Soham killer Ian Huntley is hours from death as his life support is switched off following a brutal prison attack. Huntley, who is serving a life sentence for murdering two schoolgirls, was assaulted with a spiked metal pole at HMP Frankland in County Durham.

In an update on Friday night (March 6), it has been confirmed that doctors have turned off his life support following consultations with his mother Lynda Richards. She had travelled 175 miles from her home in Lincolnshire to be with him in hospital. The 52-year-old was initially given a 5% chance of survival following the attack in a jail workshop.

As reported by The Sun, sources said doctors withdrew Huntley’s ventilator at lunchtime today. As well as being blinded and showing little sign of recovery, recent tests on his brain showed he was in a vegetative state.

Huntley was brutally attacked shortly after 9am last Thursday (February 26). He was allegedly struck up to 15 times with a 3ft spiked metal pole.

A source previously said: “This is it, this is the end of Huntley. He is effectively dead and, at the best, is drawing his last breaths.

“No one who has dealt with him is shedding a tear. Even his mother has accepted that this is for the best, having seen him and knowing what a state he is in.

“He never really recovered from the beating he took, and never stood much of a chance of doing so. Huntley had been attacked loads of times in prison so the day he was killed was always likely to arrive.”

The prison attack is believed to have been carried out by 43-year-old triple killer and rapist Anthony Russell. He allegedly boasted at the time: “I’ve done it! I’ve done it! I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him!”

A source reported that Huntley’s head was “split in two” in the attack. Meanwhile, his mother told friends her son was unrecognisable when she arrived at his side in hospital.

However, police are yet to arrest anyone in connection with the attack. Durham Constabulary said: “A 52-year-old man remains in hospital in a serious condition.”

Meanwhile, a Prison Service spokesperson recently said: “It would be inappropriate to comment while police investigate.”

Ian Huntley, a former school caretaker, murdered schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham in August 2002. The girls, both aged 10 at the time, disappeared from a family barbecue before being found in a ditch around 10 miles away a fortnight later.

They had both been asphyxiated and Huntley was jailed for their murders in 2003. He was sentenced to at least 40 years in custody and was told by a judge he had “little hope of release”.

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