelt strongly of cleaning fluid the day after the girls disappeared, the court heard A detective who visited his house to take a witness statement on the Monday found it strange that there was washing on the line even though it was raining, the Old Bailey was told.

The woman officer noticed the ground floor of Huntley’s home was tidy and there was a “strong smell of a lemony cleaning product”, Mr Latham said.

Huntley also apologised for the state of his dining room, telling the detective “We’ve had a flood”, Mr Latham said. Mr Latham said that when the detective was in Huntley’s home, she was given the “clear impression” from him that he had not been alone in the home when he saw the girls the previous day.

The impression given was that Maxine Carr was in the house, Mr Latham said.

Huntley also made a “major attempt” to sanitise his car in the days after Holly and Jessica’s disappearance. The actions of Huntley showed a man “thinking calmly and carefully ”, Mr Latham said.

He claimed this included removing an existing boot carpet, changing its tyres and cleaning the Ford Fiesta while others were out searching for the girls.