Huntley denies 'sexual touching'

In slow and deliberate terms this afternoon, Ian Huntley described how he set fire to the naked bodies of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman and turned his back on them for ever.

He told the jury: "I drove away as quickly as I could. That was the only time I went down there. I never wanted to go there again."

Huntley claimed he was on the verge of telling girlfriend Maxine Carr what had happened "but I could not get the words out".

He added: "How do you tell somebody that you are responsible for the deaths of two girls and then what happened after that?"

Huntley detailed how he had taken a petrol can and two bin liners with the two girls' bodies in the boot of his Ford Fiesta on the twilight drive to destroy as much evidence as he could.

He parked on the verge close to his father's old house which he knew well when he went plane-spotting at RAF Lakenheath. "I was just driving and that's where I ended up, I didn't have that specifically in mind or anywhere else," he said.

Driving down Wangford Road he noticed some tracks he had never seen before and in the fading light at around 9pm headed up one called Common Drove.

At the first sign of a break in the vegetation he stopped. "I got out and went over. I was not aware there was actually a ditch there. I went back to my car, opened the boot and picked up one of the girls, I'm not sure which one," he said.

"The bank of the ditch was too steep to carry the girl down so I had to place her at the top of the ditch so she rolled down. I then returned to the car and did the same (with the other girl).

"I went down the bank to see how much of the track I could see from down there, to be absolutely certain they couldn't be seen from the track. I then went back up the bank to collect the petrol can and I realised that the clothing wouldn't burn and there was carpet fibres on them. I went then to the boot of the car and collected my scissors." Stephen Coward, QC, (defending): "When you hid the girls in the track, were they clothed?" Huntley: "Yes." Coward: "Had you disturbed the clothing of either girl before they went in the ditch?" Huntley: "No. I only touched the mobile phone sticking out of the pocket." Coward: "Did you touch either girl, or try to, in any sexual way at all?"

Huntley: "No, not at all." Coward: "Did the clothes remain on the girls once they were in the ditch?" Huntley: "Until I went back down with the scissors to cut them off."

Huntley said he was concerned carpet fibres from his house and the car boot would be transferable and detectable particularly as his dog was moulting hair.

He had also tied the two bin bags over his trainers on his feet to keep them free of debris.

Huntley took the petrol can. "Once the clothes were off I sent to the top of the bank, removed the bin bags from my feet and put one inside the other and placed the clothing in the bags. It was at that point that I poured the petrol into the ditch.

"I went part of the way down the ditch and had to use a backwards and forwards motion so the petrol would go into the ditch from left to right."

He set fire to the bodies with a piece of paper lit from his lighter. "I don't know how long the fire lasted, I know that it flared. I put the petrol can in the car, the clothing in the boot and drove away as quickly as I could from there."

He denied the Crown's claims that he had returned to the scene three days later.

Trapped by his decision not to call the police or emergency services immediately after the deaths of Holly and Jessica, he told how he then felt compelled to tell lies to people out searching for the missing schoolgirls.

Having returned from dumping the bodies and setting light to the girls' clothing, Huntley told how he took Sadie the dog out for a walk.

It was then that he bumped into the first of the searchers.

"He asked me had I seen two kids, two girls on my travels and I said 'No'," said Huntley. Coward: "This is your first contact with other people. At this stage did you know that two girls in your care had died?"

Huntley said he had and was then asked why he didn't tell the searchers what he knew. Huntley: "I couldn't, I had made the decision not to call the police and I had let things go too far.

"I didn't know what I was going to say. I was frightened and ashamed of what I had done. I was trying to think what it was I was going to say to people."

A short time later he heard people shouting Holly and Jessica's names.

He asked those searchers what the girls were wearing and when told they had red Manchester United tops he admitted having seen them. "Although you told them you had seen the girls you didn't tell them the truth" said Mr Coward.

"I was frightened for reasons I gave earlier on," said Huntley.

Minutes later, Huntley falsely claimed to have seen Holly and Jessica walking away from his house.

Coward: "The prosecution allegation in this case is that you murdered each of these two girls. Were you telling these lies because you had murdered them?" Huntley: "It was because I was frightened and I couldn't believe what had happened and I didn't think anyone else would believe what had happened either. I hadn't figured out what I was going to say."