JESSICA AND HOLLY: THE ARRESTED: THE ODD COUPLE

THEY were known as "the odd couple", but even close friends of school caretaker Ian Huntley and his fiancee Maxine Carr were stunned to find them at the centre of Britain's biggest murder inquiry.

Last night as the pair, arrested on suspicion of murdering Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, were being quizzed by detectives, details of their bizarre and itinerant lives emerged.

Huntley, 28, and his fiancee Carr, 25, failed to hold down jobs and shifted between dingy bedsits in Grimsby, Lincs, before moving to Soham in September last year.

At one point Manchester United fan Huntley lived in a caravan in a former girlfriend's back garden.

A friend of the pair said: "Ian and Maxine were very odd together. They met in early 1999 and Maxine moved in with him very quickly.

"At the time Ian was living in yet another rented room and they moved swiftly from place to place. Ian is slightly older than Maxine and the bond between them is very strong."

Last night it emerged that the parents of Carr - who has changed her surname from Capp since dating Huntley - split when she was just three years old.

Her father Alfred, 65, told the Sunday Mirror: "I haven't had anything to do with her and that side of the family for 20 years. And I want nothing to do with them now."

Alfred also insisted that his estranged daughter was innocent, saying: "I can tell you now the story is wrong. The police have got their facts wrong and got the wrong person. I know for a fact she had nothing to do with it."

Carr did voluntary work at St Andrew's Primary School - where both Jessica and Holly were pupils - from February until Easter.

Then she was awarded a short-term contract as a teaching assistant. Geoff Fisher, headteacher at the school, said: "Maxine Carr was enthusiastic and gave us no cause for concern."

But she was turned down when she later applied for a full-time teaching job at the school. On the last day of term at St Andrews Holly gave Carr a leaving card and a box of Roses chocolates to console her.

The card contained a poem which began: "It is Class 12's special TA (teaching assistant), we will miss her a lot." And it ended: "C U in the future Miss Carr. Don't leave us, don't go far."

After Holly and Jessica disappeared Carr told journalists the girls had asked to be bridesmaids at her wedding. Other pupils said they regarded Carr - who worked alongside Jessica's mother Sharon, a learning support assistant at St Andrews - as a "big sister".

Carr, who always wears a jewelled crucifix around her neck, had told reporters she was in the bath when Huntley spoke to the girls on the day they vanished.

She said: "The girls loved their families and there was no way they would run away."

AFTER leaving Hereford School, Huntley drifted between jobs across Lincolnshire. Between 1994 and 1996 he worked at the Heinz factory in Grimsby.

Fellow worker Stuart Rowson said: "In factories men and women tend to have their own little groups.

"But at break time he would sit on his own or with a very select number of friends."

Often Huntley could only find work via an employment agency.

Former colleague Sue Penney, 41, who worked alongside Huntley at the Braymore fish processing plant in Caistor, Lincs, said: "He seemed a bit of a lonely person."

As well as working in food factories, Huntley worked as a barman at the Pepys bar in Grimsby.

And in 1995 he worked for a children's group selling lottery tickets.

During this period he began a relationship with a woman called Katie Webber. Katie's mother Jacqueline said: "He was working for me with a children's group selling lottery tickets. That is how he met Katie. We used to sell tickets. He used to do the door-to-door collecting."

At the time Huntley was living in a four-berth caravan in Jacqueline's garden. However, by 1996 Huntley was living in a top- floor flat in Algernon Street, Grimsby, with his mother, Lynda, 48. A neighbour said: "They were very quiet people."

By 1998 Huntley had ballooned to 14 stone in weight and had moved to a terrace house in Veal Street in Grimsby. One neighbour said: "Ian really kept himself to himself. I don't think he was there with anyone else.

"He used to go the local pub for a drink. He rode a motorbike, which was his pride and joy, and played snooker regularly."

Huntley left Veal Street and then moved to a flat in another area of the seaside town.

His landlord Len Smith, 65, said: "We did not know him very well, but he was very presentable and wore a suit and tie all the time. He said he worked as a rep. My wife remembers him as a charmer. He was a good-looking lad." Mr Smith revealed that Huntley had called himself Nixon - the name he used to apply for his job in Soham - when renting the flat. It was only when they looked at their rent-book that they realised he was using a different name. Mr Smith added that Huntley did not drink in the room he rented and kept a large cross-breed dog.

It is understood that Huntley, who has a brother, Wayne, reverted to using his mother's maiden name after his parents Kevin and Lynda split up nine years ago. But the couple were reunited at Easter and are now living together in Littleport, Cambs, where Kevin, 47, also works as a school caretaker.

Carr dreamed of becoming a teacher after leaving Healing School in Grimsby.

AFTER beginning a training course and a stint at a nursing home, she also found work in Grimsby's food packing and processing plants.

For a spell she worked with her mother, Shirley Capp, at the Bluecrest fish factory.

Carr also enjoyed nights out. She was a regular at Schuberts wine bar in nearby Cleethorpes and also enjoyed singing karaoke tunes at the Wine Pipe bar in Grimsby.

A former boyfriend, who asked not to be named, said: "She was really quiet but was quite friendly when you got to know her. I used to go out with her a lot in Cleethorpes. She had done some teacher training and was working at Bluecrest with her mum in Grimsby. I was shocked when I heard that she was helping the police with their inquiries."

Jason Wink, 24, said he was best friends with Carr during the mid- 1990s. At the time Carr was living in a house in Wintringham Road, Grimsby. He said: "She was bubbly and great fun to be with, like any normal girl. I was shocked when I saw her on television, she looks really run-down now.

"We were really good mates for three years and went out together for about a month, but we were too good as friends to be serious."

Until 1999, Carr lived with her mother in Grimsby. Her older sister Hayley, 35, married in October 1987. She now lives in nearby Stallingborough. A neighbour said: "About four years ago she went to live with her boyfriend. She always used to come back to stay when they split up. Her mother only moved out about six months ago."

Carr and Huntley arrived in Soham from Lincolnshire in September last year. Relatives said they planned to marry and start a family.

When he applied for the post of caretaker at Soham Village College - the town's secondary school - late last year, Huntley used the name Alan Nixon. College principal Howard Gilbert said Huntley began work there at the beginning of the year, adding: "He was learning the ropes but seemed to be doing well and there was not a glimmer of reservation with him on a personal basis by either staff or pupils.""

Cambridgeshire County Council had carried out no checks out on the couple's real names before employing them.

-THE previous caretaker at Soham Village College was sacked a year ago for having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old pupil, it emerged last night. Police decided not to act against Mike Curtin because of lack of evidence.

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