Schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were only 10 years old when they were murdered in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in 2002 by school caretaker Ian Huntley.
This week, Huntley was seriously injured in a reported attack in a prison workshop at HMP Frankland, prompting fresh headlines and renewed public attention on the case – and on the role played by his then-girlfriend, Maxine Carr, who was jailed for lying to police during the investigation.
But, who is Maxine Carr? What was Maxine Carr's involvement in the tragic murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman? And where is Maxine Carr now?
Who is Maxine Carr?
Maxine Carr was born Maxine Ann Capp on 16 February 1977 in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, and later changed her surname to Carr in an attempt to distance herself from her absent father.
Reports suggest that, growing up, Carr struggled with food and her weight and experienced disordered eating, alongside low confidence and shyness. She achieved poor grades at school, but former care work colleagues have said in press interviews that she still held on to hopes of becoming a teacher.
Although she was said to be shy when sober, Carr reportedly frequented Grimsby nightclubs in the hope of meeting men. It was on one of these nights out, in 1999, when she was 22, that she met Ian Huntley, then 25.
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They began a relationship and moved in together just four weeks later. Two years on, when Huntley secured a caretaker role at Soham Village College – along with accommodation on the grounds – Carr moved in as well. It has been noted that he was emotionally abusive.
In 2002, Carr took a job as a support assistant at St Andrew’s Primary School after lying about her qualifications, and it was there that she met Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
What happened in the Soham murders case?
On 4 August 2002, Wells and Chapman decided to go for a wander after having a barbecue at Wells' house. The 10-year-old best friends hadn't told anyone where they were going, but Wells' mum grew concerned when she realised they had left and not returned.
On their walk, the pair came into contact with Huntley who lured them into his cottage, later going on to kill them both. But their bodies were not immediately recovered and police launched an intensive search, involving over 400 officers as well as members of the public and the staff from a nearby US Air Force base.
It was two weeks before Wells and Chapman's bodies were found, lying side by side in a ditch 10 miles away from home.
What led to Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr's arrest?
During the search for Wells and Chapman, Huntley alleged that he had encountered the girls on their walk, claiming that the pair had stopped on his doorstep to ask questions about Carr's recent application for a full-time position at their school. As one of the last people to see the girls alive, Huntley gave numerous interviews to the press – but police were suspicious of his story.
During a later search of Huntley's property and the surrounding grounds, police discovered burnt items of clothing (in a bin hidden in a storage hangar) that matched the Manchester United tops that Wells and Chapman had both been wearing when they disappeared, prompting Huntley and Carr's arrest.
What was Maxine Carr’s involvement in the Soham case?
When Wells and Chapman disappeared, Carr lied during the investigation by telling police that she was at home with Huntley at the time the girls vanished – although she later admitted during a police interview that she said this to fake an alibi for her boyfriend.
Cracks began to appear in her cover story when she gave a TV interview in which she spoke fondly of Wells and Chapman, but referred to the girls in past tense (something she later claimed in court was due to having worked with the children in the past). In her interview with BBC Look East, Carr showed reporters a card that Wells had made for her at school. "No one believes they would ever run away. They were very close to their families. This is something that I will keep for the rest of my life," Carr said.
Eventually, after the girls' burnt clothes were unearthed, Carr confessed to police about her and Huntley's involvement in Wells and Chapman's murders – although he refused to answer any questions.
Admitting that she had lied about her whereabouts on the day of the girls' disappearance, Carr also revealed that Huntley had told her that Wells and Chapman had come into the cottage they shared after one of the girls experienced a nose bleed, but claims she did not know he had harmed them.
Did Maxine Carr go to prison?
On 20 August 2002, Huntley was charged with two counts of murder and later, after a two month stint in a psychiatric unit and time in high security prisons, his high-profile trial commenced at the Old Bailey on 5 November 2003. Over a month later, on 17 December 2003, Huntley was found guilty by the jury and sentenced to two life terms imprisonment.
Carr was also charged – with two counts of assisting an offender, after being accused of giving a false alibi, and one count of perverting the course of justice – and took to the stand during the same trial.
She is said to have told her counsel, "If, for a minute, I [had known] or believed he'd murdered either of those girls I would have been horrified."
Carr pleaded guilty to the charge of perverting the course of justice, but not guilty to the charge of assisting an offender. At the trial, the jury accepted her insistence that she had only lied to the police in order to protect Huntley because, prior to their arrest, she had believed his claims of innocence. Although she was found not guilty of assisting an offender, Carr was still sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for perverting the course of justice.
In total, Carr served 21 months of her initial 42-month sentence and was released on probation from Foston Hall prison in Derbyshire on 14 May 2004.
Where is Maxine Carr now?
After her release from prison, Carr moved into a safe house and was granted lifelong anonymity as well as being given a new identity. At court, her defence had argued that there was an "overwhelming case" for this move, and she is one of only four former prisoners in the UK to be protected by lifelong anonymity. The other three are Mary Bell, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.
According to reports, Carr welcomed a son in 2011. She went on to get married in 2014, and lives in a seaside town with her partner and son. Reports say that her husband is fully aware of her past.
Chloe Bowen is Cosmopolitan UK’s former Features Intern. She holds undergraduate and masters degrees in journalism, and ever since joining the Cosmo team, Chloe writes about everything from sex and dating to mental health, culture, body image and books. In her spare time, she’s likely to be cooking up tasty vegan food, in a yoga class, binge-watching crime documentaries or going on long walks with an over-priced oat milk flat white.
