Soham Killer Found After Overdose

{mosimage} Soham killer Ian Huntley has been found unconscious in his cell at Wakefield Prison after taking a suspected overdose, the Prison Service has said. He was discovered in the early hours of Tuesday morning and prison staff resuscitated him, a spokeswoman said. The killer, who has taken an overdose before, is now under heavy sedation at an unnamed hospital, she added. Huntley, 32, received two life terms for the 2002 murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells in Soham, Cambs. While awaiting trial for the murder of the two 10-year-old schoolgirls, the former school caretaker saved up 29 anti-depressant pills in a box of teabags and was found suffering a fit on the floor of his cell at Woodhill Prison, near Milton Keynes. An official report into the previous suicide attempt uncovered a number of “serious systems failures”.

The 2003 report criticised management and staff briefings which were “not robust enough” but it did not recommend disciplining individual officers.
Then Home Office minister Paul Goggins said the internal report revealed a “completely unacceptable situation”.

The minister said at the time: “Procedures for dispensing medication to Mr Huntley fell well short of acceptable standards.”

The system officers used to search Huntley’s belongings was “predictable” and “did not include the items stored outside of his cell”, added the internal Prison Service report.

The document made 15 recommendations, including a review of the jail’s cell search strategy and an independent review of security intelligence in the prison, including CCTV.

In September 2005, High Court judge Mr Justice Moses ruled that Huntley, originally from Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, must serve at least 40 years in prison.

He said the killings did not meet the criteria for a “whole-life tariff”, but the 40-year term offered “little or no hope” of his release.