Girls' killings: Woman in court

Huntley and Carr were arrested early on Saturday morning.

SOHAM, England -- The girlfriend of a school caretaker charged with the murder of two 10-year-old girls was jeered as she arrived at court on Wednesday.

Maxine Carr, 25, who was a teaching assistant at the dead girls' school, has been charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Her boyfriend Ian Huntley, 28, has been charged with the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, and is being held at a secure hospital.

The girls' bodies were found on Saturday, less than 10 miles from their home village of Soham, in Cambridgeshire, eastern England, where they disappeared on August 4.

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Carr appeared at Peterborough Magistrates' Court on Wednesday morning and was remanded in custody until August 29. No application for bail was made.

Police used blankets to shield her face from photographers and a crowd of about 250 members of the public.

A clerk read the charge to her, saying she was accused of perverting the course of justice between August 9 -- five days after the girls disappeared -- and August 18.

The charge sheet read: "In the county of Cambridgeshire, with intent to pervert the course of public justice, you did a series of acts which had the tendency to pervert the course of public justice, in that you gave false information to police officers in a criminal investigation, and that is contrary to common law."

Huntley was charged with murder on Tuesday, and is undergoing psychiatric assessment after being detained under the UK's 1983 Mental Health Act.

He is being held at the top-security Rampton hospital in Nottinghamshire on the advice of a psychiatrist concerned at his fitness to be interviewed over the murder of the girls.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Hebb, who led the hunt for the girls, said in a statement: "Upon a psychiatrist's recommendation, Ian Huntley was detained under the Mental Health Act 1983.

Tests are being carried out to determine how Jessica and Holly died

"He was transferred from police custody to a secure unit where he will undergo further assessment."

Psychiatrists have up to 28 days to assess Huntley but can apply for further extensions of up to six months or more.

Meanwhile, tests are continuing on the bodies to establish the exact cause of death after a postmortem examination proved inconclusive.

Police are also continuing to search the site in Mildenhall, Suffolk, where the bodies were found, along with the home of Huntley and Carr, and the primary and secondary schools where he worked. The couple were arrested early on Saturday.

Teams were also scouring the home of Huntley's parents, Kevin and Lynda, in the nearby village of Littleport.

As the small village of Soham struggles to come to terms with what has happened in their close-knit community, floral tributes are transforming St Andrews Church yard into a sea of bouquets.

More than 14,000 messages of condolence have been received from all over the world on a dedicated website -- www.sohamtragedy.org.uk -- set up by the county council.

Messages have arrived from New Zealand, Canada, South America, the Far East, across Europe and countries from the former Soviet Union.