'Huntley believes child killers should be shot'

Ian Huntley believes that people who abuse or kill children should be castrated or shot, the Old Bailey heard today.

Huntley's girlfriend Maxine Carr told police that both of them believed drastic action should be taken.

Carr said they rarely talked about the killers of children such as James Bulger and Sarah Payne but Huntley would "use the B-word" about them.

Asked by a detective if Huntley had any views about such people, Carr said he thought "they want shooting or whatever, they want castrating, people like that".

An officer asked if they both felt the same way and she answered: "My view is the same."

The Soham caretaker denies murdering 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. He admits that they died in his bathroom on the night they disappeared but insists it was an accident.

Carr told police she was convinced Huntley could never have murdered the girls because "I know him inside out, he is a very emotional person and would never have the strength of mind to go through with it".

Carr admitted she could not be "one hundred per cent" sure but she insisted that Huntley was not a violent man although he had once slapped her face. He had never expressed any sexual interest in children, the court heard.

Transcripts of Carr's interviews with the police after her arrest in August last year were read out by prosecuting counsel.

She told officers: "All I can say is that I know Ian, I know him better than anybody else here, even better than his mother probably. He is not the kind of person to go and do that.

"He doesn't like fighting, he doesn't like anything like that, he is not a violent person, he just would not do it."

One detective told her that it would not take a great deal of violence to kill two 10-year-old girls.

She replied: "I don't mean that, I mean in general. He doesn't like fighting of any kind. He doesn't like being in a rowdy situation where fights occur. He doesn't like fighting, full stop. He doesn't like drugs, he is just a very quiet person who likes to keep things to himself."

Pressed further she added: "I would not lie about a murder, I would not lie about two kids that I knew. All he has ever told me is to tell you the truth."

During the massive search for the girls, Huntley maintained that they had walked on past his house at 5 College Close.

But he has since admitted during the trial that the girls died in the house shortly after 6.30pm on Sunday 4 August last year.

Huntley claims that Holly drowned when she fell into the bath and he inadvertently smothered Jessica when he tried to stifle her cries.

He took their bodies in his car that night to a ditch at RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk. He returned three days later to cut off their clothes and set fire to the bodies.

During the taped interviews, Carr is asked if Holly and Jessica were still in the house when she returned from staying with her mother in Grimsby and if she had any involvement in their disappearance.

"I didn't have any involvement or anything to do with the girls in any shape or form," she replies.

Huntley, 29, admits conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Carr, 26, denies the conspiracy and pleads not guilty to assisting an offender.

The case continues.