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Sick and twisted Soham killer Ian Huntley seemed like a 'normal bloke' and aided police in the investigations before his mask slipped, a former detective has said.

Retired Det Supt David Hankins, 71, was intimately involved in the hunt for the murderer of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002 and says that he could never have imagined the mild-mannered Huntley was responsible when he first met him.

Holly and Jessica, both ten, vanished following a family barbecue on August 4, 2002, after having been invited into Huntley’s home after he claimed his girlfriend, Maxine Carr, was in the house.

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Once inside, evil Huntley murdered them both and hid their bodies, which would only be discovered 13 days later.

During that interim, Mr Hankins led press briefings sitting beside the girls’ shattered parents and relaying the latest developments on the search.

Speaking to The Mirror, Mr Hankins, 71, said caretaker Huntley would meet him each morning at the school hall as cops searched for the missing girls.

He said: "I arrived at 7am on the first morning and the irony was that Ian Huntley was the one who let me in. I used to see him on a daily basis.

"He was just a normal bloke, a youngish chap who sorted things out for the dozens of camera crews and reporters.

"He didn’t seem odd at all. We used to have a lot of conversations, I knew his name but whether he knew my name I don’t know.

“Nobody thought anything about him, it was only when the evidence came out that he made the mistake he had appeared on camera.”

In the days and weeks that followed Holly and Jessica’s disappearance, Huntley, now 48, spewed a sickening web of lies, even appearing on television to claim that he spoke to the youngsters before they disappeared.

But it was these appearances that ultimately helped cops in their hunt for the girls’ killer.

The publicity backfired in Huntley’s hometown of Grimsby, where locals recognised him as someone who had been linked with a sex attack and he was eventually apprehended.

Even 20 years later, Mr Hankins says he is still haunted by the case and Huntley's depravity.

He said: "It’s 20 years ago but it’s still one of the worst cases I’ve ever had to deal with. It was a daunting experience, it was harrowing, it was a lot of pressure.

"I’ve never dealt with anything like that and there’s not many officers who would have dealt with anything like that. There were two girls who had been murdered and it had never happened before, certainly not in my 30 years service."

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