Soham killer Ian Huntley remains seriously ill in hospital five days after being attacked in the workshop of a maximum security jail by an inmate with a metal bar.
Durham Constabulary said on Tuesday that there had been no change in the 52-year-old’s condition after he was severely assaulted at HMP Frankland, near Durham, on Thursday.
The force said: “There has been no change in the 52-year-old man’s condition overnight – he remains in hospital in a serious condition.”
According to reports, triple killer Anthony Russell allegedly shouted “I’ve done it, I’ve done it” after Huntley was repeatedly smashed over the head with a piece of metal in a recycling area.
The force has declined to identify the suspect but said on the day of the alleged attack that a man in his mid-40s was detained.
After the attack, Huntley’s only daughter Samantha Bryan, 27, told The Sun on Sunday: “There’s a special place in hell waiting for him.”
Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were killed in Soham in 2002. Credit: Family photo
Former caretaker Huntley killed 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets in Soham, Cambridgeshire, on 4 August 2002.
He dumped their bodies in a ditch, where they were found 13 days later.
Russell was sentenced to a whole-life tariff in 2021 for the murders of Julie Williams, 58, and her son David Williams, 32, at separate flats in Coventry, and pregnant 31-year-old Nicole McGregor, who was found in woodland near Leamington Spa three days later.
Russell also raped Ms McGregor.
Thursday’s severe beating was the latest attack on Huntley and he was thought to have been kept under close observation to prevent such assaults.
In 2010, robber Damien Fowkes slashed him with a home-made weapon, causing a “severe, gaping cut to the left side of his neck” with a 7in (18cm) wound which required 21 stitches.
Fowkes asked a prison officer: “Is he dead? I hope so.”
He described Huntley as a “notorious child killer, both inside prison and in society in general”.
Huntley’s life sentence recommended he serve at least 40 years for the Soham murders.
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