UK caretaker guilty of girls' double murder

A British school caretaker was sentenced to life in prison yesterday for murdering two girls in his home - a case that became known through much of the world by their last smiling picture in matching red soccer shirts.

Ian Huntley, 29, murdered 10-year-old friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman minutes after they vanished from their homes in the village of Soham, eastern England, in August last year, sparking one of Britain's biggest manhunts.

"The next time I have to see him is like how we saw our daughters, and that's in a coffin," Jessica's father Leslie said. "Our life sentence started last August."

After the verdict at London's Old Bailey court, it emerged police checks on Huntley when he applied for his job had failed to reveal numerous allegations of rape and underage sex.

Home Secretary David Blunkett said an inquiry would be launched.

"Real concerns exist about the way in which police intelligence about Huntley's past was handled," he said in a statement. "I am determined that we should uncover the full facts through this independent inquiry."

For two weeks in 2002, British media gave almost unparalleled attention to the hunt for Holly and Jessica. The discovery of their badly decomposed bodies in a ditch, where they had been stripped and burnt, horrified the public and drew worldwide sympathy.

"You showed no mercy and you show no regret," Judge Alan Moses told Huntley. "Their lives brought joy to a community and their deaths brought grief. There are few worse crimes."

Mr Huntley's former fiancee Maxine Carr, 26, who lied to police by claiming she was with him at the time the girls were killed, was found not guilty of helping an offender but guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. She was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Sentencing her, Judge Moses said: "If you had had the slightest true regard for those girls, you would have told the truth."

Mr Huntley had denied murdering the girls, claiming in evidence to the court that their deaths were accidental. He said Holly died after falling into the bath in his house and that Jessica died when he put his hand over her mouth to stop her screaming.

"I accept I am responsible for the deaths of Holly and Jessica, but there is nothing I can do about it now. I sincerely wish there was," he had told the court.

But prosecutor Richard Latham dismissed his explanation, telling jurors: "Ten-year-old girls don't just drop dead."

During the trial, Mr Latham suggested that the "whole business" was sexually motivated, with Mr Huntley murdering the girls when "something went wrong".

However there was no forensic evidence to back up the claims and acting Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Stevenson said only Mr Huntley knew for sure what had happened.