Double child killer Ian Huntley could get a taxpayer-funded funeral and memorial, and the prison governor will be forced to write a letter of condolence to his family, after he was bludgeoned to death by a fellow inmate at HMP Frankland.
Huntley, who appalled the nation with the murders of 10-year-old schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002, died yesterday morning after his life support was switched off on Friday.
So hated was Huntley that even his own daughter has called for his ashes to be ‘flushed down the toilet’ – yet the prison faces having to grant him the customary death rites, as dictated by government policy.
Firstly, the governor of the Durham prison, Darren Finley, will have to pen a letter of condolence to Huntley’s family and invite them to visit the prison.
He must also offer to contribute up to £3,000 towards funeral costs, which would be payable to funeral directors upon the receipt of invoices.
This is to cover reasonable costs of any service the family organises, which could include a hearse, a coffin, a faith leader and cremation fees. If the family chooses not to arrange a funeral, then this money would not be distributed.
It is expected that Huntley will be cremated at an undisclosed location.
On top of this, protocol says that a memorial service should be organised through the prison’s chaplaincy, which the family, other inmates and prison staff may attend.
Huntley was hit over the head repeatedly with a spiked metal bar taken from a waste metal basket, sources told the Daily Mail.
Triple murderer Anthony Russell, 43, is suspected of launching the brutal assault, which left Huntley ‘torn apart like a rat’ and lying in a pool of his own blood.
Prison sources this weekend suggested to The Mail on Sunday that the issue of Huntley’s next of kin had caused a family ‘disagreement’.
The decision to turn off his life support was supposed to fall to his daughter, Samantha Bryan.
Ms Bryan, however, had never met her father, and so it was left to his mother, Lynda Richards.
She had travelled to Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary from her home in Lincolnshire a few days after the attack.
Ms Bryan, 27, told The Sun on Sunday she does not believe that her father deserves a funeral.
She said: ‘He shouldn’t have the dignity of a funeral and grave. I will not be going. A funeral is pointless for a man like him.
‘I don’t want there to ever be any possibility of freaks or weirdos going to a resting place or memorial, to show him some kind of twisted respect.’
Huntley was jailed for life with a minimum sentence of 40 years in December 2003. Judges told him that he had ‘little or no hope’ of ever being released.
In the end, he died without ever revealing the full truth about the girls’ deaths, only a sanitised version.
In court, he said both girls died accidentally, claiming Holly drowned in his bath and that he inadvertently suffocated Jessica while trying to stifle her screams.
But in 2018 he confessed to deliberately killing Jessica to stop her from raising the alarm. To her family’s distress, he always claimed Holly’s death was an accident.
Huntley initially claimed the pair had left his house alive, but eventually confessed to dumping their bodies in a remote ditch, cutting off their clothes and burning their bodies to cover his tracks.
During the 13-day search for the girls, Huntley was filmed saying he was likely to be the last person to have seen them on the day they disappeared and expressed sympathy to the families.
This was the latest in a string of violent attempts on Huntley’s life by other prisoners, who detested him for the nature of his unthinkable crimes and for his behaviour behind bars, which sources have said was repellent.
It was previously reported that Huntley wore a red Manchester United football shirt around prison, which infuriated other inmates.
Another inmate slashed Huntley’s throat in 2010, leaving him needing 21 stitches, and in 2005, he a convicted murderer threw boiling water over him.
In an image which became imprinted on the nation’s consciousness, his two victims wore Manchester United jerseys in a photograph taken shortly before they were killed.
Huntley had apparently come to terms with the fact that he would die in prison, as revealed by leaked tape recordings of conversations he had behind bars.
In 2018, a recording of a phone call was leaked to The Sun, in which Huntley confessed to the murders and made a groveling apology.
He told a friend: ‘And I am sorry for what I have done, sorry for the pain I have caused to the families and friends of Holly and Jessica, for the pain I have caused my family and friends, and for the pain I have caused the community of Soham.
‘I am genuinely, genuinely sorry and it breaks my heart when it is reported I have no remorse; that I relish something. I do not.
He said that he thought about the girls when they would have turned 18 and 21.
Huntley continued: ‘I know no matter what I say that people are not going to think any better of me. I know that, I don’t expect it to, but I would much rather people have the truth about how I feel.
‘I have nothing to gain by saying these things. I know I am never getting out. I have accepted that from day one.’
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: ‘The murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman remains one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation’s history, and our thoughts are with their families.’
