Ian Huntley

Ian Huntley, known as the Soham murderer, was convicted in December 2003 of the murder of two ten year old girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, in August 2002. Huntley, then aged 29, was sentenced at the High Court to two terms of life imprisonment with the minimum term set at 40 years. Police also suspected him of being a serial sex offender and on one occasion, he is known to have beaten his ex-wife so extensively she suffered a miscarriage.

UK media reported in February 2017 that Huntley had asked fellow inmates at HMP Frankland to call him Lian so he could spend his life term in a female prison. A prison service spokesman denied Huntley was planning to transition.

After Huntley’s conviction, it was revealed that he’d been the subject of at least eight police investigations into sexual offences committed on women and young girls, and a burglary charge had been left on file. The Soham murders led to tightening of procedures in the criminal background checks of people who work with children, following severe criticism of systemic failures that had allowed Huntley to work as a school caretaker.

*Update April 2018*

In April 2018, Huntley was again reported as planning to transition and that he has requested fellow prisoners call him Nicola which is also the name of the mother of one of the children he killed.

*Update Dec 2018*

The Daily Mail reported that Ian/Nicola Huntley ‘wants a sex change so he can move jails and start a new life as a woman called Nicola.’ Huntley is currently incarcerated at Category A men’s prison HMP Frankland in County Durham.

*Update Feb 2019*

Coinciding with an article in The Times that the prison service is revising guidelines which allowed trans-identifying, violent male sex offenders to transfer to women’s prisons, the Daily Star Sunday published an article on 10 February saying that Ian Huntley wished to make clear “he does not own a wig, has never asked to be addressed by any name other than his own and that there has never been a plan for him to change his gender identity.” The brief article does not, per se, explicitly refute claims in the 2018 story re Huntley identifying as transgender/wishing to transition, just that owning a wig, a wish to be addressed by another name and existence of a plan to transition in the Star’s story requires correction. The original article was removed on 11 February 2019.

It should be remembered that Huntley has, in fact, been known by a name other than his own as he was going by the name of Nixon (his mother’s maiden name) when interviewed in a rape case in 1999. He also gave his name as Ian Nixon when applying for the job as caretaker at a school in Soham so Cambridgeshire police’s criminal records bureau checked that name, not Ian Huntley, on the police national computer. This ensured the burglary charge that could have prevented him getting the job in the first place was not discovered, let alone local intelligence from other statutory agencies regarding multiple sexual violence allegations made by women and girls against him. The catastrophic child protection failures in Huntley’s case were examined by the Bichard Inquiry and led to a complete overhaul of UK criminal records checking procedures.

That's not the point though. The point is that trans activists and allies believed Huntley was a woman whilst it was reported he said he was one, and women were still suspended from Twitter for 'misgendering' him. The truth doesn't matter when it comes to a belief system https://t.co/8dnEPMqd2z

— Helen Saxby (@helensaxby11) February 11, 2019

This archived version of a Pink News article repeats the allegation that Huntley is trans – now contrast it with the (currently live) edited version (archived here) that has quietly removed the reference. A further Pink News article covering Huntley’s denial, then hypocritically accuses a newspaper of ‘quietly retracting [the] claim’ – ie exactly what they have done themselves.

How sneaky not to announce the edit and reason: update by journal of record "The Daily Star". Blatant hypocrisy too! Headline for their own story: "Newspaper quietly retracts claim that Ian Huntley is transgender"! (Screenshot – they don't deserve a link!) pic.twitter.com/IAQAYFFUWK

— Liz Panton #WomensRightsAreHumanRights (@SuspendDisbeli2) February 12, 2019