{"id":331931,"date":"2026-03-06T11:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T11:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331931\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T11:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T11:15:08","slug":"huntley-blind-and-unlikely-to-survive-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331931\/","title":{"rendered":"Huntley ‘blind’ and unlikely to survive attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

Double child killer Ian Huntley has been blinded and is not expected to regain consciousness following an attack in the workshop of a British maximum security prison, according to reports.<\/p>\n

The Sun newspaper said the 52-year-old suffered severe brain trauma in the attack at HMP Frankland, Durham, on 26 February.<\/a><\/p>\n

The former school caretaker, who murdered ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002, has been kept on life support in hospital after being hit repeatedly over the head by an inmate armed with a metal bar.<\/p>\n

The Sun reported that the attack left Huntley blind and it quoted a source saying: “Huntley never recovered from the battering and never stood much of a chance of doing so.”<\/p>\n

He was attacked in the recycling area of the prison.<\/p>\n

Durham Constabulary has not identified the suspect but it said on the day of the attack that a man in his mid-40s had been detained.<\/p>\n

\"Holly
\nHolly Wells (L) and Jessica Chapman were murdered by Ian Huntley in 2002<\/p>\n

After the attack, Huntley’s only daughter Samantha Bryan, 27, told The Sun on Sunday of her father: “There’s a special place in hell waiting for him.”<\/p>\n

Huntley murdered Holly and Jessica after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets in Soham, Cambridgeshire, on 4 August 2002. He dumped their bodies in a ditch.<\/p>\n

The attack was the latest attempt on Huntley’s life and he was thought to have been kept under close observation to prevent such attacks.<\/p>\n

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 an 18cm wound which required 21 stitches.<\/p>\n

Fowkes asked a prison officer: “Is he dead? I hope so.”<\/p>\n

He described Huntley as a “notorious child killer, both inside prison and in society in general”.<\/p>\n

Huntley’s life sentence recommended he serve at least 40 years for the Soham murders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Double child killer Ian Huntley has been blinded and is not expected to regain consciousness following an attack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-331931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}