UK News 27-11-2003 Maxine: Why I Lied who: Murder suspect Ian Huntley`s girlfriend Maxine Carr what: Explains why she lied to police during Soham investigation where: The Old Bailey, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "It was love at first sight for Maxine Carr when she met Ian Huntley in a Grimsby nightclub," the Old Bailey murder trial - and The Independent - heard yesterday. "On a day when the court learnt that the former caretaker had been accused of rape five years earlier, the jury listened to how the temporary teaching assistant of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman tried to explain away the "spiral" of lies she had told police before she was arrested." Believing him to be innocent, Carr gave her fiance a fake alibi "by saying she was at home when the 10-year-old friends called on the day they vanished," explains The Mirror after transcripts of police interviews given by Carr were read out in court. "Instead, she was 100 miles away in Grimsby." "My partner Ian, he was accused in 1998 of attacking a girl, raping a girl," Carr said. "It went to court, he was put in prison and bail hostel or whatever, then the police after so many months came up with this videotape of him in a nightclub at the time that was supposed to have happened and he was acquitted and he had a nervous breakdown. I just couldn`t see him going through that again `cos I know he hadn`t done anything like that and I didn`t want him to go through that again, being interrogated and having it thrown at him." The Independent quotes Det Con Paul Noble, who arrested Carr in connection with the murders of Holly and Jessica, as he described the moment she was charged. "Maxine sat on the bed in her room, silent for a period of time. She made only one comment. `You just said I was charged with murder`." "She said `They are not dead though. How do you know if they are dead?`" he added. On Tuesday the court heard Ian Huntley`s explanation that Holly Wells drowned in the bath while Jessica Chapman had accidentally been suffocated, and yesterday The Times listened to forensic pathologist Nat Cary casting doubt on Huntley`s account after further examination of the bath. "Although people did drown in baths alone, when drunk, drugged or suffering a fit, it is unheard of for them to do so with others present," he said. "To hold Jessica so tightly around the throat that she died would take only seconds, leaving plenty of time to rescue Holly from drowning." The pathologist added that he was sure it must be possible to work out a theoretical way of Holly being propelled into the bath so that she gets inside. However, "if you look at the population at large, if this happens at all, it must be vanishingly rare." [... more]

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