Huntley's story 'did not add up', Carr told his mother

Maxine Carr told Ian Huntley's mother that his story did not add up months after the pair were arrested, the Old Bailey trial was told yesterday.

As the prosecution entered its closing stages, the jury listened to tape recordings and heard transcripts of telephone conversations between Ms Carr and Lynda Nixon. They also heard excerpts from a transcript of a covertly recorded meeting between Mr Huntley, who denies murdering Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, and his mother.

Ms Carr told Ms Nixon how the former caretaker had been chatting calmly about getting some beer and watching a video minutes after Holly and Jessica were said to have entered his house at about 6.30pm on 4 August 2002, the jury was told. He did not tell her that he had seen them until the following day. She also told Ms Nixon that she had discovered that Mr Huntley was having an affair with a colleague.

The girls' disappearance from Soham, Cambridgeshire, prompted a search which ended 13 days later with the discovery of their bodies. In recent days the jury in the murder trial has learnt that Mr Huntley admits that the school friends died in his house. He said that Holly drowned accidentally and Jessica died when he tried to stop her screaming.

Yesterday they heard details of telephone conversations between Ms Carr, 26 - who denies two counts of assisting an offender and one of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice - and Ms Nixon on 30 October while Ms Carr was in Holloway Prison in north London. She said that Mr Huntley phoned her at 6.40pm in Grimsby, adding: "Yeah, like I told my solicitor, about this, you know, that the girls had been in the house ... and explained everything about what Ian had told me, the one with the nosebleed, the dark-haired one and all that. And that it had stopped and then they had gone, that's what he told me, but it doesn't add up because like I say ... the times don't add up because I mean he rang me at my mum's house at like, 20 to seven, 'cos we were ready for going, for going out." She added: "He rang me and he was so calm and he said 'You know, I've got a video, I'm gonna watch a video'."

It was not until the following morning that he told her Holly and Jessica had been in the house, she said on the recording. "I mean, wouldn't you if you'd just seen someone 10 minutes before, wouldn't you say, 'oh, by the way, I've just saw such and such'," Ms Carr asked Ms Nixon. "Yes," Ms Nixon replied.

In another conversation, Ms Carr said: "This woman had given a statement saying she's had, she's been having an affair with Ian, and so I wrote to Ian and I put in it you know, I just sort of said, well I just asked him."

The jury listened to nine minutes of another conversation between the two women on 18 October last year in which Ms Carr admitted discussing an alibi with Mr Huntley on the day after the girls disappeared.

"He wanted me to come home [from Grimsby] Lyn. He said to me that these girls had been right. He said there was some kids had gone missing and I said 'Oh yeah' and he told me who they were and I said 'well I knew who they were' and he said 'yeah, but the thing is Maxine they came in our house'," said Ms Carr.

The jury was also told how Mr Huntley tried to convince his mother that he was being framed by the real killer. During a secretly recorded conversation at Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes on 23 October last year, he told her: "I am adamant, I 100 per cent remember them girls leaving my house." The 29-year-old suggested that somebody, having spotted the girls going into his house, placed Holly and Jessica's charred clothes in the Soham Village College hangar to point the finger of suspicion at him. "I think this is what's possibly happened yeah. I'm gonna put this to Roy [his solicitor] to see what he thinks," he said.

Pointing out that there were confirmed sightings - later found to be false - after he spoke to Holly and Jessica, he added: "Yeah, well this is what I've been thinking, I think somebody's been following them girls, seen them girls at my bloody house knowing full well they might find some DNA in my house, bugger off and put the clothes down at the school to make it look like it's me and that's really what I believe happened.''

He said: "Now because the police can't find the f***ing real person that has done any of this ..." His mother said: "They want to," and Mr Huntley replied: "They want me."

Crying, Mr Huntley said that he had suffered a nervous breakdown with blackouts as long as two hours. He had "so much to say" to the police but doctors believed he was unfit to be interviewed, he said.

"I knew it was happening but I couldn't stop it, you have no idea what that feels like to have no control over what you do, to be so scared that you find yourself huddled up next to a toilet on the floor [begins crying] because that's what I was when I came round. One minute I was just sat next, on my bed or something and the next minute, about two hours later I just found myself huddled up next to a toilet with sick in the toilet and me just crying in a ball," he said.

The trial continues.

KEY ADMISSIONS OUTLINED BY THE PROSECUTION

¿ Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went into 5 College Close shortly after 6pm on Sunday 4 August 2002.

¿ The mobile phone belonging to Jessica Chapman explicitly detached from the mobile network at 6.46pm on Sunday 4 August 2002. This was the last recorded signal.

¿ Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman died in 5 College Close on Sunday 4 August 2002.

¿ The only other person in 5 College Close at the time of their deaths was Ian Huntley.

¿ Mr Huntley removed the dead bodies of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman from 5 College Close and transported them in the Ford Fiesta car to the place where the bodies were found.

¿ Mr Huntley cut and removed the clothing from Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

¿ Mr Huntley set the bodies alight and used petrol in the process.

¿ Mr Huntley burnt the clothes of the two girls in the bin.

¿ Mr Huntley placed the bin bag over the burnt clothes.