Child killer Ian Huntley ‘hours away from death’ after life support switched off

BREAKING

Following consultations with his mother, Lynda Richards, the medics withdrew a ventilator that was keeping him alive.

Lynda, 71, the sole relative to visit him in hospital, was understood to have been at his bedside yesterday during his last moments.

Brain tests showed Huntley was in a vegetative state and that his life support was switched off at lunchtime, according to sources by The Sun.

Huntley, 52, has been in hospital since 26 February after being beaten over the head with a makeshift weapon at HMP Frankland in County Durham, which is the high security prison that houses some of the most violent inmates.

Huntley was understood to have been able to “shallow breathe” without life support, but he is not expected so survive for more than 24 hours.

“This is it, this is the end of Huntley. He is effectively dead and, at the best, is drawing his last breaths”, a source said last night.

The child murderer’s demise comes almost 24 years after he murdered ten-year-old friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in August 2002, in a crime that horrified the nation.

Huntley was convicted of the murder of both girls in December 2003 and sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment, with the High Court later imposing a minimum term of 40 years.

The search for Holly and Jessica in the thirteen days of their disappearance was described as one of the most intense and extensive in British criminal history.