Ian Huntley left with ‘5% chance of survival’: Soham killer remains in induced coma after he was attacked by triple murderer who beat him over the head with metal spike
Soham murderer Ian Huntley is said to have been left with just a five per cent chance of survival after being attacked with a metal spike in prison.

The convicted child murderer was rushed to hospital after being assaulted in a workshop at HMP Frankland in County Durham and remains in a medically induced coma.

Multiple prison sources suspect that Anthony Russell, a 43-year-old triple murderer and rapist also serving a whole life prison sentence, was the person who launched the attack.

After Huntley was beaten around the head three times, witnesses claim Russell was held by prison officers and shouted in celebration: ‘I’ve done it, I’ve done it. I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him.’

Now an insider has revealed more details about how close to death Huntley is thought to have come.

They said: ‘It is miraculous he is still alive. Medics have worked miracles on him and he has clung on. The prison nurses and staff who first saw him thought he was gone.

‘And medics said there was only a five per cent chance of survival after an attack like that.’

Police have confirmed Huntley remains gravely ill in hospital but is alive.

School caretaker Ian Huntley (pictured in August 2002) was jailed for life in December 2003 after murdering ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire
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School caretaker Ian Huntley (pictured in August 2002) was jailed for life in December 2003 after murdering ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire

It is suspected Anthony Russell, a 43-year-old triple murderer, was the one who led the assault
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It is suspected Anthony Russell, a 43-year-old triple murderer, was the one who led the assault

Best friends Holly Wells (left) and Jessica Chapman (right) were murdered by Huntley
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Best friends Holly Wells (left) and Jessica Chapman (right) were murdered by Huntley

A Durham Constabulary spokesperson said this morning: ‘There has been no change in the 52-year-old man’s condition overnight – he remains in hospital in a serious condition.’

Huntley was found with head injuries in a pool of his own blood at about 9.30am on Thursday – with many inmates said to have cheered rather than rush to his aid.

Insiders claim there had been a ‘queue’ of inmates who wanted to kill Huntley, including Darren Osborne, the Finsbury Park Mosque attacker.

They said Huntley ‘was trying to bully’ Anthony Russell and ‘turn others against him’ – but Russell got to him first.

It is believed a fight broke out between the two prisoners, before Russell swung at Huntley with the metal pole – hitting him with such force that part of the bar was lodged inside of his head.

Another prison source told the Daily Mail: ‘Huntley was working in waste management with other prisoners from Wing A, the segregated wing for prisoners who can’t be in the normal jail population for their own protection.

‘The other prisoner got a metal bar from the waste metal crates and smashed Huntley three times in the head with it.

‘It was a very, very serious injury, having been struck on the skull like that.’

Despite officers fearing that Huntley had died at the scene due to the extent of his injuries and concerns he was ‘not breathing’, paramedics managed to put him in a medically induced coma and transport him to hospital.

The source said Wing A is made up of inmates at risk of attack from other prisoners, such as sex offenders or jailed police officers, so to protect them they move around the prison as a group, and remain segregated from the others.

One woman, who visited an inmate housed alongside Huntley, told the Daily Mail it looked like he had been ‘ripped apart like a rat’.

She added: ‘He’s in a bad, bad way. I shouldn’t say it, but it’s what he deserves.’

Another source said the double killer’s condition was ‘touch and go’ and described the scene on the wing as ‘absolute chaos’.

One former prison officer said guards would now be on the lookout for copycats.

‘Just like on the outside when something horrendous happens you get copycats looking for five minutes of fame,’ they told the Mail.

‘It’s the same in a prison but obviously the tension will be very much heightened.

‘As a Category A prison security is always high, but it will be even higher now and the guards will be even more aware.

‘You’ll have people who will have seen this and are now thinking they can have a go at attacking someone they don’t like, so the guards will be wanting to stop that.

‘The man who did it will be kept away from the rest of the prisoners as a punishment and to stop him gaining notoriety.’

The source said prisoners who had gained public notoriety were particular at risk of copycat attacks.

‘That’s why the likes of Charles Bronson are segregated – partly that’s because of the threat he poses but it’s also because you don’t want another prisoner having the notoriety of being the “one that done Bronson”.’

While some prisoners will be celebrating the attack on Huntley, the source believes many will not because of the changes it will impose on their routine.

‘The prisoners that are there like their routine, they don’t like anything that might upset their association or anything like that,’ she said.

‘You don’t get remand prisoners in Frankland – it’s all people who have been convicted of very serious crimes.

‘The majority of prisoners in Frankland have already accepted their lot and most of them abide by the rules and go to education.’

Suspected attacker Russell was charged with 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.

The Sun reported his celebratory cheers, and fellow lags’ too, in the wake of the attack.

This is the third time Huntley has been attacked in jail. In 2010, his throat was slashed with a homemade weapon and, in 2005, another inmate threw boiling water over him.

Last year, he was said to have been strutting around the jail wearing a No 10 Manchester United-style shirt in an apparent vile taunt about his victims.

A photo of the schoolgirls wearing matching football shirts was taken on the day Huntley lured them into his house.

Holly and Jessica, who were best friends, had gone out to buy sweets on the afternoon of August 4 2002, when he lured them into his three-bedroom cottage.

Suspicions about Huntley were raised after he appeared to tell one journalist in morbid detail how the girls might react to being taken by a stranger.

School caretaker Huntley had lured both schoolgirls into his home and murdered them, before dumping their bodies in a ditch some 12 miles away. He would later return and attempt to set fire to them.

He lied in court at his murder trial that Holly had drowned in his bath and that he had accidentally suffocated Jessica while attempting to stop her from screaming.

The girls were not discovered until more than a week after they went missing, by which time some 400 police officers had joined with local residents to search for the missing youngsters.

Huntley was convicted in 2003 of both murders, having pleaded not guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 40 years.

His former girlfriend Maxine Carr, who gave police a fake alibi for Huntley at the time, was jailed for three and a half years for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

After being released in May 2004 after serving half her sentence, she was granted a lifelong anonymity order.