Carr faces questions over lies for Huntley
Maxine Carr returned to the witness box at the Old Bailey murder trial of her ex-lover Ian Huntley today to face questions over her lies to protect him.
The former teaching assistant choked back tears yesterday as she told how she was branded “Myra Hindley MkII” over her links with the alleged killer of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, whom she had helped to teach.
She admitted she had lied to protect Huntley after the girls went missing but insisted she had never known the 10-year-olds died in her home.
She told the court she would have told police “like a shot” if she had ever suspected that the man she planned to marry and have children with had killed the schoolgirls.
Carr, 26, completed her evidence-in-chief yesterday and was today facing questions from Stephen Coward QC, for Huntley, and prosecution barrister Richard Latham QC.
She said Huntley telephoned her in Grimsby several times on Monday August 5 last year, the day after the girls died, and told her that they had left the couple’s shared home alive.
She also outlined a conversation on Tuesday August 6 when she said it was first suggested that she could lie about where she was on the day the girls went missing, telling “anyone” she was in Soham and not in Grimsby.
Carr denies conspiring to pervert the course of justice and two counts of assisting an offender.
Huntley, 29, a former caretaker at Soham Village College, denies the double child murder on Sunday August 4 last year but has admitted a single charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
The jury has heard that he admits Holly died accidentally in his bath and that he killed Jessica as he tried to silence her screams, although he insists he did not mean to kill her.
He bundled their bodies into his car, dumped them in the remote ditch where they were found 13 days later, cut off their clothes and torched their corpses.
Mr Coward began the day by asking: "Ms Carr, you believed as a result of what Mr Huntley said to you over the telephone and face-to-face that he was nothing to do with the disappearance of the girls?''
Carr replied: “That’s correct, yes.”
Mr Coward went on: “And for that reason the only lie that was necessary for you to tell if anyone asked you questions about August 4 was the lie putting you at Soham rather than at Grimsby?”
Carr replied: “Yes, that’s correct.”
Mr Coward said: “So when the police were asking you to give an account of the whole history, that was the only area you had to be careful about, to suppress the fact you were in Grimsby rather than Soham?”
Carr agreed: “Yes, that’s right.”
Mr Coward said: “As you thought at the time, there was nothing about the house, number 5 College Close, that was significant at all, was there?”
Carr replied: “No.”
Carr, dressed in a black polo neck and light blue jacket and wearing a silver chain round her neck, was in the witness box on day 23 of the trial.
