Ian Huntley ‘smashed in the skull three times with pole grabbed from a waste metal crate’: Child murderer remains fighting for his life
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Convicted child murderer Ian Huntley remains in a critical condition in hospital tonight after being smashed in the head three times with a metal pole, the Daily Mail can reveal.
The 52-year-old, who is serving life in prison for the murder of two 10-year-old girls in 2002, was attacked while working in the waste management workshop at HMP Frankland.
At around 9.30am a fellow inmate from his wing grabbed a metal bar from a nearby crate and launched the attack, leaving Huntley in a pool of his own blood with catastrophic head injuries.
Multiple prison sources suspect that Anthony Russell, a 43-year-old triple murderer, was the one who launched the assault, with inmates cheering as he was led away in handcuffs shouting: ‘I’ve done it, I’ve done it. I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him.’
A prison source told the Daily Mail: ‘Huntley was working in waste management with other prisoners from Wing A, the segregated wing for prisoners who can’t be in the normal jail population for their own protection.
‘The other prisoner got a metal bar from the waste metal crates and smashed Huntley three times in the head with it. It was a very, very serious injury, having been struck on the skull like that.’
The source said Wing A inmates, including sex offenders and other criminals at high risk of attack such as jailed police officers, move around the prison as a group, so are not segregated from each other but are from other inmates.
One woman, who visited an inmate housed alongside Huntley told the Daily Mail it looked like he had been ‘ripped apart like a rat’.
She added: ‘He’s in a bad, bad way. I shouldn’t say it, but it’s what he deserves.’
It is understood that Huntley is now in a medically induced coma in hospital.
Ian Huntley is serving life for murdering two 10-year-old girls in his home in Soham, a Cambridgeshire market town made infamous by his vile crimes in 2002
It is suspected that Anthony Russell, a 43-year-old triple murderer, was the one who led the assault
Best friends Holly Wells (left) and Jessica Chapman (right) were murdered by Huntley
Another source said the double killer’s condition was ‘touch and go’ and described the scene on the wing as ‘absolute chaos’.
The prisoner is understood to have been placed in segregation following the assault.
Russell was charged with the murder of Julie Williams and her son David Williams in Coventry, as well as the rape and murder of pregnant Nicole McGregor near Leamington Spa in 2022.
At the time West Midlands Police believed Mr Williams was strangled with a lanyard due to Russell’s ‘mistaken belief that he was in a relationship with his girlfriend’.
He then went on to kill Mr Williams’ 58-year-old mother in an attack that inflicted 113 separate injuries.
The court also heard that he had assaulted Ms McGregor, who was five months pregnant, just hours after she showed him a picture of her baby scan. He then pretended to help Ms McGregor’s partner look for her.
This is the third time Huntley has been attacked in jail. In 2010, his throat was slashed with a homemade weapon and, in 2005, another inmate threw boiling water over him.
Last year, Huntley was said to have been strutting around the jail wearing a No 10 Manchester United-style shirt in an apparent vile taunt about his victims.
A photo of the schoolgirls wearing matching football shirts – tragically taken on the day Huntley lured them into his house – became synonymous with the desperate search which gripped the country.
A spokesperson for Durham Constabulary said: ‘The 52-year-old prisoner who was injured during this morning’s assault in the workshop at HMP Frankland remains in a serious condition in hospital following treatment for head injuries.
‘Police forensic teams have examined the scene of the attack throughout the day to gather evidence.
‘A suspect, a male prisoner in his mid-40s, has been identified by officers investigating the incident. He has not been arrested at this stage, but remains in detention within the prison’.
School caretaker Huntley lured both schoolgirls into his home and murdered them, before dumping their bodies in a ditch some 12 miles away.
