Soham murderer Ian Huntley died from ‘blunt head injury’, inquest told | UK news
The inquest into the death of Soham killer Ian Huntley heard he was hit repeatedly in the head with a metal bar in prison.
Huntley, 52, was being held at HMP Frankland maximum security prison in Durham where he was allegedly attacked in a workshop on February 26.
The double child killer was placed on life support at the hospital and died on March 7.
Senior coroner Jeremy Chipperfield, based in Crook, Durham, formally opened and adjourned the inquest into Huntley’s death on Tuesday. The hearing lasted less than five minutes.
Coroner Bradley King, MD. An autopsy performed by Jennifer Bolton said the provisional cause of death was “blunt head trauma.”
He said: “I understand Mr Huntley was struck multiple times in the head by another prisoner with an object described as a metal bar.
“As a result of the attack, Mr Huntley suffered serious head trauma. He would later pass away at the Royal Victoria Infirmary hospital in Newcastle on 7 March 2026.”
Following Huntley’s death, the Department of Justice said his crime “remains one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation’s history, and our thoughts are with his families.”
Huntley kidnapped and murdered her 10-year-old best friends, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. The girls disappeared after leaving a family barbecue in the Cambridgeshire village of Soham in August 2002. It was thought that they went to buy candy without informing their parents.
The resulting search dominated the headlines and nearly 400 police officers were assigned full-time to the case. Investigators questioned all registered sex offenders in Cambridgeshire and neighboring Lincolnshire.
The photograph of two girls smiling and wearing Manchester United football jerseys, taken shortly before they disappeared, is still vividly remembered more than two decades after their murders.
They were found two weeks later, hidden in a ditch near RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, 10 miles away. Huntley, the school caretaker, was arrested the same day.
At his trial, Huntley tried to claim the girls’ deaths were accidental, but the Old Bailey jury rejected his evidence and found him guilty of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with a recommended minimum sentence of 40 years.
His girlfriend Maxine Carr gave him a false alibi and he was sentenced to 21 months in prison for perverting the course of justice. He now lives with a new identity.
After Huntley’s hearing, Jessica’s father, Leslie Chapman, said: “I think she was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode and both our daughters were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I hope the next time I see her it will be like we saw our daughters and it will be in a coffin.”
HMP Frankland, the prison where Huntley died, opened in 1983 and is a category A prison, meaning it has the highest security.
There are more than 800 male prisoners over the age of 21, including high-risk detainees and category A prisoners deemed to pose the greatest threat to the public, police or national security. Many are serving life sentences and life tariffs. These include convicted terrorists, murderers and sex offenders.
Current prisoners are thought to include serial killer Levi Bellfield, Soho nail bomber David Copeland and Metropolitan police officer Wayne Couzens, who raped and murdered Sarah Everard in 2021.
Previous prisoners included Charles Bronson, Peter Sutcliffe and Harold Shipman.
Anthony Russell, 43, is charged with Huntley’s murder and will appear at Newcastle Crown Court on April 24 for a pre-trial preparation hearing.
