Convicted child murderer Ian Huntley remains in a critical condition in hospital tonight after being smashed three times on the head with a metal pole, the Daily Mail can reveal.
The Soham murderer is serving life in prison for murdering 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in his home in Cambridgeshire in 2002.
But at around 9.30am today the 52-year-old was in the workshop of HMP Frankland when a fellow prisoner in his mid-40s grabbed a metal bar from a nearby crate and launched the attack.
A prison source told the Daily Mail: ‘Huntley was working in waste management with other prisoners from Wing A, the segregated wing for prisoners who can’t be in the normal jail population for their own protection.
‘The other prisoner got a metal bar from the waste metal crates and smashed Huntley three times in the head with it. It was a very, very serious injury, having been struck on the skull like that.’
The source said Wing A inmates, including sex offenders and other criminals at high risk of attack such as jailed police officers, move around the prison estate as a group, so are not segregated from each other but are from other inmates.
Another source said the double killer’s condition was ‘touch and go’ and described the scene on the wing as ‘absolute chaos’.
The prisoner is understood to have been placed in segregation following the assault.
Ian Huntley is serving life for murdering two 10-year-old girls in his home in Soham, a Cambridgeshire market town made infamous by his vile crimes in 2002
Best friends Holly Wells (left) and Jessica Chapman (right) were murdered by Huntley
This is the third time Huntley has been attacked in jail. In 2010, his throat was slashed with a homemade weapon and, in 2005, another inmate threw boiling water over him.
Last year, Huntley was said to have been strutting around the jail wearing a No 10 Manchester United-style shirt in an apparent vile taunt about his victims.
A photo of the schoolgirls wearing matching football shirts – tragically taken on the day Huntley lured them into his house – became synonymous with the desperate search which gripped the country.
A spokesperson for Durham Constabulary said: ‘The 52-year-old prisoner who was injured during this morning’s assault in the workshop at HMP Frankland remains in a serious condition in hospital following treatment for head injuries.
‘Police forensic teams have examined the scene of the attack throughout the day to gather evidence.
‘A suspect, a male prisoner in his mid-40s, has been identified by officers investigating the incident. He has not been arrested at this stage, but remains in detention within the prison’.
School caretaker Huntley lured both schoolgirls into his home and murdered them, before dumping their bodies in a ditch some 12 miles away.
He would later return and attempt to set fire to them.
They were not discovered until more than a week after they went missing, by which time some 400 police officers had joined with local residents to search for the missing youngsters.
Holly and Jessica, who were best friends, had gone out to buy sweets on the afternoon of August 4, 2002, when he lured them into his three-bedroom cottage.
Their disappearance after a family barbecue sent shockwaves through the close-knit community and became one of the most sickening child murders the country has ever seen.
HMP Frankland today after Ian Huntley was attacked inside by another inmate
Suspicions about Huntley were raised after he appeared to tell one journalist in morbid detail how Jessica and Holly might react to being taken by a stranger
Suspicions about Huntley were raised after he appeared to tell one journalist in morbid detail how the girls might react to being taken by a stranger.
He was convicted in 2003 of both murders, having pleaded not guilty. Huntley was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 40 years.
His then-fiancée Maxine Carr, who was a teaching assistant at the girls’ school, would also be jailed for three-and-a-half years after giving her partner a false alibi in a bid to help him evade justice.
She famously turned on her partner at court and Huntley was convicted, having tried to claim he had killed both girls accidentally.
He lied that Holly had drowned in his bath and that he had accidentally suffocated Jessica while attempting to stop her from screaming.
The case prompted an inquiry into how Huntley slipped through police vetting procedures despite a string of sex allegations made against him in his hometown, Grimsby, in the late 1990s.
The report from the inquiry revealed a ‘deeply shocking’ catalogue of errors across all organisations that had contact with Huntley before he murdered Holly and Jessica.
It made 31 recommendations to improve intelligence sharing, police information systems and employment vetting nationwide.
Huntley has previously been attacked in prison, most notably by armed robber Damien Fowkes in 2010, who slashed his throat.
Huntley was convicted of the murders after pleading not guilty. His girlfriend at the time Maxine Carr (right) gave him a false alibi but turned on him in the witness box
Using a home-made weapon, Fowkes slashed him causing a ‘severe gaping cut to the left side of his neck’. The wound was 7in (18cm) long and required 21 stitches.
At the time Fowkes asked a prison officer: ‘Is he dead? I hope so.’
A fellow prisoner also attempted to shank Huntley in an ambush in 2018.
In 2005, fellow murderer Mark Hobson also threw boiling water over him in Wakefield Prison.
His crimes continue to cause outrage behind bars, as has Huntley’s brazen behaviour while on remand.
In 2018 Huntley appeared to confess to deliberately killing Jessica to stop her from raising the alarm. He continued to insist that Holly’s death was an accident.
After Carr had served her prison sentence, she was released in 2004 with a brand new identity.