Jurors see ditch where Holly and Jessica were found

The jury in the Soham murder trial huddled today around the remote ditch where the bodies of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were found.

Richard Latham QC, prosecuting, dropped his voice as he pointed to the spot where, he says, a few strands of Jessica’s dark hair were once snagged on a branch.

“And the bodies, therefore, were found just down here,” he said, gesturing to a six-foot deep ditch.

The jurors gathered around the irrigation ditch, which had been stripped of its foliage during the police investigation but which now had a few nettles and ferns in its base.

A few moments earlier, the two minutes silence for Remembrance Day had passed as the jurors made their way up the rutted track leading to the isolated spot where the prosecution alleges Ian Huntley dumped their bodies.

Huntley, 29, the former caretaker at Soham Village College, denies the double murder of the 10-year-olds.

As the jury of seven women and five men arrived at 10.44am at the track known as Common Drove, leading to the remote ditch, a single posy of flowers marked the spot where the track began.

A card attached to the ring of fabric red and white roses said: “Soham’s Roses. Remembrance Forever.

“God have you in his keeping, we have you in our hearts, our thoughts are with your families at this time.”

Holly’s father, Kevin Wells, read a poem at the girls’ memorial service last year entitled Soham’s Rose and a pink flower has since been named after the tragedy.

A faint mist hung in the air at the end of the track and Mr Latham spoke briefly to the jurors as they stood there.

He said: “Members of the jury, this is the mouth of Common Drove.

“We are going to walk up the Drove and you can see in the distance where the tree-line starts.

“It is just past the tree-line where the bodies were found.”

He pointed out the sluice gate which controlled levels of water in the ditch and also the distant spire of Wangford church.

The prosecution alleges that Huntley’s father Kevin Huntley lived in a cottage beside the church, less than half a mile from the spot where the girls’ remains were found, and that Huntley would have known the area well.

Mr Latham told the jury: "There's the sluice gate and indeed there are a couple of the boards which drop into the sluice gate at the edge of the track here.''

He gestured to the church in Wangford and ahead to the track, where two court officials stood to mark the spot where the prosecution alleges that Huntley made two tracks through overgrown nettles growing beside the ditch.

One was allegedly made when he dumped the bodies soon after the double murder on Sunday August 4 last year and the second when he returned to try to set fire to them some three days later.

The jurors then walked along the chalk-covered path towards the first official, walking alongside the irrigation ditch, which was filled with water, weeds, waist-high rushes and reeds.

They entered a section of the track lined with beech trees and at 11.02am finally reached the spot where the bodies were found.

Mr Latham said: “Members of the jury, you can see the twig still there.”

He gestured to the branch where Jessica’s hair was found and held a photograph beneath it which showed the twig with the hairs still hanging from it.

He added: “And the bodies, therefore, were found just down here.

“Feel free to …” his voice tailed off and he failed to complete the sentence, simply gesturing to the jurors to make their own inspection of the ditch.

They stood huddled for a few moments in silence.

Few sounds could be heard except distant birdsong.

They then continued along the track, with Mr Latham pausing to point out a site where a car would have been able to make a three-point turn.

The prosecution alleges that Huntley put the bodies in the boot of his red Ford Fiesta and drove them down the track before dumping them.

The jury had left Soham Village College at 9.52am after being addressed by Mr Latham.

He detailed the route they would take and reminded them that the prosecution did not suggest it was the exact route they believed Huntley had taken, but one of a number of potential routes between Soham and Lakenheath.

They were ushered on to their coach to make the journey across the bleak landscape of the Fens.

The convoy of police motorcycle outriders, blue lights flashing, the judge’s silver Rover, the jury’s coach and the two minibuses full of lawyers and journalists rolled slowly across the flat, featureless terrain.

Barely a single person witnessed the sight as the convoy passed by.

Mr Latham suggested to the jury last week that there were “endless” places on the 40-minute route where two bodies could have been dumped in the open by a man gripped by panic.

But the prosecution alleged that Huntley had in mind a “clever” hiding spot where there was a “substantial possibility” that the bodies would never be found.

It suggested that Huntley, who denies murdering the two girls, knew the area well.

His grandmother Lily Gollings lived in nearby Lakenheath, Suffolk, and his father Kevin had lived at the house in Wangford.

Huntley himself had an interest in plane-spotting and the US Air Force base at Lakenheath was nearby.

As the jurors gathered at Soham Village College today, life was slowly returning to normal in the

girls’ home town.

People were out on the streets and shops were open for business again.

But the convoy seemed to cast a sombre shadow as it left Soham at 9.52am and headed north out of the town, away from the girls’ homes.

Buildings and other signs of human life became more sporadic as the convoy moved across farmland.

Mr Latham told the jury last week that the journey would give them a better idea of the terrain and distances involved, even though it was not intended as an exact recreation of Huntley’s route.

He said today: “As you know, we are now going to drive over to Lakenheath.

“I’m going to point out on this map the route we are going to take.

“You will appreciate there are a number of potential routes over there.”

He outlined the route north out of Soham on the Great Fen Road, on to the B1104, B1382 and A101 before taking tiny roads to the north of Lakenheath.

The convoy reached the small Suffolk town at 10.37am.

It slowed as it passed the warden-controlled bungalow of Mrs Gollings, Huntley’s grandmother, in Quayside Court.

A single policeman stood outside the sheltered complex to mark it out, as his colleagues had done at Holly and Jessica’s homes yesterday.

Mr Latham tucked his suit trousers into green Wellingtons for the walk along the muddy track.

Trial judge Mr Justice Moses donned brown leather hiking boots but snagged his long grey coat on several burrs as he walked along the path.

After pausing at the ditch, some 600 paces from the road, the jurors were guided along the track past pheasant pens and the site of the alleged second track through the nettles, about 25-yards past the bodies site.

Mr Latham then gestured towards the perimeter fence of the airbase, saying it had “potential significance” which might become apparent later in the case.

The QC told the jurors: “It may become relevant, I don’t want to make comments at this stage, it would be wrong for me to make comment, but we would invite you to walk on to the perimeter fence of the airbase.

“The potential significance of it will, we hope, become apparent as you hear the evidence.”

Mr Justice Moses told them they would be left alone for a few moments to decide if they had any questions.

None came and the jury then walked back down the track before being taken to the public viewing area at Lakenheath airbase and back to the Old Bailey.

Mr Latham said the public viewing area itself might also become relevant to the case but said he would not address them again until tomorrow morning, when the prosecution will call its first witnesses.

Mr Justice Moses reminded the jury not to speak to anyone about the case and formally adjourned the trial until 10.30am tomorrow. At 11.29am the jurors left the track and got back on their coach.