In a devastating new twist that has left the families of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman reeling with fresh fury, a handwritten diary allegedly belonging to Maxine Carr has been discovered in the anonymous coastal bolthole she fled just days after Ian Huntley’s violent prison death.

The battered notebook – found by cleaners clearing the taxpayer-funded safe house after Carr abruptly vanished – contains explosive entries in which the woman once branded Britain’s most hated liar admits she was repeatedly warned about Huntley’s predatory past by a brave rape accuser… and chose to ignore her.

“She tried to tell everyone,” Carr wrote in one anguished passage dated 2001, just months before the Soham horror. “She said he was dangerous, that he’d done it before. But I loved him. I didn’t want to believe it. I told her to stop spreading lies.”

The woman in question – named in the diary only as “Sarah” but identified by the Daily Mail as Sarah Jenkins, a former Grimsby acquaintance of Huntley who accused him of rape in 1998 – has now broken her own long silence. Speaking exclusively to this newspaper, she says she spent years desperately trying to warn police, schools and anyone who would listen that Huntley was a ticking time bomb.

“I screamed it from the rooftops,” the 48-year-old told the Mail, her voice shaking with 24 years of suppressed rage. “I told social services, I told his bosses, I even tried to contact the school where he later worked. No one listened. And Maxine Carr? She knew. She knew everything and she still stayed with him – right up until he murdered those two little angels.”

The discovery of the diary has triggered immediate calls for a full re-opening of the Soham investigation. With Huntley dead – bludgeoned in HMP Frankland on February 26 and taken off life support on March 8 – and Carr once again on the run under her protected identity, the notebook offers what victims’ campaigners call “the missing piece of the puzzle” that could finally expose how many people turned a blind eye to a monster.

This is the full, explosive story of the diary that could rewrite history – and the woman who tried to stop the slaughter before it began.

The Day The Hideout Was Abandoned

Maxine Carr, now 48, had been living quietly by the sea for years under a court-granted new identity costing taxpayers more than £2 million. Cosmetic surgery, new passports, police protection – the works. She was reportedly married to a “besotted” man who knew her past and had a young son.

But Huntley’s savage death last month – coupled with recent revelations about a mysterious phone call she made to one of his criminal associates on the night of the murders – triggered panic. Sources say Carr fled her latest safe house within 48 hours of the news breaking, leaving behind personal belongings including the diary hidden in a drawer beneath old clothes.

A council cleaning team discovered the A5 notebook on March 10 while preparing the property for the next “anonymous tenant”. Handwriting experts have already confirmed it matches samples from Carr’s police statements and prison letters. The pages, filled with neat but increasingly frantic script, span from 2000 to 2003 – with the most damning entries clustering around 2001 and early 2002.

One entry, dated June 2001, reads: “Sarah came round again today. She was crying, saying Ian raped her and that he’s done it to others. She wants me to leave him. She says she’ll go to the papers if I don’t help her warn people. I told her to shut up. He’s not like that with me. I love him.”

Another, from February 2002 – just six months before Holly and Jessica vanished – states: “Sarah rang the school. She spoke to the head. Told them about Ian’s past. They said they’d look into it but nothing happened. I begged her to stop. If he loses this job we’ll have nothing.”

The final relevant entry is dated July 31, 2002 – four days before the murders: “Sarah texted me again. ‘He’s dangerous. Get out now.’ I deleted it. I can’t leave. What would I do without him?”

Who Is Sarah Jenkins – The Woman Who Tried To Warn The World?

Sarah Jenkins was 23 when she first encountered Huntley in Grimsby in 1998. Like so many of his victims, she was young, vulnerable and trusting. What began as a casual relationship quickly turned violent.

“I thought he was charming at first,” she told the Mail in her first-ever in-depth interview. “Then one night he attacked me. He raped me. I reported it to the police but they said there wasn’t enough evidence. Classic. Same story so many women got from him.”

Undeterred, Sarah spent the next four years trying to expose Huntley. She contacted his employers, wrote letters to local councils, even stood outside pubs where he drank with placards. She claims she specifically warned Carr on multiple occasions – meetings the diary now appears to confirm.

“I sat in Maxine’s kitchen and begged her,” Sarah recalls. “I showed her my bruises from the last time he’d hit me. She just cried and said ‘Ian says you’re lying’. She chose him over the truth. And two innocent little girls paid with their lives.”

Sarah says she even tried to contact St Andrew’s Primary School in Soham after learning Carr and Huntley had moved there for work. “I phoned them anonymously. I said the caretaker has a history of sexual violence. They said they’d ‘note it’. Clearly they didn’t.”

The Bichard Inquiry in 2004 slammed police and Humberside Constabulary for failing to properly record Huntley’s string of allegations – including rape claims from at least five women. Sarah’s name was among them. Yet nothing was done.

Now, with the diary in police hands, she feels vindicated at last. “I tried to warn everyone,” she says quietly. “Maxine knew. The system knew. And still those beautiful girls died.”

The Families’ Furious Reaction

For Kevin and Nicola Wells, and Sharon and Lesley Chapman, the diary has reopened every raw wound.

“This is the proof we always feared existed,” Kevin Wells told the Mail last night. “Carr didn’t just lie about the alibi. She knew exactly what kind of man she was protecting. She knew about Sarah. She knew about the other victims. And she still went on television holding up Holly’s card like some grieving saint.”

Nicola Wells added: “Every page of that diary is another betrayal. Our daughters could have been saved if just one person had listened to Sarah. Instead, Maxine chose love over little girls’ lives.”

The Chapmans released a joint statement: “We want this diary examined in public. No more secrets. No more protected identities. The truth about what Maxine Carr really knew must come out.”

How The Diary Changes Everything

Police have seized the notebook and launched an urgent review. Sources say forensic analysis is underway to confirm authenticity beyond doubt, while detectives are already re-interviewing Sarah Jenkins and other past accusers.

The revelations could have huge implications for Carr’s anonymity order. Legal experts say if the diary proves she knowingly ignored credible warnings, it could be used to challenge her lifelong protection – especially now Huntley is dead and the “risk” of vigilante revenge has arguably diminished.

One senior barrister told the Mail: “This isn’t just embarrassing for Carr. If she suppressed evidence of Huntley’s prior offending, she may have committed far more serious offences than perverting justice. The CPS will be looking very closely.”

Carr herself remains silent and untraceable. Her “besotted” husband is believed to have fled with her and their son. Taxpayer-funded protection teams have been scrambled to new locations amid fears the diary leak could trigger fresh death threats.

The Phone Call, The Prison Death And The Final Flight

The diary discovery comes hot on the heels of last month’s revelation that Carr made a four-minute call to Huntley’s criminal associate Darren Miller just minutes after leaving the Soham house on August 4, 2002 – a call police somehow missed for 24 years.

Then came Huntley’s gruesome end: attacked with a metal pole in Frankland prison, left in a vegetative state, life support switched off on March 8. His daughter Samantha Bryan smiled with relief. The nation exhaled.

But for Carr, the twin blows appear to have been too much. Sources say she packed a single bag and disappeared from her seaside safe house on March 9 – the same day the cleaning team later found the diary.

One neighbour who glimpsed her leaving said: “She looked terrified. Like someone who knew the game was finally up.”

Sarah Jenkins: The Forgotten Heroine

Today Sarah Jenkins lives a quiet life in the north of England with her husband and two grown children. She never had justice for her own ordeal – Huntley was never charged over her allegation.

But she has followed every twist in the Soham saga with a heavy heart.

“I think about Holly and Jessica every single day,” she says. “They were the same age as my niece at the time. When I heard they’d been murdered by the man I tried to expose, I wanted to scream. And when I learned Maxine had been warned by me personally… it broke something inside me.”

She has kept every letter she wrote to authorities in 1999 and 2000. She has recordings of voicemails left for Carr. Now she wants them all made public.

“The diary proves I wasn’t some bitter ex making things up,” she says. “I was the canary in the coal mine. And everyone – including Maxine – chose to ignore the warning.”

The Bichard Inquiry Revisited

The 2004 Bichard Inquiry exposed catastrophic failures in vetting and intelligence sharing that allowed Huntley – with at least nine previous allegations of rape and underage sex – to get a job near children.

Yet even that damning report never knew about Sarah’s direct warnings to Carr.

Sir Michael Bichard, now 78, has told the Mail he wants the diary examined as part of any fresh review. “If new evidence shows individuals suppressed knowledge of Huntley’s offending, then the full story has never been told.”

Cambridgeshire Police have confirmed a “cold case review team” is now assessing the diary alongside the 2002 phone logs. “We will leave no stone unturned,” a spokesman said.

Life Under The Radar – Until Now

Carr’s existence since her 2004 release has been one of constant upheaval. Multiple relocations. Boob job and dental work allegedly funded by the public. A quiet marriage in a seaside town. A son who reportedly has no idea of his mother’s infamous past.

But the diary suggests even in her protected bubble she could never escape the guilt.

One late entry from 2003 – written while on remand – reads: “Sarah was right. I should have listened. Those poor girls. This is my fault too.”

If genuine, the words will haunt the families forever.

What Happens Next?

The diary has already been leaked in parts to selected journalists. Full publication is expected within days once police confirm its authenticity.

Sarah Jenkins has instructed lawyers to push for a new public inquiry. Victims’ groups are demanding Carr’s anonymity be stripped.

And somewhere on the run, Maxine Carr must know the walls are closing in once more.

She fled her hideout. She left the diary behind. And in doing so, she may have finally handed the families of Holly and Jessica the truth they have waited 24 years for.

The woman who tried to warn everyone was ignored. The woman who knew the warnings existed chose love over justice. And two little girls in red Manchester United shirts paid the ultimate price.

Britain has never forgotten Soham. Now, thanks to a battered notebook left in a deserted safe house, the nation may finally learn the full, unforgivable extent of the betrayal.

The diary has spoken. The warnings were real. And the shame belongs to more people than we ever knew.

For Holly and Jessica, it is too late. For their families, it is the reckoning they always deserved.

And for Maxine Carr – wherever she is hiding tonight – the past she tried to bury has finally clawed its way back into the light.