Hidden past of deep depravity

But the relationship between Ian Huntley and Amanda Marshall didn’t stay innocent for long.

And the exploitative edge it quickly assumed set the pattern for the catalogue of abusive dalliances with underage girls that was to frame Huntley’s adult life. In the 15 years that followed, the teenager from Immingham in Humberside had sexual encounters with dozens of underage girls, including one as young as 11.

He married once, fathered a child - now five - and is said to have been responsible for several miscarriages. He was investigated in connection with four alleged rapes within two years, three allegations of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and one of indecently assaulting an 11-year-old. And he came to the attention of North East Lincolnshire social services on five occasions with regard to relationships with underage girls.

By any standard, it’s a prolific sexual history for a 29-year-old, so prolific that it can be considered remarkable that, until he was condemned as a double child killer last week, his only conviction was for riding a motorcycle without insurance or a licence.

As a teenager, there was little that could have foretold Huntley’s troubled sexual future. An asthma sufferer, he was bullied and nicknamed ‘spadehead’ on account of his large forehead, but he was not an unattractive teenager and was popular with the opposite sex. This, at least, is how Amanda Marshall remembers him from their days on the bus to the village of Healing. "He was very flirtatious and had that confidence with girls," she said. Despite her young age, she quickly became close to the teenager, introducing him to her parents who found him "very polite".

By the time she was 16, she had moved into a flat with him in Grimsby, but the relationship had already begun to deteriorate. As Marshall became more dependent on Huntley for her self-esteem so his need to control her grew.

In a mirror image of the way he would later behave with Maxine Carr, he started telling her what she could and couldn’t wear. Marshall moved out when she discovered he had started bringing 12 and 13-year-olds back to their flat when she was out. She returned after Huntley overdosed.

Desperate to make the relationship work, she accompanied Huntley to sessions with a psychiatrist and soon she was pregnant with his child. She had a miscarriage when Huntley threw her down the stairs. That was in 1994, the year Huntley’s mother left his dad for lesbian lover Julie Beasley.

By the December of the following year, Huntley had taken up with 18-year-old Claire Evans, who was to become his wife, albeit for a matter of weeks. They had a short affair, moved into a flat together and married in January 1995, three days before his 21st birthday, in a low-key service attended by six guests, including his 18-year-old brother Wayne.

It is not clear what broke-up the marriage: Huntley claims Evans, an RAF administrator, slept with Wayne on their wedding night. Evans claims he tried to strangle her over the kitchen sink. Chillingly, she recalled: "I could see him grinning and laughing as he did it. I could hardly speak and was gasping for breath. But the more I tried to struggle, the more he seemed to enjoy it."

Then Evans started seeing Wayne, whom she finally married in 2000. The split seemed to set Huntley on a downward spiral: for the next few years his encounters with underage schoolgirls came so fast it is difficult to put them into chronological order. What is clear is that although many of the girls’ parents complained to social services or the police, the impressionable girls saw themselves as his ‘girlfriends’.

By August 1995, he had struck up relationships with several schoolgirls who visited his flat. One night, the father of one of them turned up and alleged he was having underage sex with his 15-year-old daughter. The police were called, but the case was dropped when she failed to make a formal complaint.

By April 1996, Huntley was at it again, this time with 15-year-old Emma Fish, who left home (and school) to move into his mother Linda’s flat in Immingham. Again the social services were contacted - this time by a worried teacher - but, since neither she nor her parents would file a complaint, the case could not be pursued. When Fish told Huntley she was pregnant, he again threatened her with violence, and she later miscarried.

Fourteen-year-old Janine Oliver - a relative of Claire Evans - was his next target. She lost her virginity to Huntley some time in 1995, but did not start "going out with him" until the following year. Huntley won her over before plying her with cheap cider and initiating sex.

Her mother contacted social services in May 1996 but since by then she was not far off the age of consent, and determined to leave home, Oliver refused to file a complaint - though Huntley was cheating on her with her own friends - and the police again dropped the inquiry.

The same month, the mother of Louise Tinmurth, now a part-time model, was also on the warpath. Her daughter met Huntley at a funfair when she was only 12. She claims that he once locked her in a room and demanded sex, but she escaped. When social services interviewed her, she said she and Huntley were simply friends.

Others who suffered at his hands never came to police or social services’ attention, including 15-year-old Chantel Lea. She claims Huntley locked her in their dingy bedsit during their six-month relationship, and starved her for two weeks. She collapsed and was eventually taken to hospital.

"I know he had many one night stands before he met me and I would estimate that he slept with hundreds of girls, certainly over 200," said Lea, now a leisure student at Grimsby College. "We did have a physical relationship. But he did not demand sex from me. That was not what he was after - it was control."

Huntley began a relationship with another 15-year-old in 1997 - Katie Webber, the girl who was to become the mother of his only surviving child. Huntley met the schoolgirl when he began selling scratchcards for the Children Action Group under the supervision of her mother, Jackie.

Katie quickly became infatuated and, with Huntley’s encouragement gave up school for a job in a fish processing plant and eventually went to live with him in a caravan in his mother’s garden. "Once it was clear I liked him and we’d had sex he began to treat me like a child, to bully me."

Webber got pregnant, although by the time the baby was born her antipathy towards him was so great she refused to put his name on the birth certificate. Her anger was partly because, while he was still living with her, Huntley indecently assaulted one of Webber’s young friends.

It was an attack that would presage the terrible events of Soham six years later. Like Holly and Jessica, Hailey Edwards turned up at Huntley’s door looking for Webber, who was out. Huntley invited her in and made small talk about school as they ostensibly waited for Katie’s return. It wasn’t long, however, before the conversation turned to sex, with Huntley asking her if she’d ever had a serious boyfriend.

When Edwards told him she liked climbing trees, he said he’d take her to an orchard. There, he started to tell her how much he fancied her and to undo her clothes. She was just 11. "I pushed his hands away and climbed over the fence," she said. " I was leaning over, shouting, ‘Help me.’ He grabbed hold of my hips and pulled me down. His face was angry."

Finally Huntley let her go, saying that if she told anyone she would be in trouble, and she ran home. Traumatised, Edwards did not share her ordeal with anyone for 10 months. But her personality changed and she broke down under persistent questioning from her parents. By then, the police said, it was much too late: all forensic evidence would have been destroyed.

From then on, there was an escalation in his offending. Within two years, he would have been accused of four rapes.

In April 1998, an 18-year-old told police Huntley had attacked her after sharing a taxi back to her house from a Hollywood nightclub. Huntley was arrested and insisted the sex was consensual. Incredibly, just a month later, another girl told police she had been threatened and raped in Gas Alley near the same club by a stranger.

Huntley again claimed consensual sex, but this time he was charged and remanded in custody.

It seemed as if the law was finally catching up with him. But then CCTV footage came to light that showed the pair kissing outside the club. With police agreement, the Crown Prosecution Service determined there was no realistic prospect of conviction.

A 17-year-old girl claims she, too, was raped by Huntley after a night out at Hollywood’s a few months later. She didn’t report the attack for three months, making prosecution difficult.

Finally, in July 1999, a 17-year-old claimed to have been raped by someone she thought was called ‘Jason’ on her way home from another Grimsby nightclub. Huntley was arrested but by now he was going out with Maxine Carr, and she backed up his alibi.

While Huntley was with Carr, the attacks on other women seem to have stopped. However volatile, their relationship seems to have stopped him preying on younger girls. Many believe it was the belief his life with Carr was over that triggered Huntley’s murder of Holly and Jessica.

The pair had rowed constantly before, one night, Carr rejected his pleas by phone for her to stay in on a Sunday night, and instead went drinking with her mother in Grimsby. It represented a final loss of control over his girlfriend. Minutes later, Holly and Jessica turned up at his door.

THE KEY PLAYERS

The following are some of the key players to become embroiled in the Soham controversy.

DAVID WESTWOOD, chief constable, Humberside Police

Westwood admitted "system failings and human error" at a press conference to explain why his force had not flagged up warnings about Huntley, despite the long list of accusations of sexual misconduct against him. He claimed records had to be deleted under the Data Protection Act, though experts denied this. Westwood walked out of an interview for Newsnight on Wednesday when pressed on the issue by Jeremy Paxman. He said it was "not a matter for me" to decide if he should resign.

TOM LLOYD, chief constable, Cambridgeshire Police

It was reported that local police in Soham were angry that their Humberside colleagues had failed to warn them about Huntley, though the killer’s home town force claimed they had not been given both names he used - Huntley as well as Nixon - to make their checks. Lloyd was ridiculed for going on holiday while the girls were still missing.

DET CHIEF INSP CHRIS STEVENSON

Stevenson became the public face of the inquiry after hostage negotiation expert David Beck was sidelined early on in the investigation amid complaints that vital leads had not been followed. Stevenson concentrated the hunt on Soham village and, after a tip-off from one of Huntley’s earlier victims, quickly identified the school caretaker as a target. The DCI has been praised for his intelligent, dignified approach, and the way the two girls’ families were kept informed at every turn.

JIM LEIVERS, chief executive, North East Lincolnshire Council

Huntley was brought to the attention of social workers four times for having sex with different under-age girls, between August 1995 and May 1996. The council was also alerted over an indecent assault allegation against an 11-year-old in July 1998. Leivers said: "Ian Huntley was never a client of the social services nor ever an employee of the authority, therefore no record of him exists in the council... Huntley was an adult and was not our client - the council had no power to take any action in relation to Huntley."

HOWARD GILBERT, Soham Village College principal

The Scotsman who employed Huntley as a school caretaker impressed many observers with his ability to hold the school together at such as difficult time. He said when he discovered the killer’s disturbing history: "I was angry. I was dismayed. To be honest, I felt sick. Physically sick. To think he had been walking around school. The police checks are set up to stop somebody like Huntley getting near a school. In this case they failed." He revealed the caretaker’s house was likely to be pulled down as part of the healing process.