Huntley waited eight hours before reporting sighting

Soham accused Ian Huntley waited eight hours before telling police he had seen Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman on the night they vanished, his Old Bailey murder trial heard today.

Huntley, 29, said he had not thought it was “necessary” to tell police scouring Cambridgeshire for the 10-year-olds that he had seen them walking past his house, the court was told.

He reported the sighting in the early hours of Monday August 5, some eight hours after they went missing, after a massive hunt had been launched.

And he had earlier denied seeing two girls, when he was asked by a group of searchers at 10.30pm on Sunday.

The court heard that the Soham Village College caretaker was “incredibly helpful” to police in the search for the missing girls.

But he told a dog handler that he did not have the keys to the hangar building, where the charred remnants of the girls’ clothing were found hidden in a bin some 12 days later.

The keys to the building were later found on top of a chest of drawers in his home, marked with a green key fob with the word “hangar” written on it, the court has heard.

The drama of the hunt was relived in the historic courtroom number one, as witnesses described the mounting panic and the sight of Kevin Wells screaming his daughter’s name across playing fields on the foggy night.

But Huntley seemed “calm” and “as if he was out walking his dog” during the frantic hunt, according to a fellow searcher.

Two retained firemen said Huntley had told them he had seen the youngsters between 6 and 6.30pm.

He made the admission while the men were out searching for the girls, sometime after 2am.

Stephen Coward QC, for Huntley, suggested the caretaker’s memory might have been triggered by one of the searchers mentioning that the missing girls were wearing red Manchester United shirts.

It was not clear if he knew that earlier, when he had denied seeing two girls.

Susan Hurrell, a teacher at the girls’ primary school, said Huntley told her about the sighting at about 2.30am, and that he seemed “reluctant” to talk to police about it.

He told her the sighting was at about 5.50pm, she said.

She pointed him out to Sgt Nelson, who said she had noticed the same man hanging around her police rendezvous point earlier.

“He smelt as if he was freshly bathed, you could smell soap or aftershave,” she said.

“Everybody else, myself included, was rather bedraggled and stale.”

Sgt Nelson called him over and said he told her he saw the girls at 5.30pm, when they asked about his girlfriend Maxine Carr.

He had told people out searching but had not reported it to police, she said.

Asked why, the policewoman said he told her that “he didn’t think it was necessary”.

At the time his sighting of the girls was the only one reported to police.

Huntley’s formal statement to police, made later, said he saw the girls at 5.45pm.

And he later changed his account again, saying he saw them after 6.30pm.

Another officer, PC Christopher Bradley, said he noticed Huntley near the rendezvous point at about 3.30am, and said he looked “unkempt and slightly harassed”, and that he was “slightly sweaty”, which the policeman thought was unusual on a cool, foggy night.

Earlier, police dog handler Pc Anna Burton said Huntley had offered to help her to search the college area, sometime after midnight.

They spent an hour going round the site together, only going inside buildings if they were unlocked, meaning Holly and Jessica could have got inside.

Pc Burton said Huntley had told her the main building was alarmed and that the alarm would have gone off if the girls had gone inside.

She said: “Based on that advice, I had no desire to enter the school building itself.”

The policewoman said she had asked him what the hangar building was – where the court has heard the charred remnants of the girls’ clothes were later found hidden in a bin – and was told it was a groundsman’s building.

She asked if he had the keys and was told he did not. Police found them in his house when they searched it some 12 days later.

Pc Burton let her dog sniff round the outside of the building but said it drew no reaction.

She added: “Mr Huntley had been incredibly helpful all the way round, he had offered to open the school and when he said he hadn’t got the keys, I didn’t take it any further.”

She added: “I was very grateful, very grateful indeed.”

Stephen Coward QC, for Huntley, suggested the caretaker had told her he would go back to the house and get the keys to the hangar, but she insisted he had just said he did not have them.

Another witness, Stuart Smith, said he had walked past the caretaker’s house between midnight and 12.30am and that the lights were out and Huntley’s car was missing.

But he saw Huntley at about 3.15am, at the back of a crowd near the police rendezvous point.

The prosecution alleges that Huntley killed the girls on the night they went missing, and put their bodies in his Fiesta before dumping them in a remote ditch at Lakenheath, Suffolk, later that night.

Huntley, 29, denies murdering the 10-year-old friends but has admitted conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

His ex-girlfriend Maxine Carr, 26, a former classroom assistant at the girls’ primary school, denies conspiring to pervert the course of justice and two charges of assisting an offender.

The prosecution alleges she gave Huntley a false alibi for the day the girls went missing. Their bodies were found in the ditch 13 days later.