Channel 5's Maxine cast as Maxine Carr true crime…

Channel 5's Maxine cast as Maxine Carr true crime drama begins three night run

The clock has turned back 20 years this week after Channel 5 debuted its true crime drama all about Maxine Carr, 20 years on from the Soham murders.

It was back in the summer of 2022 that the quiet village in East Cambridgeshire saw the country's media descend on it after school girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went missing. A massive search operation was launched and a number of locals made appearances on local and national new broadcasts, willing their safe return.

One of those was school caretaker Ian Huntley, the man now serving a 40 year sentence behind bars for Holly and Jessica's murders, infamously appeared on camera during a news broadcast, saying how he knew the girls and hoped for their safe return, when in reality, he had already killed them. Huntley was brought to justice after police found the girls' burned Manchester United shirts in a bin at the college where he worked and Holly and Jessica's bodies were discovered in a ditch near RAF Lakenheath.

Huntley was in a relationship with teaching assistant Maxine Carr at the time, with her working at the school attended by Holly and Jessica. Carr gave Huntley a false alibi and, as he was sentenced to a minimum of 40 years behind bars for Holly and Jessica's murders, Carr got three and a half years for conspiring with Huntley to pervert the course of justice.

The events of 20 years ago and Carr's relationship with Huntley are being thrust into the primetime spotlight by new Channel 5 drama Maxine, which will continue at 9pm on Tuesday and Wednesday.