Carr wins anonymity battle

Maxine Carr this afternoon won the right to anonymity for the rest of her life.

The woman who gave Soham murderer Ian Huntley an alibi was granted an order at the High Court banning publication of her new identity, home and lifestyle.

Mr Justice Eady said that he was convinced this was the "only effective means" to protect her "life and limb and psychological health".

Her lawyer Edward Fitzgerald denied allegations that Carr had told Huntley to burn the bodies of 10-year-olds Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells following their murder in August

2002.

And he refuted reports that she had written love letters to her former fiancée in prison where he is serving life for the double murder.

Mr Fitzgerald insisted she had had no contact with him at all since the Old Bailey trial in December 2003. Carr, 27, was granted a temporary-ban protecting her identity last year on her release from prison where she served 21 months for perverting the course of justice.

Today's ruling came after her lawyers went back to the High Court to try to make the order permanent.

The court was told that such is the hatred she generates that even women who look like her are routinely threatened in the street and spat at in supermarkets.

Internet chatrooms are filled with threats of death to "the moon-faced bitch".

Police, the Probation Service and Home Office unanimously supported her right to indefinite anonymity.

Mr Fitzgerald said the incidents involving women who look like her "indicate the scale of the risk to Carr if her identity and her whereabouts became known". Mr Fitzgerald said