A monstrous child killer is fighting for his life after being battered unconscious in a vicious attack with a metal pole whilst in prison.
Ian Huntley, 52, was” left lying in a pool of blood” on his prison wing and rushed to hospital after being targeted by another inmate at around 9am on Thursday.
Ian Huntley murdered two schoolgirls in 2002
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PA
Reports said the killer’s condition was “touch and go” after the attack by a vengeful fellow inmate with a metal pole.
The beating at HMP Frankland, County Durham, comes after many previous attempts at his life, including an incident in 2018 where a violent convict with a shank tried to slit Huntley’s throat.
The killer’s vile crimes have led to fellow inmates attacking him behind bars at least three times before, serving life in HMP Frankland for the murders of 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
The 52-year-old carried out the double child killing in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in 2002, where school caretaker Huntley lured the girls to his home and murdered them before disposing of their bodies in a ditch.
Police and residents rallied together in a huge search effort to find the children, failing to find the bodies until more than a week later near an airbase, 12 miles from Soham.
Ian Huntley is serving time at HMP Frankland, County Durham
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A Prison Service spokesperson said: “A prisoner is receiving treatment after an incident at HMP Frankland on Thursday morning.
“It would be inappropriate to comment further while police investigate.”
Durham Police added that an inmate has suffered serious injuries after being attacked in the prison.
A spokesman for Durham Constabulary said: “Police were alerted to an assault which had taken place within HMP Frankland in Durham this morning.
“A male prisoner suffered serious injuries during the incident and was transported to hospital.
“A police investigation is now under way into the circumstances of the incident and detectives are liaising with staff at the prison”.
A North East Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “We received a call at 9:23am to reports of an incident at HMP Frankland in County Durham.
“We despatched two ambulance crews to the scene and requested support from the Great North Air Ambulance Service. One patient was transported to hospital by road”.
In 2010, armed robber Damien Fowkes also slashed Huntley’s throat in Frankland, putting him in hospital, with murderer Mark Hobson throwing boiling water over him in Wakefield Prison in 2005.
As one of Britain’s most infamous killers, Huntley was convicted in 2003 after pleading not guilty.
His then fiancée Maxine Carr, was a teaching assistant at Holly and Jessica’s school in the Cambridgeshire town and had given him a false alibi.
She was also sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail for perverting the course of justice and issued with a new identity on release.
Carr infamously turned on Huntley as he sat in the dock during his murder trial, describing him as “that thing in the box”.
She was granted a lifelong anonymity order in 2005, which protects her new identity indefinitely.
In tapes recorded behind bars in 2018, he confessed to deliberately killing Jessica to stop her raising the alarm, yet still insisted Holly’s death was an accident.
Other inmates locked up in the high-security prison currently holding Huntley include Sarah Everard’s murderer Wayne Couzens, serial killer Levi Bellfield and Facebook Killer Peter Chapman.