CRIME PAYS

CUSHY LIFE
Police have made secret plans (until now) for Maxine Carr to start a new life in Australia in a deal which would cost British taxpayers Ł15million. The Australian federal authorities have agreed to a request from British police to provide her with a home and a new identity on the Gold Coast, near Brisbane, under the witness protection scheme.

The Australian authorities later denied having made any agreement. Must be true then!

COCK-UP
Maxine Carr was moved out of prison to a safehouse just hours after details of her new secret life were stolen.

Documents including the addresses and telephone numbers of safehouses were in a briefcase taken from a car. They did not include details of a new identity.

A prison insider said, "It's a disaster. All the plans for Carr have been thrown into chaos." It is believed a senior civil servant left the briefcase on the seat of her Ford Fiesta in North London.

The thieves later dumped the documents on Hampstead Heath where they were recovered, but the cock-up will mean the Home Office has to invent a totally new ID for Carr at even more expense to the taxpayer.

A High Court injunction was granted banning disclosure of the whereabouts of Maxine Carr. The injunction was applied for by Carr’s lawyers and supported by the Home Office.

CRIME PAYS

Maxine Carr Maxine Carr will cost taxpayers Ł1MILLION a YEAR. The bill includes a rent-free home, picked from a choice of SEVEN and 24-hour police protection involving a dozen officers. But there was growing anger over the price of cosseting the liar who protected her child killer lover Ian Huntley with claims that the sum makes a mockery of the pitiful Ł11,000 compensation awards for the Soham parents of murdered 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, said, "It is an absolute insult. It is amazing how someone like Carr can get so much help when families of victims often get no support at all."

The money to save Carr from revenge attacks includes:

* Round the clock police protection including a live-in bodyguard and a specially dedicated patrol car. Cost: Ł312,000.

* Accomodation in a safe house which may also be used by her mother. Cost: Ł20,800.

* Hi-tech security systems including panic buttons in the event of a break-in or other emergency. Cost: Ł12,000.

* New identity involving name change, lessons in altering appearance such as hairstyle and clothes, and fresh social security number. Cost: Ł5,000.

* Mobile phone with speed dial numbers for cops when she's out of doors. Cost: Ł200.

Harry Fletcher, of the probation union NAPO, said, "A full-blown police surveillance operation will cost Ł6,000-a-week and involve up to a dozen officers around the clock." Other sources put the cost even higher, at Ł6,500 or more. One insider said, "Surveillance tends to mean three eight-hour shifts. A team might be six officers plus a further four on overtime. All in all it will be a huge drain on Humberside Police resources."

A police bodyguard will also be living with Carr and a dedicated patrol car will do hourly run-bys. The Home Office conceded that Carr could keep her new house for LIFE if her safety was considered at risk. Even her DOG has been given a new identity.

On her release, Carr will be taken to a safe house. As for her ultimate destination, she is said to be against a move abroad, and wants to live close to her family in Grimsby. Resettling Carr is likely to be a difficult task, not least because of the high profile of the Soham case and the intense public emotions it still provokes. Police forces are even said to have prepared measures to protect those women who share her name.

It's not clear where she will live, nor if she will be given a new identity. The Home Office is overseeing her release plan, known to a handful of police, prison and probation officials, but will not comment on the details. The community rehabilitation order she received specified that she would live in Humberside, but it is thought likely she will be moved elsewhere.

Carr may strive for anonymity and time to re-adjust to life outside, but journalists are likely to seek her out. Her defence counsel, Michael Hubbard QC, told the court her one plea is to "be left in peace to recreate within herself a new heart". If she's placed under the witness protection programme, options range from an alarm in her house to a new identity.

Although she does not technically qualify for protection as she was not a witness in the Soham trial, it could still be offered to her for her own safety. New identities are usually reserved for spies and gangland informers who have passed information to police or testified in a major trial, but there are exceptions.

To give someone a new identity requires a raft of paperwork, new medical and employment records, passports, National Insurance numbers and birth certificates. Bank accounts and credit cards will be under the new names. Her lawyers could then apply for an injunction to keep her identity and whereabouts secret.

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