Jury sent out to consider Soham verdicts

The jury in the Soham murder trial was today sent out to consider its verdicts against Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr.

The jury of seven women and five men retired after trial judge Mr Justice Moses completed his summing-up of the 27-day case.

The jury came back into court at 12.55pm having asked a question. The judge told them the bath from Huntley's house would be brought back into court for them to look at again.

Shortly after 4pm, jury members were called back into court and sent home till Monday, when they will resume their deliberations.

Huntley, 29, a former caretaker at Soham Village College, denies murdering Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman on Sunday August 4 last year but has admitted a single charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

The jury has heard he admits Holly died accidentally in his bath and that he killed Jessica as he tried to silence her screams, although he insists he did not mean to kill her.

He bundled their bodies into his car, dumped them in the remote ditch where they were found 13 days later, cut off their clothes and torched their corpses.

His ex-girlfriend Carr, 26, a former classroom assistant in the youngsters' class, denies conspiring to pervert the course of justice and two counts of assisting an offender.

She has told the jury that she lied to protect her then fiance, giving him a false alibi, but insisted she never suspected he could be involved in the girls' disappearance.