Ian Huntley’s life support SHUT OFF leaving monster hours from death with his mum at bedside after brutal jail beating
SOHAM fiend Ian Huntley was hours from death last night after his life support machine was switched off.
The double child killer’s life was ebbing away after medics withdrew a ventilator that was keeping him alive following consultations with his mother Lynda Richards.
Lynda, 71 — the sole relative to visit him in hospital — was understood to have been at his bedside yesterday as his pitiful life slipped away.
Sources said Huntley’s life support was switched off at lunchtime after brain tests showed he was in a vegetative state.
We told yesterday how he had been blinded in the savage ambush at HMP Frankland, Co Durham, and was unlikely to survive.
Huntley was brutally battered by another lag with a 3ft spiked metal pole in a jail workshop just after 9am last Thursday.
Huntley was understood to have been able to “shallow breathe” without life support.
But he is not expected so survive for more than 24 hours.
A source said last night: “This is it, this is the end of Huntley.
“He is effectively dead and, at the best, is drawing his last breaths.
“No one who has dealt with him is shedding a tear.
“Even his mother has accepted that this is for the best, having seen him and knowing what a state he is in.
“He never really recovered from the beating he took, and never stood much of a chance of doing so.
“Huntley had been attacked loads of times in prison so the day he was killed was always likely to arrive.”
We told last Saturday how Lynda, supported at hospital by a pal and liaison officers, told friends Huntley was “unrecognisable” following the attack.
She also confided that she knew “flags will fly high” if he dies due to his heinous crimes.
The monster’s demise comes almost 24 years after he murdered ten-year-old friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in August 2002, in a crime that horrified the nation.
His name will be forever remembered for the evil killings of the two innocent pals who were last seen in matching Manchester United shirts.
In December 2003 Huntley was jailed for life with a minimum 40-year tariff following a harrowing Old Bailey trial.
We exclusively told last week how Huntley, who was hated in jail, had been bludgeoned up to 15 times.
His alleged attacker yelled: “I’ve done it! I’ve done it! I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him.”
Huntley had been in an induced coma since the assault — understood to have been carried out by triple killer Anthony Russell, 43.
Durham Police are probing the attack but are yet to make any arrests.
The Prison Service have said it would be “inappropriate” to comment while police investigate.
