This year marks a decade since the Soham Murders, in which 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were murdered by school caretaker Ian Huntley in a small village in Cambridgeshire. It was a crime of savagery, brutality and tragedy that raised issues of significant public interest, media coverage and speculation. An atrocity that as David Notman-Watt, Managing Director of Back2back Productions, which is releasing a new documentary to mark the anniversary, points out "paused the world".
As with the murder of Stephen Lawrence 18 years ago by a gang of white racists as he innocently waited for a bus, the malignity of the attack and the parents' subsequent quest for justice has made a deep and lasting impact on the nation's consciousness. Such is the strength of feeling against the perpetrators and sadness for the families involved that younger generations born after the crimes were committed have become bound up in our collective repugnance and empathy.
The Soham Murders: Ten Years On, produced by Back2back and distributed by TVF International, accesses a range of individuals connected with Huntley and the police investigation and attempts to tell the true story of the murders in 'unflinching detail' before focusing on what crucial lessons have been learned from this tragedy to further protect the nation's children.
A Police National Database, we learn, was the key recommendation from the Bichard Inquiry into failings by police in this case. The PND brings together intelligence from the 43 police forces in England and Wales and also links to the eight police forces in Scotland, as well as the British Transport Police, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (Ceop), the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and the military police.
These forces hold information on 15 million people including convicted criminals, suspects and victims of crimes, as well as the details of people who have been questioned by police but not charged.
"Had this database been in existence, Huntley could have been stopped", says
Notman-Watt. "The Bichard Inquiry found that police failed to maintain their intelligence records and communicate allegations against Ian Huntley across forces in the years before he murdered the two girls. It is supported by Holly and Jessica's parents."
"Two young girls in their prime were taken at the one place that they should have been secure, by one of the people that should have been protecting them", he continues. "What made the crime all the more horrific was the manner in which Huntley calmly and coolly spoke to the press over a number of days."
"That terrorised the nation. I have two young kids and this was one of those cases that makes you hold onto your kids that much tighter. It should never have happened."
The Soham Murders: Ten Years On will air on Crime & Investigation this summer.