Court hears of desperate hunt for Holly and Jessica
The desperate hours after the disappearance of Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were relived today at their Old Bailey murder trial.
The parents of both girls described the frantic search and their growing sense of panic after the 10-year-olds vanished on Sunday August 4 last year.
Holly’s father Kevin revealed that he met the girls’ alleged killer Ian Huntley as he searched for his daughter and her best friend in the early hours of August 5.
Huntley, 29, who denies the double child murder, left the dock during the parents’ evidence, which was read from their police statements.
The two sets of parents sat in the court as their words were read out by prosecution lawyers.
Jessica’s mother Sharon Chapman described the terrible moment when she and Holly’s mother Nicola Wells decided they had to call police.
Frantic searches had failed to find any trace of the girls, who had vanished after a barbecue at the Wells family home in Soham, Cambridgeshire, and Mrs Chapman could bear it no longer.
