Soham murder trial jury continue deliberations
The jury in the Soham murder trial began a third day of deliberations this morning on Day 29 of the Old Bailey case.
The seven women and five men have now spent around 11 hours considering their verdicts since first retiring last Friday and being sent home over the weekend.
Trial judge Mr Justice Moses sent them out shortly after 10.45am today as the double murder trial reconvened.
Ian Huntley, 29, a former caretaker at Soham Village College, denies murdering Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman on Sunday August 4 last year but has admitted a single charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
The jury has heard 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.
His ex-girlfriend Maxine Carr, 26, a former classroom assistant in the 10-year-olds’ class, denies conspiring to pervert the course of justice and two counts of assisting an offender.
She has told the jury that she lied to protect her then fiance, giving him a false alibi, but insisted she never suspected he could be involved in the girls’ disappearance.
