Soham police inquiry 'ready early in 2004'

An inquiry into the way detectives investigated the disappearance of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman is likely to be completed early next year, police said today.

Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary announced at the end of the trial last week of Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr that it was examining Cambridgeshire Police’s investigations to see if lessons could be learned.

A spokesman for Cambridgeshire police said today that officers expected the results of the inquiry to be known within the next few weeks.

“We are not expecting this inquiry to take long,” he said. “We would expect it to have been completed early in the New Year.”

Police were criticised after it emerged that Huntley had made a series of suspicious comments to officers in the week following the girls’ disappearance.

At the weekend Holly’s father, Kevin, criticised the police in an interview with the Mail On Sunday.

He said the force’s concern immediately after the girls vanished was the legal position in case voluntary searchers were injured.

Cambridgeshire police said it did not wish to comment on Mr Wells’s criticisms.