THE parents of the murdered schoolgirl Holly Wells spoke last night of their most poignant memento of their daughter, a lock of her blonde hair.

Kevin and Nicola Wells said the strand of 10-year-old Holly’s hair had survived despite the attempts of Ian Huntley, the Soham murderer, to burn her body along with that of her friend, Jessica Chapman.

The lock was plaited by police and placed by detectives in a gilded porcelain box inscribed with her name and decorated with the rose of Soham, which was created by growers in memory of the girls.

“He left us with her skeleton, a piece of buttock, a tiny piece of scalp and the contents of her stomach,” Kevin Wells said. “Nothing else remained, no face to stroke, no hand to hold. Who can you look at and say goodbye to? Holly was all gone.”

The couple were critical of the initial police response after it became clear that Holly and Jessica were missing, when almost 600 people had volunteered to search for the girls.

Kevin Wells said he heard one officer speaking on the phone. “I overheard his concerns clearly — they were primarily health and safety issues to do with dealing with the crowd,” he said. “It almost beggared belief. Two 10-year-old girls missing and the concern was focused on how to protect the police force’s position in case any voluntary searchers injured themselves or became lost.”

The couple also revealed they learnt of certain key developments, such as the last CCTV images of their daughter, not from police but television news bulletins. However, they praised the efforts of the three police family liaison officers assigned to the case.

Holly’s parents spoke to The Mail on Sunday for which they have been reportedly paid about £500,000. Kevin Wells is also writing a book that will be serialised next year. The newspaper said he will make “a donation to charity to ensure that the memory of Holly and Jessica lives on”.

Wells’s comments about the initial police response underline deep concerns by the home secretary about the conduct of the investigation. The chief constable of Humberside is facing new pressure to resign this weekend after it emerged that his force ignored a key policy document that could have prevented Huntley from working with schoolchildren.

David Westwood’s force failed to warn the school about Huntley during a background check because it had erased details of previous allegations of sexual assault and underage sex. Westwood claimed last week that the offences had been erased because of strict data protection laws.

It was confirmed this weekend, however, that Humberside police had been sent a detailed code of practice for data protection which clearly stated that information on allegations involving sexual offences could be held even if charges were not pursued.

More than 20 other police forces contacted by The Sunday Times last week said they had complied with the 1995 Association of Chief Police Officers document, which was updated in October 2002. One force, North Yorkshire, said it kept details of sexual offences for 100 years, compared with Humberside’s policy of a few weeks.

The 1995 document, and the updated version, state: “In cases where a sexual offence is alleged but the subject is acquitted, or the case is discontinued because of lack of corroboration or allegation of consent by the victim, the details may be retained for a period of five years.”

In Huntley’s case, it would have meant the background checks made on behalf of Soham community college in December 2001 would have revealed a series of sexual offences, including four allegations of rape and an allegation of indecent assault involving a 12-year-old girl.

Westwood, who removed his earpiece and walked out of an interview with Jeremy Paxman for BBC2’s Newsnight last week when asked to explain his force’s policy, is expected to face tough questioning at a meeting of the police authority next month.

A Home Office inquiry is now examining the vetting procedures that allowed Huntley to be employed. It will also examine the role of Cambridgeshire police, which failed to check the two surnames Huntley used.

The ramifications of Huntley’s conviction continue to spread. Surrey police said they were to examine any possible links between the Soham killer and the unsolved murder of Amanda “Milly” Dowler, the 13-year-old abducted while walking home from school in Walton-on-Thames in March 2002.

Her body was found six months later in woodland 25 miles away. Like the bodies of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, it was stripped of all clothing.

Huntley had discussion the Dowler case with a policeman during the hunt for Holly and Jessica. At that stage Milly’s body had not been found and he asked where the police would go with that investigation.

This weekend it emerged that Lincolnshire is the latest county that may have failed to take proper account of Huntley’s paedophile activities.

In the summer of 1999 a vigilante mob drove him out of his home in High Street, Gainsborough, after they discovered he was enticing children as young as eight inside and plying them with orange juice spiked with strong cider.

Huntley used a pet gecko as part of the bait to lure children into his house. But when someone in turn spiked his drink in a local pub, he went home and bit the reptile to death.

Neighbours say Huntley left Gainsborough after a crowd of 50 besieged his house and kicked in the front door. Lincolnshire police said they had no record of the incident.

Additional reporting: Rachel Dobson, Nina Goswami, Graham Hind

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