Ian Huntley’s mum is said to have played a role in the decision to withdraw the killer’s life support after he was left in a serious condition following a prison attack
Ian Huntley’s mum is said to have been involved in the decision to withdraw the Soham killer’s life support.
Huntley was airlifted to hospital last Thursday after being assaulted by another inmate at HMP Frankland, a category A men’s prison in County Durham. The 52-year-old was found lying in a pool of blood after being battered with a makeshift weapon at a prison workshop.
Huntley is serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 40 years for murdering 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in August 2002.
According to The Sun, a ventilator keeping Huntley alive was removed today following consultations with his mother Lynda Richards. The 71-year-old is believed to be the only relative to have visited him in hospital. Sources told the newspaper that medics withdrew the ventilator at around lunchtime after brain tests showed Huntley was in a vegetative state.
A source said: “This is it, this is the end of Huntley. He is effectively dead and, at the best, is drawing his last breaths.
“No one who has dealt with him is shedding a tear. Even his mother has accepted that this is for the best, having seen him and knowing what a state he is in.
“He never really recovered from the beating he took, and never stood much of a chance of doing so. Huntley had been attacked loads of times in prison so the day he was killed was always likely to arrive.” The Ministry of Justice declined to comment.
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Huntley, a former school caretaker from Soham, Cambridgeshire, was handed two life sentences in December 2003 after being found guilty of the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman as well as related offences, including attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The schoolgirls disappeared from their quiet village on August 4, sparking a major search operation. Their bodies were discovered two weeks later in a ditch near an air base in Lakenheath, Suffolk.
During his six-week trial, the court heard that Huntley had lured the children to his home, where he killed them.
The case exposed serious failings in police vetting and child safeguarding. It emerged that Huntley had secured a job working with children despite a series of complaints of rape and other sexual offences having been made against him to police in Humberside, where he had worked earlier.
The Soham murders led to sweeping reforms in the way police forces share intelligence.
It is not the first time Huntley has been attacked at HMP Frankland. In 2010, robber Damien Fowkes slashed his throat with a home-made weapon, leaving him with a seven-inch wound that required 21 stitches.
Fowkes asked a prison officer at the time: “Is he dead? I hope so.” He described Huntley as a “notorious child killer, both inside prison and in society in general”.
