Twenty-two years ago Maxine Carr walked free from prison – her lies making her the most hated woman in Britain.

The ex-teaching assistant was given a new identity, a judge granting her a rare lifelong anonymity order for her own safety.

Serving just half of a three-and-a-half year sentence for perverting the course of justice, she had given a false alibi for lover Ian Huntley on the night he murdered 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Since she was freed rumours of her whereabouts have repeatedly circulated, with claims she has been moved to at least 10 different safehouses.

A dozen women are feared to have been abused or attacked after being mistaken for her.

And the bill to protect her is said to have risen above £2million, with taxpayers also covering the cost for her to change her appearance with cosmetic surgery and £8,000 of dental work.

It has been suggested she was living in freedom in the countryside and seaside town – even getting married in 2008 and having a child.

The mystery husband is said to be ‘besotted’ with Carr, despite the notoriety following her arrest and trial – as well as Huntley’s convictions for murdering the two schoolgirls.

Huntley, now said to be fighting for his life after being attacked in prison, was jailed for life in December 2003 after killing Holly and Jessica in his home in Cambridgeshire, before dumping their bodies in a ditch near RAF Lakenheath.

The disappearance of the childhood friends in August 2002 saw more than 400 police officers descend on Soham, with Huntley attempting to evade capture by getting his then-fiancé Carr to provide him with an alibi.

Carr, a teaching assistant at the girls’ school, was ultimately given three and a half years behind bars after being found guilty of conspiring with Huntley to pervert the course of justice.

She was released from Foston Hall jail in Derbyshire in May 2004 after serving 21 months – and has since enjoyed a new life believed to cost the taxpayer up to £500,000 a year.

With the state protecting her identity and guarding her around the clock, she is reported to have been moved to at least 10 different safe houses since her release 22 years ago.

Carr is believed to have got married and had at least one child, having reportedly got engaged in 2008.

Claims about where she might be living, and even the name she is using, have regularly surfaced on social media over the years, although many of the reports have been proved to be unfounded and based on fake rumours.

More than a dozen innocent women are said to have been driven from their homes across Britain after being wrongly accused by vengeful mobs of being Carr since she was released from prison.

The Daily Mail previously quoted friends describing Carr’s fiancé as ‘a nice man from a decent family’ who ‘accepted her past’ and was ‘besotted’ with her.

The source added: ‘They just like doing normal things together like going for walks in the countryside.’

At the time of their engagement, the lovers reportedly lived more than 60 miles apart.

According to the Daily Mail, Carr and her partner then enjoyed a three-course wedding breakfast and several bottles of sparkling wine when marrying in 2014.

The bride wore a £2,000 ivory dress and walked down the aisle by her 71-year-old mother.

A later source said: ‘Too much time and public money has been spent on her secret identity. They won’t hesitate to move her again if her cover is blown’.

Carr admitted attempting to pervert the course of justice, but was cleared of assisting an offender after insisting that she did not know Huntley had murdered the girls.

She claimed she had only lied to stop him being unfairly accused as she believed he was innocent at the time, despite him being earlier accused of rape and underage sex offences.

Carr was jailed for 42 months and was released with her new identity after serving half her sentence.

High Court judge Mr Justice Eady granted a temporary anonymity order on her release, ruling that Carr’s identity should be kept secret to protect her safety.

The order was given an indefinite extension and made permanent nine months later after the judge ruled it was ‘necessary to protect life and limb and psychological health’.

Carr’s QC Edward Fitzgerald argued that there was an ‘overwhelming case’ for making the injunction ‘against the world at large’, saying: ‘There is a real and significant risk of injury or of worse – killing – if the injunction is not granted.’

It was reported in November 2004 that Carr had been forced to move from her Midlands safe house she was staying in after it was discovered by a baying mob.

Following her release from prison, taxpayers have picked up her £8,000 bill for dental work and cosmetic surgery to change her appearance as well as costs to change her hair colour and style.

It was also claimed Carr asked to have her breasts enlarged on the NHS for mental health reasons, claiming to be depressed because they were too small.

The Daily Mail revealed in January 2008 that Carr had ‘blossomed’ after regaining her health from an eating disorder and had got engaged to a new boyfriend from a respected farming family.

A source said at the time that the pair had met each other’s families and that her boyfriend had accepted her past.

The source added: ‘Maxine is engaged and has the ring to show for it. Her fiancé is a nice man from a decent family.

‘It is a big step for both of them. For the last couple of years they have just been trying to get on with what they feel is right and live out of the media spotlight.

‘They just like doing normal things together like going for walks in the countryside. It has grown stronger despite the fact that they live apart and have to make long journeys to see each other. They both have full-time jobs but manage to make the relationship work.’

The Sun reported in May 2014 that Carr had married her fiancé at a luxury hotel venue which could not be identified due to her anonymity order.

It is not known if her new husband was the same man identified as her fiancée six years later.

Carr was said to have spent the morning of her wedding having her hair and make-up done before being given away by her mother who was jailed herself for six months in 2004 after intimidating a witness who gave evidence against her daughter.

The couple exchanged vows in front of a registrar before signing a marriage certificate, and joining family and friends on a patio where they drank £10 bottles of sparkling wine. They later had a three-course wedding breakfast.

A source stated at the time that her husband was ‘absolutely besotted’ with her.

Meanwhile, at least a dozen innocent victims have been forced to flee from their neighbourhoods despite many having no resemblance to the ex-teaching assistant and being able to prove who they were.

The ordeal of some of those being wrongly accused was revealed in 2007 in the Channel 4 documentary called First Cut: Being Maxine Carr.

One woman told how vandals repeatedly threw bricks and rocks through the windows of her home in York, leaving her terrified.

The woman said she moved to York but gossip soon spread that she was actually Carr because of her southern accent.

She told the documentary makers: ‘My immediate reaction when one of the neighbours told me there was a rumour I was Maxine Carr was one of total disbelief.

‘It just felt like molten lead had been poured into my stomach. It felt awful. When a rock was thrown through our window, I was in complete shock.

‘I spent every night watching out of the bedroom window, trying to see if there were gangs approaching the house.

‘I tried staring back but that made them stare even more. I tried ignoring them but still they stared. You should not have to justify your existence in your own home.’

Carr, now 49, was born in February 1977 in Grimsby, the town where she would later meet Huntley for the first time in 1999 when she was 22 and he was 25.

Huntley was reported to have been emotionally abusive during their relationship, which saw the pair later get engaged.

Carr and Huntley moved in together just four weeks after meeting and relocated from Grimsby to Soham when Huntley got a job at a local college.

Meanwhile, Carr became a teaching assistant at St Andrew’s Primary School – where she met Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

On the day of the murders, Huntley lured the two schoolgirls into his house, saying his girlfriend Carr was home.

But this was a lie, as she had been visiting her mother 100 miles away in Grimsby.

Huntley involved himself in prominent media appeals for their safe return, telling police that he had spoken briefly with the girls on his doorstep immediately before their disappearance, stating that they were both ‘happy as Larry.’

Meanwhile, Carr gave him a false alibi by lying about her whereabouts on the weekend when the two 10-year-olds were killed.

Yet in reality, she had been in Grimsby at a nightclub with another man.

She also told journalists that she had been in the bath when he had spoken briefly to the girls and that she had also burned the roast potatoes while cooking Sunday lunch.

Carr said at trial she did not know Huntley had murdered the girls, but was found to have cleaned their house of evidence, with the home noted by police as having been ‘meticulously cleaned’ following an initial visit.

Holly and Jessica, who were best friends, had gone out to buy sweets on the afternoon of August 4, 2002, when he lured them into his three-bedroom cottage.

Their disappearance after a family barbecue sent shockwaves through the close-knit community and became one of the most sickening child murders the country has ever seen.

Suspicions about Huntley were raised after he appeared to tell one journalist in morbid detail how the girls might react to being taken by a stranger.

School caretaker Huntley had lured both schoolgirls into his home and murdered them, before dumping their bodies in a ditch some 12 miles away. He would later return and attempt to set fire to them.

He later lied in court that Holly had drowned in his bath and that he had accidentally suffocated Jessica while attempting to stop her from screaming.

The girls were not discovered until more than a week after they went missing, by which time some 400 police officers had joined with local residents to search for the missing youngsters.

Huntley was convicted in 2003 of both murders, having pleaded not guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 40 years.

He has been serving his sentence at HMP Frankland in County Durham, where he was attacked in a prison workshop with an ‘iron bar’ on the morning of February 26 2026.

He was transported to hospital after being found in a pool of blood after the incident at about 9am.

A source said the double killer’s condition was ‘touch and go’ and described the scene on the wing as ‘absolute chaos’.

The attacker is thought to have gained access to Huntley in a prison workshop. The killer is usually under close guard at all times.

A spokesperson for Durham Constabulary said: ‘Police were alerted to an assault which had taken place within HMP Frankland in Durham this morning.

‘A male prisoner suffered serious injuries during the incident and was transported to hospital.

‘A police investigation is now underway into the circumstances of the incident and detectives are liaising with staff at the prison’.

An air ambulance was seen landing near to HMP Frankland as the incident unfolded, but was not used to transport Huntley.

The Cateogry A prison holds some of the UK’s most dangerous criminals including Wayne Couzens, Levi Bellfield and Michael Adebolajo, one of two terrorists who killed British Army soldier Lee Rigby.