Picture of itinerant, unstable lives led by couple under arrest

He was among the most familiar faces in Soham, known by children and parents alike as a dependable presence, a gatekeeper for a rural community.

Equally, she was synonymous with a cosy normality as a teaching assistant at St Andrew's Primary School, overseeing the formation of young minds.

But the reality behind the lives of Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr emerged yesterday as a history far more of flux and instability than respectable permanence as citizens of a Cambridgeshire market town.

As the painstaking process of questioning and searching continued to fathom the involvement of the 28-year-old school caretaker and his fiancée in the deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, those who knew the couple began to shed light on their lives.

What emerged was the almost itinerant lifestyle of a couple now in the spotlight of one of the biggest criminal investigations in recent history.

The relationship was formed five years ago in their home town of Grimsby, where she and Mr Huntley held a succession of manual jobs and moved between bed-sits and flats.

Late last year, they travelled south, heading for East Anglia, where Mr Huntley's parents lived.

In a mirror image of the life that Mr Huntley was to settle into, his father, Kevin Huntley, 47, was a caretaker at a primary school in Littleport, near Ely.

Ian Huntley was described as an "exemplary candidate" when he applied for the job as the caretaker at Soham Village College, a secondary school seven miles from Littleport.

Families of children at the school spoke of his friendliness after he started work this year. He rapidly involving himself in the life of the fens town, at times even overseeing detentions at the school. He also showed a marked willingness to help when chairs were set out for those involved with the press conferences for the missing girls' parents.

Miss Carr, 25, earned the affection of Holly and Jessica while she worked as a classroom assistant at the adjoining St Andrew's Primary School. Despite her enthusiasm, she was turned down for any full-time job but betrayed no bitterness at her rejection

Instead she and her partner made plans for their wedding, continuing ordinary lives in a town where the nearest they came to nastiness was the local hoodlums roaring up and down the high street in souped-up cars on weekend nights.

However, one former girlfriend told yesterday how Mr Huntley was prone to outbursts of temper and mood swings during their relationship.

Katie Webber claimed he had bullied her and persuaded her not to go to school soon after they met when she was 15 and he was 23.

Mr Huntley was working with her mother selling charity scratchcards from door-to-door in Grimsby, one of a succession of odd jobs he took after leaving a comprehensive school in the town.

Miss Webber, now 21, from Cleethorpes, claimed in one newspaper interview that he had tried to stop her talking to her family and that he had slapped her when she burnt a pizza after they moved into a flat together.

Miss Webber said that at his request she left school without any qualifications to work in a factory. She said: "He never worked, although he said I should.

"He wanted me to do all the cooking and cleaning. He would lose his temper when I got it wrong. I lost my confidence and I just tried to please him."

Mr Huntley's jobs included working at Grimsby's Heinz factory, a job at a nappy factory and as a security guard. He used his mother's name, Nixon, after his parents split up in 1993, but reverted to using Huntley after they reconciled this year.