Child killer must serve 40 years

Ian Huntley, the man convicted of murdering Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, must serve at least 40 years in jail before he can be considered for parole, a High Court judge said yesterday.

In one of Britain's highest profile murder cases, Huntley was sentenced to life in jail for killing the two 10-year-olds after luring them into his house in August 2002.

Due to a change in sentencing laws, judges - as opposed to the Home Office - now decide if a murderer should be considered for parole, and yesterday Justice Alan Moses said that could not happen before Mr Huntley had spent at least 40 years in jail.

The two families had hoped Mr Huntley would spend the rest of his life in jail, joining a group of more than 20 murderers in Britain which includes the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe and Moors murderer Ian Brady, who will never be freed.

"We understand that judges can only sentence on the facts of the case before them but make no mistake, we hope that Ian Huntley spends the rest of his natural life in prison," both families said in a statement after the ruling.

"As parents, we may or may not be around in 40 years time but our children will. They like us, continue to feel the pain of their sister's murders each and every day. That should not be forgotten, even in the distant years to come.

"That pain does not go away."

Justice Moses said Mr Huntley's release after 40 years was not automatic, however and it would be up to a judge to decide.

"The order offers little or no hope of the defendant's eventual release," he said in court.

Mr Huntley has always denied murdering the two girls, claiming that their deaths in his house were accidents. Prosecutors suggested that the crime had been sexually motivated and he had killed the girls when something went wrong with his plans.

The murder of Holly and Jessica, memorably photographed wearing matching Manchester United soccer shirts just hours before they vanished, received widespread media coverage in Britain and abroad.

The girls died in Mr Huntley's house which had come with his job as a caretaker at a college in the same grounds as the girls' primary school in Cambridgeshire.