*Get "The Soham Murders" on Amazon here*
*Get Beyond Evil: Inside the Twisted Mind of Ian Huntley by Nathan Yates on Amazon here*
*Get Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr: Unraveling the Soham Murders by Brittany Ann Jones on Amazon here*
*Watch "Maxine" on Britbox through Amazon Prime Vide here*
This lacking documentary only seems to engage in the final few minutes of the film.
On August 4, 2002, two ten-year-old friends, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, went missing from the small village of Soham in England. Their bodies were found almost two weeks later near RAF Lakenheath, but they were so badly decomposed that a cause of death could not be determined, although they had been murdered. The last person to see them alive was a local school caretaker named Ian Huntley, who eventually was arrested for their murders. His girlfriend, Maxine Carr, was a teacher's aide who served some time in prison for providing a false alibi, and has since assumed a new identity at goverment expense and disappeared into her new life. Huntley received two life sentences in prison. From this horrible murder, a new goverment program emerged to combat putting children at risk from criminals who are working in the schools and creating a national database, but it also has its own set of controversies.
I'm not going to lie, this was a draggy, sloppy film. The filmmakers could not get access to major subjects in the crime, and most of the video is archival news coverage footage. What's chilling is that Huntley was interviewed on television about his interaction with the victims, especially after we find out he was a sexual predator and regularly beat his girlfriend, who never turned him in. Huntley was sentenced to two life sentences with a forty year minimum, but has never spoken about what exactly happened that day, coming up with a physically impossible alibi involving nose bleeds and a lot of accidents. The film should have delved further into Huntley's arrest and trial, or it should have covered the creation of the Police National Database, and the problems that come with who should be policing who are children are exposed to at school through adults' employment. The film is all over the place, and sparsely informative, with former Huntley/Carr's neighbor Gibb's emotional memories and visits to their old flat hitting especially hard.
I get the feeling there is more out there about the case, and "The Soham Murders" does present an outstanding quote that is relevant in any society over the years: "Whatever the pressures from outside, whatever, if you like, the fashions and trends between civil liberties and child protection, we always should be on the side of the child." Also known as "Soham: 10 Years On," there is some confusion about an exact release date and running time for this film.
Stats:
(2023) 47 min. (3/10)
-Directed by Emma McKinney
-Featuring Jeremy Thompson, Karim Khalil, David Blunkett, Ian Huntley, Maxine Carr, Holly Wells, Jessica Chapman, Mark Williams-Thomas, Morissa Gibb, Nathaniel Carey, Michael Bichard, Nick Pickles
-(Amazon Prime Video Rated 18+)- Physical violence references, some sexual violence references, violence against children references, adult situations
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video
