Police asked to investigate journalist who obtained job at Huntley's prison
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Your support makes all the difference.An investigation has begun into how a News of the World journalist managed to get work at the prison where the Soham murder suspect, Ian Huntley, is being held.
David McGee, who secured a job as an officer at the top- security Woodhill prison in Buckinghamshire, reported in yesterday's News of the World that he had obtained the post after giving a bogus job reference and a false address.
The paper also published pictures of Mr Huntley in his cell taken by Mr McGee when he was guarding the suspect at the prison in January.
A spokesman for the Prison Service said that police officers had been asked to examine the case. "We've asked Thames Valley Police to investigate the possibility that any criminal offence was committed," he said.
A separate inquiry is under way at the jail after Mr Huntley was taken ill with a drug overdose. A Prison Service spokesman said the alleged breach of security involving the reporter would require a thorough investigation.
"We are very concerned about the allegations in a Sunday newspaper that a reporter was employed at HMP Woodhill," he said. "The deputy director general has commenced an investigation which will be conducted by a senior manager from the Prison Service and will report to ministers as soon as possible."
Mr McGee said that he had given the name of a convicted criminal on his curriculum vitae when he applied for the job and had listed "a long- defunct firm" as a previous employer, both of which went unnoticed. He also said that his occupation in his passport, which was used by the Prison Service as proof of identity, was marked "journalist".
He said he "simply called up" the prison and asked for a job. "Within 13 weeks of starting training, and while I was still a rookie warder, I was the sole guard minding Huntley," he said. "At each point in my investigation I felt certain that there must be a vetting procedure that would expose the flaws in my application. But it kept moving forward, stage to stage, with no trouble at all. The camera I smuggled in could easily have been a small explosive or a knife."
Mr Huntley, 29, is on remand awaiting trial charged with the murders of the 10-year-olds Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, from Soham, Cambridgeshire, in August last year. He denies the murders and is expected to stand trial at the Old Bailey in October. He has admitted conspiring to pervert the course of justice.