Soham monster Ian Huntley has been targeted in prison at least three times before the latest attack that has reportedly left him “fighting for his life”. The child killer – believed to have been airlifted to hospital after being left lying in a pool of blood – has long been a target due to his sick crimes.
Huntley, 52, was jailed in 2003 for the cold blooded murders of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, both 10, which shocked the nation. And he instantly came under attack from fellow lags.
In 2005, he had boiling water thrown over him in Wakefield Prison by fellow murderer Mark Hobson, who had himself just been jailed for the grisly murders of his girlfriend, her twin sister and elderly couple while he was on the run.
Hobson was placed into solitary confinement for three months after scalding Huntley. A prison service spokesman said that due to the nature of high-security prisoners “it’s impossible to prevent incidents of this nature occasionally happening.”
The in 2010, armed robber Damien Fowkes slashed Huntley’s throat in HMP Frankland in Durham, putting him in hospital. A court heard he used a homemade weapon to carry out the attack while Huntley was working on the healthcare wing of the secure prison.
Huntley had 21 stitches which left him with a scar from his jugular to the other side of his windpipe. He later said of the attack: “It was 2mm away from my jugular. The only thing I could think of was get a message to my family to say I was OK.”
The attack caused a “severe gaping cut to the left side of his neck”, Hull Crown Court was told. Prosecutor Graham Reeds said lifer Fowkes asked a prison officer: “Is he dead? I hope so.” Mr Reeds Fowkes had “since expressed a particular hatred for child killers”.
He admitted attempted murder of Huntley and also pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of child killer Colin Hatch, 38, who had been jailed for the murder of seven-year-old Sean Williams in London in January 1994.
The court heard Fowkes barricaded himself and Hatch into a cell on D Wing at Full Sutton prison and told screws he would not kill him if they stayed outside. The officers dealt with it as a hostage situation, but Fowkes killed Hatch using strips of bedding as ligatures.
At one point, Fowkes told officers: “He’s a nonce. He doesn’t deserve to live.” He later guards that child offenders “just do my head in. It was the same when I did Huntley.”
And in May 2017, a violent convict with a blade tried to slit Huntley’s throat for the second time. In a prison recording leaked to The Sun, Huntley said the attacker “came in with a razor blade on a toothbrush”.
Details of the alleged incident were never made public, but Huntley was heard saying on the tape: “There was an attempt on my life last year. I have no problems telling you his name, it was a prisoner who tried to kill me.
“He came into my cell armed with a weapon and tried to cut my throat. I managed to kick him in the chest and then to the stomach. I took the weapon off him and he was on the floor.
“At that point, one of my friends turned up and I said, ‘He has got a weapon’, just as this Simon was getting back to his feet. This Simon then looked at him then looked back at me and then my friend grabbed him from behind. Shortly afterwards staff arrived.”
The latest attack, said to have happened at around 9am on Thursday, left Huntley in a pool of blood on his prison wing at HMP Frankland. His condition was said to be “touch and go”.
Experienced criminal defence lawyer Marcus Johnstone said: “‘I am not remotely surprised that Ian Huntley has been attacked in prison, four months since Ian Watkins was murdered by a fellow prisoner at HMP Wakefield.
“Having worked with prisoners convicted of very serious offences for over 20 years, I have seen the ways prisons work and just how vulnerable these inmates are to attacks from fellow offenders.
“He would be classed as a vulnerable prisoner and likely held with other vulnerable prisoners – ie sex offenders. However, as a child killer he would also be disliked by sex offenders. Even sex offenders have boundaries that would not cross.”
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