I tried to destroy evidence, admits Huntley

Soham accused Ian Huntley today admitted taking steps to “destroy evidence” after the deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Huntley, 29, who denies murdering the 10-year-olds, claims they died in a series of accidents at his Soham home.

He admits disposing of their bodies in a remote ditch and setting fire to their bodies.

While giving evidence from the witness box today, the former school caretaker admitted trying to “cover his tracks”.

After the girls died at 5 College Close he said he put them into the boot of his red Ford Fiesta, but did not have a plan or destination in mind when he set off.

It was still light when he left his home.

Asked by his counsel, Stephen Coward QC, what steps he had taken to make sure he was not seen carrying the girls to the vehicle, he said he had moved Holly round the corner of the stairs so she could not be seen from the door.

“I opened the door and looked outside and I couldn’t see anybody. I opened the boot of my car again as I went back in,” he told the jury.

He said he had a can of petrol with him “to destroy any evidence” and two black bin liners. These were to put the petrol can in and “also to put over my shoes as it was likely it was muddy”.

After putting the girls in a ditch at a “place where nobody else went” he checked to be “absolutely certain they couldn’t be seen from the track”.

Huntley admitted to the court that he also took steps to destroy evidence from carpet fibres.

He said he had cut the girls’ clothes off once they were in the ditch with scissors from the car.

Asked by Mr Coward what he was hoping to destroy by way of evidence, Huntley replied: “Carpet fibres. There is dog hairs on the carpet, they easily attach themselves to things.”

Questioned about his trainers, Huntley said that when he first went to the bottom of the ditch, which was muddy and wet, he had not used anything to protect them.

But when he went back down he put his feet into the black bin liners and tied them.

He had poured petrol into the ditch and set fire to the fuel using a piece of paper with a lighter. He put the petrol can back in the car and the clothing in the boot and “drove away as quickly as I could from there”.

Huntley told the jury he had disposed of Jessica’s mobile telephone in a skip beside the school building.

Once he got rid of the girls’ bodies he returned home, then went over to the college site on Sunday night and set fire to their clothing in a yellow bin outside a hangar, using petrol from the red can.

Huntley also admitted buying four new tyres put on his car the day after the girls disappeared “because of tyre tracks I might have left down the Drove (where the girls were dumped)”.

He had later encountered people searching for the girls, but did not tell them what had happened because he had “let things go too far” and was frightened and ashamed of what he had done.

Huntley denied he had told lies because he had murdered the girls.

He also told the court he had not told his then girlfriend Maxine Carr the truth.

Asked what his purpose had been in asking the police questions as the search for the girls was in progress, Huntley replied: “To see if I had covered my tracks I suppose.”