Child killer Ian Huntley’s life support machine has been switched off after he was brutally attacked in prison, sources claim.
The 52-year-old was put on life support in critical condition with catastrophic skull injuries after a fellow inmate left him ‘ripped apart like a rat’, a woman who visited the prison previously told the Daily Mail.
His mother, Lynda Richards, 71, is understood to have been by his bedside as his life support was switched off at lunchtime today after brain tests showed he was in a vegetative state.
Medics turned off the ventilator that was keeping him alive after consultations with his mother, the only relative to visit him in the hospital, The Sun reports.
A source said: ‘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 was serving at least 40 years in HMP Frankland, County Durham for murdering ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman at his home in Soham in 2002.
Triple killer and rapist Anthony Russell, 43, is suspected of carrying out the savage beating in the prison workshop at 9.30am on Thursday last week.
Ian Huntley (pictured in August 2002), who killed 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002, was beaten over the head three times with a metal pole by a fellow inmate. His mother, Lynda Richards, 71, is understood to have been by his bedside as his life support was switched off at lunchtime today
Triple murderer and rapist Anthony Russell, 43, is suspected of carrying out the savage attack. Inmates reportedly cheered as the attacker was said to have shouted: ‘I’ve done it, I’ve done it. I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him’
Best friends Holly Wells (left) and Jessica Chapman (right) were murdered by Huntley. He was seen strutting around prison wearing a Manchester United jersey as an apparent vile taunt at his victims last year
Doctors previoulsy considering switching off Huntley’s ventilator after he did not respond to treatment, with the source saying doctors ‘have worked wonders’ to even keep him alive.
Inmates were said to be cheering as the attacker reportedly shouted: ‘I’ve done it, I’ve done it. I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him.’
A source previously told the Daily Mail that a fight had broken out between Huntley and a fellow inmate on his wing, who then ‘got a metal bar from the waste metal crates and smashed Huntley three times in the head with it’.
They added: ‘It was a very, very serious injury, having been struck on the skull like that.’
I’m Sam Greenhill, Chief Reporter, and nearly 25 years ago I had an encounter with killer Ian Huntley that still sends shivers down my spine.
Huntley is one Britain¿s most notorious child murderers. But when I was invited into his home for tea and biscuits days before he was arrested for the Soham Murders, this was the last thing on my mind. I’ve written about it in The Crime Desk newsletter – sign up to read it for free.
He was left in a pool of his own blood and prison officers believed he had died then and there because he was ‘not breathing’, but paramedics were able to put him into a medically induced coma and transport him to hospital.
His mother, Lynda Richards, 71, travelled 175 miles from her Lincolnshire home to his bedside and said he looked ‘unrecognisable’.
She confessed, ‘part of me hopes he dies’ as he had been attacked so many times while serving his sentence, The Sun said.
Medics gave Huntley, a former school caretaker, a five per cent chance of survival.
This is the latest in a slew of serious attacks that Huntley has been subjected to by his fellow inmates.
His throat was slit by robber Damien Fowkes in 2010 but he survived and needed 21 stitches.
Another inmate tried to kill him in his cell with a makeshift ‘shank’ knife made from a razor blade on a toothbrush in 2018, a leaked prison recording revealed.
He was also doused in boiling water by another inmate in 2005.
In 2006, he tried to kill himself at Wakefield Prison and needed hospital treatment.
Police are yet to make an arrest following the attack, but have said they have a suspect and confirmed that Huntley remained in hospital in a ‘serious condition’.
The Prison Service have said it would be ‘inappropriate’ to comment while police investigate.
Huntley was charged with the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002 after the pair of best friends disappeared from a family barbecue in Cambridge on August 4.
He had lured them to his house where he murdered them before dumping their bodies in a ditch 12 miles away. He would later return and attempt to burn them.
A desperate search gripped the country, with a picture taken on the day of the girls wearing matching Manchester United football shirts being circulated.
Their bodies were not discovered for more than a week after their disappearance.
Huntley was seen wearing a Manchester United top and strutting around prison last year as an apparent vile taunt about his victims. He was kept in a segregated wing for those at risk of being attacked.
HMP Frankland on Thursday after Ian Huntley was attacked inside by another inmate
Anthony Russell was charged with the murder of David Williams (pictured left) and his mother Julie Williams (right)
The girls had gone off to buy sweets together when they were intercepted by Huntley. Suspicions were raised about him as a suspect when he appeared to tell one journalist in morbid detail how the girls might react to being taken by a stranger.
He was convicted in 2003 after pleading not guilty and sentenced to prison for a minimum of 40 years.
His then-fiancée Maxine Carr, who was a teaching assistant at the girls’ school, would also be jailed for three-and-a-half years after giving her partner a false alibi in a bid to help him evade justice.
Huntley’s suspected attacker Russell was convicted of the murder of Julie Williams and her son David Williams, as well as the rape and murder of pregnant Nicole McGregor near Leamington Spa in 2022.
At the time West Midlands Police believed Mr Williams was strangled with a lanyard due to Russell’s ‘mistaken belief that he was in a relationship with his girlfriend’.
He then went on to kill Mr Williams’ 58-year-old mother in an attack that inflicted 113 separate injuries.
Before later assaulting Ms McGregor, who was five months pregnant, just hours after she showed him a picture of her baby scan and then pretending to help Ms McGregor’s partner look for her.
