Ian Huntley hours from death as child killer’s life support machine SHUT OFF after brutal prison attack

The former school caretaker, who murdered 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002, has been kept on life support in hospital after being hit repeatedly over the head by an inmate armed with a metal bar.

Sources told The Sun Huntley’s life support was switched off at lunchtime today, Friday, after brain tests showed he was in a vegetative state.

Huntley's mother, 71-year-old Lynda Richards has been the only member of his family to visit him in hospital.

Sources in the hospital said the murderer was able to "shallow breathe" without life support. However, he is not expected to survive for much longer.

One person close to the case told The Sun last night: "This is it, this is the end of Huntley. He is effectively dead and, at the best, is drawing his last breaths.

"No one who has dealt with him is shedding a tear. Even his mother has accepted that this is for the best, having seen him and knowing what a state he is in."

Huntley murdered the two girls after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets in Soham, Cambridgeshire, on August 4 2002.

He dumped their bodies in a ditch in a case that shocked the nation.

After the attack on him in prison, Huntley’s only daughter Samantha Bryan, 27, told The Sun on Sunday of her father: "There’s a special place in hell waiting for him."

Murderer and rapist Anthony Russell, 43, reportedly shouted "I’ve done it, I’ve done it" after Huntley was attacked in the recycling area of the prison.

Durham Constabulary has not identified the suspect but it said on the day of the attack that a man in his mid-40s had been detained.

Russell was sentenced to a whole-life tariff in 2021 for the murders of Julie Williams, 58, and her son David Williams, 32, at separate flats in Coventry, and pregnant 31-year-old Nicole McGregor, who was found in woodland near Leamington Spa three days later.

Russell also raped Ms McGregor.

It was the latest attempt on Huntley’s life and he was thought to have been kept under close observation to prevent such attacks.

In 2010, robber Damien Fowkes slashed him with a home-made weapon, causing a “severe, gaping cut to the left side of his neck” with a 7in (18cm) wound which required 21 stitches.

Fowkes asked a prison officer: “Is he dead? I hope so.”

He described Huntley as a “notorious child killer, both inside prison and in society in general”.

Huntley’s life sentence recommended he serve at least 40 years for the Soham murders.