Ian Huntley death: Journalist Brian Farmer details why he reported Holly and Jessica’s murderer to the police
The first journalist to interview Ian Huntley after the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman told what prompted him to report the killer to the police.
Brian Farmer was working at the Press Association in East Anglia at the time of the disappearance of two 10-year-old boys on 4 August 2002.
He told BBC News he interviewed Huntley, 28, a caretaker at a nearby secondary school, after police published a list of where the children were last seen.
He also interviewed Huntley’s partner, Maxine Carr, then 25 and a teacher’s assistant in the girls’ class at St Andrews Primary School in Soham, Cambridgeshire.
Mr Farmer told BBC News on Saturday after Huntley died following an attack on high-security HMP Frankland prison: “I knew where the prisoner’s house was and it was quite close by. He also seemed to be the last person to see them.”
“But it is always possible that the last man who saw the missing children or the missing women was the culprit. For these two reasons, I went to knock on the door.”
Mr Farmer said it took some convincing for Carr and Huntley to agree to speak to him.
The journalist, who now works for the BBC, said he drew a picture of Huntley bathing his Alsatian Sadie after a muddy walk on Sunday evening, but claimed Holly and Jessica were asking about teaching assistants.
“What I thought was strange wasn’t what they said. It was what they didn’t say,” Mr. Farmer said of the Aug. 8, 2002, interview.
“They didn’t seem to mention the dog, and I really couldn’t believe that anywhere in the world there could be two 10-year-old girls wandering carefree on a summer’s day, encountering a man who washed the dog with soap and water and didn’t see the dog.
“There was no such thing as, ‘How cute is this dog?’ or ah, ah. There was nothing like that.
“I definitely didn’t believe what he said. It didn’t seem possible.”
Mr Farmer’s concern increased when, after asking Carr whether the girls were taught about the danger of strangers at school or how they might react if a man opened the door and asked them to come in, Huntley jumped in to answer the question despite apparently not knowing the girls.
He said: “To my real surprise, Ian Huntley answered the question and said Holly would probably go quietly, but Jessica would struggle.
“I didn’t show it at the time, but I couldn’t understand how he knew that.
“She was a caretaker at a middle school they didn’t attend. Their parents might know how they would react. Maybe a teacher could speculate about how they would react, too.”
“But how can a staff member at another school know how they will react?
“I came to the conclusion pretty quickly that I didn’t think he was telling the truth.”
Mr Farmer wrote in his report at the time that Huntley had cried as he talked about the girls’ “disappearance”.
“It looks like they’ve disappeared from the face of the earth,” the killer said to Mr. Farmer.
“How could two girls disappear in broad daylight, then with nothing? No sightings. Nothing. This is not believable.”
After meeting the couple, Mr Farmer told a story before calling his older brother, a retired senior detective.
“My brother Derek told me I should contact the police and he agreed that what Huntley said was very strange and might even have been cause for arrest if he had been there,” Mr Farmer said.
“So on his advice I contacted Cambridgeshire Police and told them why I thought what Huntley had said was strange and untrue.”
The couple was arrested on August 17, 2002.
Mr Farmer was called to give evidence at the Old Bailey trial of Huntley and Carr in 2003.
Huntley denied killing two 10-year-old boys but was found guilty after a trial.
Carr gave Huntley a false alibi and was sentenced to 21 months in prison for perverting the course of justice.
He now lives with a new identity.
The former school caretaker’s life sentence required him to serve at least 40 years for Soham’s murders, meaning he would not be eligible for parole until the 2040s.
Mr Farmer added: “I’m thinking of parents today, not myself or my experiences.
“This can never go away for them and it must be an incredible day for them, isn’t it, they have to live it all over again.”
