Ian Huntley, one of the most notorious child murderers in modern British history, has died after being severely injured in a violent attack inside a maximum-security prison.

The fifty-two-year-old was assaulted by another inmate at HMP Frankland in County Durham on February twenty-six and later succumbed to his injuries after several days on life support.

Huntley had been serving a life sentence with a minimum term of forty years for the murders of ten-year-old schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

The two friends disappeared from the Cambridgeshire village of Soham on August four, two thousand two, after leaving a family barbecue to buy sweets.

Their disappearance triggered an intense nationwide search that became one of the most extensive investigations in British criminal history.

Their bodies were later discovered in a ditch near a Royal Air Force base around ten miles from the village.

Authorities say Huntley was attacked with a metal bar during an incident in a prison workshop.

The assault caused catastrophic head injuries and severe brain trauma.

He was rushed to hospital and placed on life support, but his condition deteriorated during the following days.

Medical support was ultimately withdrawn after doctors determined there was no prospect of recovery, and he died shortly afterward.

Police are investigating the circumstances of the attack, which is believed to have been carried out by another prisoner already serving a life sentence for multiple murders.

A case file is being prepared for prosecutors as investigators examine the events leading up to the assault.

HMP Frankland is one of Britain’s highest security prisons and houses some of the country’s most dangerous offenders.

Huntley had previously been the target of violence during his incarceration, surviving earlier attacks by fellow inmates.

The Soham murders shocked the United Kingdom and prompted sweeping changes in child protection procedures and background-check systems for school staff.

More than four hundred police officers were assigned to the investigation at its peak, and authorities examined hundreds of potential leads before Huntley was convicted in two thousand three.

His former partner, Maxine Carr, was jailed for providing him with a false alibi during the early stages of the investigation, a move that significantly hindered the initial inquiry.

More than two decades after the killings, the case continues to cast a long shadow over British criminal justice and child safeguarding policies, with the deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman remaining among the most deeply remembered crimes in the country’s recent history.