Police checks on staff working at schools throughout Cambridgeshire are to be reviewed immediately by the local education authority following the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
The review will involve rechecking previous employers' references produced by staff at all levels, from caretakers to principals. It will be carried out by Cambridgeshire County Council, which is responsible for running up to 250 primary and secondary schools in the district.
The move follows the questioning for four days and the charging with murder last night of Mr Ian Huntley (28), the caretaker of Soham Village College near Cambridge in south-east England. His girlfriend Ms Maxine Carr (25), who was employed as an assistant teacher at St Andrew's primary school in Soham, attended by the girls, was last night charged with a single count of perverting the course of justice and remanded in custody.
The county council insisted that all necessary checks were carried out on the couple before they were employed by schools in Soham.
Council spokesman Mr Simon Cobby told The Irish Times yesterday that the decision to carry out the review had been taken in conjunction with Cambridgeshire police, whose investigation into the disappearance and murder of the Soham schoolgirls is continuing at their headquarters in Huntingdon.
A ministry of education spokeswoman, Ms Sally Claughton, said it had been in touch with the county council to ensure it had made all the legally required checks on the two murder suspects. "We are still waiting for detailed information but we have no reason to believe at this stage that the relevant checks were not made," she said.
She said that under guidelines issued by the Department to all education authorities in the UK, authorities were required to check anybody working in schools against what is called "List 99", the confidential list of people barred from working with children, which is held by the Secretary of State for Education, Ms Estelle Morris.
A new criminal records bureau opened in the UK in April, intended to offer a centralised checking service for schools, but it currently has a six-week backlog.
Meanwhile, special arrangements have been made for students of Soham Village College, which has been sealed off by the police, to collect their GCSE results tomorrow. The college's 300 students who sat the exams will be able to pick them up from the local library.
Also yesterday, thousands of messages of sympathy for the families of Holly and Jessica continued to pour in from all over the world. Cambridgeshire police said 22,000 messages had been emailed to the book of condolences on its website by 2 p.m., less than 24 hours after it opened.
Some 9,000 messages were emailed over the same period to a separate book of condolences on a website set up by Cambridgeshire County Council. They can be accessed at www.cambs.police.uk or www.sohamtragedy.org and www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk
In Soham village, still more floral tributes and soft toys were laid at the parish church of St Andrew's, and hundreds of people queued throughout the day to sign books of condolences on the church altar and to light candles. Thousands of candles have now been lit and the vicar's wife, Ms Cathy Alban Jones, said that were it not for donations, supplies would have run out.
"We've been very lucky. People have generously donated candles. We were sent boxes full," she said.
"People have driven for hours to get here and they are forming a very quiet and orderly queue down the aisle and sometimes out of the church waiting to sign the books of condolence," she said.
Among those who have visited the church to see the tributes are Holly's parents, Kevin and Nicola Wells.
Ms Kelly Smith, a florist near Soham, said she had been overwhelmed by orders. "We've had British Army in Kosovo, British Army in Bosnia, big chain stores, and the general public placing orders. One gentleman ordered the two most expensive items in the shop - one for each girl. We've had lots of orders from Ireland, Australia and from all over."