Judge tells Soham jury to put emotion aside

The judge in the Soham murder trial told jurors today they must "put aside emotion" as they hear about the deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Mr Justice Moses said his courtroom was not the place for feelings, or for understandable sympathy for the girls or their families.

He urged the 12 jurors to consider the prosecution's case against defendants Mr Ian Huntley and Ms Maxine Carr coolly and calmly, "uninfluenced by emotion, uninfluenced by sympathy".

Mr Huntley and Ms Carr listened silently from the dock as the seven women and five men were sworn in and took their places in the jury box.

Beside the dock, the parents of the two schoolgirls watched as the formal process of the trial began.

The courtroom. . . is not a place for any expressions of emotion. It is a place where evidence is sifted and where a cool, calm consideration of the evidence takes place, uninfluenced by emotion and uninfluenced by sympathy. Mr Justice Moses

Lawyers for the prosecution will set out their case against the former school caretaker and his ex-girlfriend tomorrow. But the jury listened as clerk of the court Hannah Worsley read out the five charges on the indictment against the pair.

Mr Huntley (29) denies the double child murder in August last year but has pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Ms Carr (26), a former classroom assistant at the girls' primary school, denies one charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice and two charges of assisting an offender.

They were not asked to enter pleas again today but they stood as the oaths were taken and as the charges against them were read.

PA