Inmate charged with murder of Soham killer Ian Huntley

A prison inmate has been charged with the murder of Soham killer Ian Huntley, police have said.

Anthony Russell, 43, will appear at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates' Court via video link on Wednesday, a spokesman for Durham Constabulary said.

Huntley died on Saturday following an attack at HMP Frankland in County Durham at the end of February.

The former school caretaker murdered 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002 in the Cambridgeshire town of Soham.

Police said: "Emergency services were called to reports of an assault in the workshop on the morning of Thursday, February 26."

Sources previously told the BBC that Huntley was found lying in a pool of blood after being bludgeoned with a makeshift weapon at the high security prison.

Huntley, 52, was taken to hospital with serious injuries where he died nine days later, police said.

He had been serving a life sentence, with a minimum term of 40 years, for murdering Holly and Jessica.

The schoolgirls vanished after leaving a family barbecue in Soham in August 2002.

It is believed they were on their way to buy sweets when Huntley, then aged 28, lured them back to his home and killed them.

Their disappearance made national headlines and led to tireless searches, with the girls' bodies found in a ditch a fortnight after they went missing.

Huntley was arrested the same day. His girlfriend Maxine Carr was also jailed in 2003 after being found guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice for giving him a false alibi. She was given a new identity after being freed from jail in May 2004.

The Ministry of Justice has previously said Huntley's crime "remains one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation's history, and our thoughts are with their families".

This was not the only time Huntley had been attacked in prison.

In 2005, he was attacked by an inmate who threw boiling water over him at HMP Wakefield in West Yorkshire.

Five years later, he was slashed across the throat at HMP Frankland and needed 21 stitches.