Soham murderer Ian Huntley has died following a prison assault.

The Soham murderer, 52, was taken to hospital after being found in a pool of blood following an alleged attack by an unknown inmate on 26 February.

He was attacked in a workshop with a metal bar at HMP Frankland in County Durham.

Police earlier said that a man in his mid-40s was being investigated over the incident.

Huntley was convicted of the murders of 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in 2002.

He killed them after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets, then dumped their bodies in a ditch.

Huntley was convicted of the murder of both girls in December 2003 and sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment.

According to The Sun, the attack last month left Huntley blind, and he was not expected to regain consciousness.

The newspaper quoted a source as saying: “Huntley never recovered from the battering and never stood much of a chance of doing so.”

After the attack, the murderer’s only daughter, Samantha Bryan, 27, told The Sun on Sunday that “there’s a special place in hell waiting for him”.

Huntley had been injured in a previous attack at HMP Frankland in 2010, where an inmate slashed his throat with a makeshift knife. The prisoner was jailed for life over the incident.

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