Huntley attack wasn't taken seriously - early victim

Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman would still be alive if police and social services had taken Ian Huntley seriously, an earlier victim of their killer said today.

Louise Tinmurth was just 13 when she was attacked by the then 21-year-old Huntley, who she had recently started seeing.

“I ended up going out with him because he was a charmer. He thought he was God’s gift to women,” Louise said.

“I was warned about him but I didn’t take much notice.

“I was with him for a couple weeks and then he attacked me in the bedroom.

“He pinned my arms down on the bed and he was kissing me and that.

“Then I managed to get up and he had me by the door, the doorway, and he used to throw us, and then I walked straight down the stairs and walked straight out.”

The attack was reported to police by a woman the couple had babysat for but no action was taken because Louise did not speak out against Huntley.

“They didn’t ask me the questions I wanted to be asked,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“I don’t think there was any interest at the end of the day, not at all.

“I was a young girl and young girls attract older men, don’t they. Flattering, it was, being with someone older.”

That failure to properly investigate the attack left Huntley free to kill the Soham schoolgirls, Louise said.

“If I had come clean at first he could have been done – there were four other lasses he could have been done for but he wasn’t,” she said.

“If something was done about it they would still be here now.

“Social services and police don’t take things seriously at all.

“They have only started taking things seriously now because it is all out in the open.”