Carr in custody after third court appearance

The companion of the school caretaker accused of killing the 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman was remanded in…

The companion of the school caretaker accused of killing the 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman was remanded in custody this afternoon.

Ms Maxine Carr (25) is accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice by lying to investigators.

It was her third court appearance since her arrest. She appeared via video link from a north London women's jail.

Prosecutors said Ms Carr could appear next in court in Norwich, eastern England, on November 12th or 15th together with murder suspect Mr Ian Huntley.

Both were arrested hours before the bodies of Wells and Chapman were found in woods outside a US air base in Suffolk on August 17th, nearly two weeks after they disappeared in their nearby home town of Soham, Cambridgeshire.

Mr Huntley (28) remains at a top-security prison undergoing psychiatric observation.

Prosecutor Mr Karim Khalil told the court that nearly 180 police and support staff were working on the case, one of the biggest of its kind in British criminal history, backed up by forensic experts across England.

Some 1,800 statements had been taken, and 1,500 lines of inquiry still being pursued, he said.

AFP

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