Anthony Russell charged with murder of Ian Huntley, Sun News update
Ian Huntley, who had been serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 40 years for the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, died after an assault in prison. The charge of murder against Anthony Russell, 43, connects that death to a single moment at HMP Frankland and will be followed closely when sun news coverage moves to the courts.
Sun News: Anthony Russell to appear at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates’ Court
Anthony Russell, 43, has been charged with the murder of Ian Huntley and will appear at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates’ Court in person by video link on Wednesday 11 March ET. Christopher Atkinson of the Crown Prosecution Service said prosecutors had worked to establish sufficient evidence and that it was in the public interest to bring the case to trial, a legal step that now leads to the magistrates’ hearing.
HMP Frankland: the workshop attack on Thursday, February 26 ET
Emergency services were called to reports of an assault in the workshop on the morning of Thursday, February 26 ET. Police said Huntley was found lying in a pool of blood after being bludgeoned with a makeshift weapon at HMP Frankland in County Durham. He was taken to hospital with serious injuries and died nine days later; medical care included a period on life support before his condition worsened.
Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman: the 2002 murders and aftermath
Huntley had been convicted for the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, both aged 10, after the girls vanished in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in August 2002. The pair had left a family barbecue and were later found in a ditch about a fortnight after they went missing. Huntley was arrested the same day and jailed; his former girlfriend, Maxine Carr, was jailed in 2003 for conspiring to pervert the course of justice and was later given a new identity after her release in May 2004.
Prison records show Huntley had previously been attacked inside prison. In 2005 an inmate threw boiling water over him at HMP Wakefield, and five years later he was slashed across the throat at HMP Frankland and required 21 stitches. The Ministry of Justice has said the crime for which he was jailed remains one of the most shocking in the nation’s history.
For now, the immediate legal milestone is Russell’s court appearance on Wednesday 11 March ET at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates’ Court. The charge brings the episode full circle back to the man at the centre of the original story, Ian Huntley, and to the courtroom process that will determine the next steps in a case born from the attack at HMP Frankland.
