Into the gauntlet of hate

Mob hurls abuse and eggs at caretaker's girlfriend after court appearance

A thin, pale figure with unkempt hair, Maxine Carr sat encased in the glass-fronted dock of Peterborough magistrates' court yesterday while outside the building the crowd began to swell.

By the time she emerged to be taken to Holloway prison in north London, the lines of police were struggling to hold back the hundreds who had gathered to vent their anger on the woman charged in connection with the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

As the vehicles swept by, the boos rose up, turning into a feverish cacophany of screams. Eggs were thrown as young mothers with crying children yelled obscenities. Accusations of "sick cow'' and "murdering bitch'' were hurled at Ms Carr. A banner proclaiming "Rot in hell forever" summed up the mood.

Earlier, television crews from across the world had tried to catch a glimpse of a woman who in just a few days has become a figure of hate. But all their attempts were frustrated. She was shielded by a grey blanket as she was led from Peterborough police station to the waiting van with blacked out windows that would drive her into the court precincts.

Ms Carr, of College Close, Soham, had a 15-minute meeting with her solicitor in the cells. She was then led into the small, modern surroundings of Court One, which only lawyers, officials and a few journalists had been allowed to enter. Holly's and Jessica's parents decided not to confront her, choosing instead to visit the scene where their daughters were discovered.

Ms Carr, 25, was led into the courtroom flanked by two female police officers and a security guard to answer the accusation that she lied to police investigating the disappearance of the two Cambridgeshire girls. In the absence of her fiancé, Ian Huntley, 28, who was charged with the double murder but deemed unfit to attend court, all eyes were on the former teaching assistant on the day police finally confirmed that the victims discovered in an isolated copse on Saturday were definitely the two missing 10-year-olds.

Staring at her feet, Ms Carr lifted her head to give her name in an almost inaudible voice before indicating agreement at her date of birth. Wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, and with her face bare of make-up, she appeared to focus on a distant point as the clerk read out one count of perverting the course of justice – a charge with a maximum term of life imprisonment. "Between the 9th of August 2002 and the 18th of August 2002, in the county of Cambridge, within intent to pervert the course of justice you did a series of acts which had the tendency to pervert the course of public justice by giving false information to police officers involved in a criminal investigation, contrary to common law,'' the charge sheet read.

Ms Carr sat, showing no emotion during the 15-minute hearing. Several times she shook her head slightly as she listened to the details of the prosecution evidence, at one point leaning forward, her head bent low and her hands clasped behind her neck.

The case was referred to Peterborough Crown Court, with the next hearing set for 29 August. With no bail application made by the defence, Ms Carr was remanded in custody for her own protection and welfare.

Seventy police officers – several of whom had earlier left floral tributes to the 10-year-old girls in Soham – lined the street to keep the crowd at bay.

The emergence of Detective Chief Inspector Andy Hebb – the public face of the police investigation – from the building was greeted by spontaneous applause from the waiting throng. But the mood darkened as the sirens from Ms Carr's escort started up within the court's underground garage.

Some sections of an enraged public appeared to need a swift, simple answer to how such an atrocity could have been perpetrated. Before her case has even been given a public airing, Ms Carr was tried and convicted by some of a crime with which she has not been charged.

Rebecca Simonye, 25, who has three children, said: "I do believe in the death penalty – a life for a life. Otherwise it is never going to stop.''

By then Ms Carr was on her way to Britain's most notorious women's prison, where last night she was placed on a suicide watch in the segregation wing. Her cell will be checked every 15 minutes and she will be escorted at all times by prison officers for her own safety.