Britain: Ian Huntley admitted to people searching for Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman that he had seen the girls, hours after he denied spotting them, his Old Bailey murder trial heard yesterday.
At 10.30 p.m. on the night the girls disappeared Mr Huntley was asked by a group of people if he had seen them and he said he had not, the court has heard. But he told firemen searching for the 10-year-olds at about 2.30 a.m. the next day that he had seen the girls walking past his house on the evening of Sunday August 4th.
The court heard that the former caretaker of Soham Village College had been "incredibly helpful" to police in the search for the missing girls.
The drama of the search on the August Sunday night was relived in the courtroom as witnesses described the mounting panic and the sight of Kevin Wells screaming his daughter's name across playing fields. But Mr Huntley (29) seemed "calm" and "as if he was out walking his dog" during the frantic hunt, according to a fellow searcher.
Mr David Hobbs, a firefighter who spent an hour with Mr Huntley as he searched for the girls in the early hours of August 5th, said that the former caretaker told him the two girls had passed his house at 6.30 p.m.
Mr Stephen Coward QC, for Mr Huntley, suggested that the former caretaker's admission had only been made after one of the searchers mentioned that the missing girls were wearing red Manchester United shirts.
A police dog-handler, PC Anna Burton, told the court that Mr Huntley had offered to help her search the college area some time after midnight. They had spent an hour going around the site together.
She said she had asked Mr Huntley what the hangar building was - where the court has heard that the charred remnants of the girls' clothes were later found hidden in a bin - and was told it was a groundsman's building. She asked if he had the keys and was told he did not. Police found the keys in his house when they searched it 12 days later.
Another witness, Mr Stuart Smith, said that he had walked past the caretaker's house between midnight and 12.30 a.m. The lights in the house were off and he noticed that Mr Huntley's car was not parked there. However, some hours later, he had spotted Mr Huntley at the back of a crowd near the police rendezvous point.
The prosecution alleges that Mr Huntley killed the girls on the evening they went missing and put their bodies in his car before dumping them in a remote ditch at Lakenheath, Suffolk, later that night.
Mr Huntley denies murdering the 10-year-old friends but has admitted conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
His ex-girlfriend, Ms Maxine Carr (26), a former classroom assistant at the girls' primary school, denies conspiring to pervert the course of justice and two charges of assisting an offender. The prosecution alleges that she gave Mr Huntley a false alibi for the day the girls went missing. - (PA)