Did Maxine Carr know?

[ahunf]

I assumed she did. I know it's not based on fact but after watching the Maxine programme I thought maybe she didn't know. The "no comment" at the very end made me think.

Faking It is a great programme.

They did focus more on Huntlet, but they did show the police interview with Maxine Carr.
Just based off her reaction when she was told it was him that did it, I genuinely don't think she knew it was him.

I think she was naive, stupid, and she suffered tremendous violence from him, so she was automatically trained to say whatever he told her to say. It doesn't excuse what she did.
But I don't think she knew it was him.

I don't think she knew. I think she was badly abused and not very intelligent so believed his stories and did as told. She may have suspected later but gone into denial and leant into his version of events until the police made it sound irrefutable. I just don't think she would have been that good of an actor.

The past tense thing keeps getting referred to but she was no longer their teaching assistant and as such might well have thought of them as having moved on. She knew them in the capacity of her pupils, and was being asked about that time which was in the past. If I was asked about a colleague who had left, unless I was planning on staying in touch then I would probably refer to them in the past tense.

She got an inexcusable beating by the press. Whatever happened, she was not involved in the murders or forward planning, even if she did lie. She was nothing like Myra Hindley or Rose West and yet those comparisons were made all the time. I know she wasn't innocent on all counts but it was wild. I don't think a partner persuaded into lying for their DV abuser deserves that weight of hatred and never to be able to return to a normal life after serving the appropriate time.

I've always believed this Tbh and have always felt a bit sorry for her. I honestly think there's one monster here and it wasn't Maxine.

For all we know, MC might even be on here.

I don’t think she knew. I was in a DA relationship and you believe everything you’re told because you’re manipulated. I think she was just controlled and took the brunt of it

I think she was abused and not very intelligent. She may have suspected something but people are very good at dismissing things they really don’t want to think about.
The level of hatred she got was (for me) completely disproportionate, at most she gave him a fake alibi, she wasn’t involved in the actual crime at all. She couldn’t have prevented it so what she did was make it harder to catch Huntley, which should hardly earn her “the most hated woman in Britain “ title.

I think it was obscene to make a drama about her. He’s the villain, not the poor abused, naïve woman he groomed to lie for him.

This is one of the cases where I genuinely don’t have any gut feeling as to whether she knew he was guilty or not. She had a peculiar demeanour which could have just reflected the years of abuse. It’s very hard to say.

She strikes me as highly unlikely to reoffend.

@KangarooKenny @SheerFolly and others.

The past tense thing is massively overplayed.

She'd been their TA, but wasn't any longer. It's exactly the way anyone would speak about people in that situation.
"You worked with Jane in your last job, didn't you?"
"Oh yes, she was lovely, always had a nice word for me"
Doesn't mean you think Jane's dead, does it?

I'm convinced MC was abused, cowed, and generally not very bright, not an accessory to murder.

As for those in this thread who are actually drawing conclusions from a character saying "no comment" in an IMAGINED SCENE in a drama, words fail me.

I agree with this to an extent. I think she knew, in her heart of hearts, that something had happened but she couldn't compute what had happened. She was programmed to support IH's explanations no matter what.

Brow beaten, physically beaten, naive, not very intelligent. I wonder how many women in a similar situation, with a similar personality would have done that much different.

This doesn't mean I think she shouldn't have been punished but I am very glad to never have had to walk in her shoes.

We yes, yes she totally knew and gave him an alibi. Was she scared of him, abused by him - I don’t know her motives, but she totally knew.

I think it’s sad that a drama is allowed to be made about anything to do with the Soham murders. Holly and Jessica’s parents have to live with the horror of their losses every single day, it’s awful that it gets to be rehashed and replayed on TV.

I agree.

I have seen the programme and I have a weird interest in true crime so I’ve read / watched pretty much every detail about the case out there. I think she was an idiot and should have come clean about certain things much sooner than she did but I don’t think she knew he’d killed them. She was a victim of Huntley herself, although obviously in a much lesser way. He was the monster.

I think it’s really unfair for people to say because she used the past tense she must have known - she was probably just thinking of them in the sense that she “had” known them, and by that point lots of people were assuming harm had come to them.

This shows my point, I don't think someone who provided a false alibi (not minimising this, of course it could have enabled him time to act again but he didn't) should have to live shrouded in this level of secrecy and fear.

I watched it and I don't think she knew. She was controlled by him and panicked when she realized he was under investigation. The police were interviewing using past tense, she answered using past tense. 'What were the girls like?'. She answered that question in past tense, as in what they were like when in her role as their teaching assistant.

Interesting all the control comments. When I was married to someone and suffering DA and control I wouldn't have visited my mother and snogged some teenager in public.

@OneFrenchEgg It's more common than you think.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/12523853.no-one-seems-to-know-the-real-maxine-huntleys-lover-will-pay-a-heavy-price-for-their-tempestuous-relationship/

Interesting opposing views here on her. I think she knew early on and lied. I thought that at the time and I haven't any reason to change my mind. The car boot witness account was very odd.

According to the drama, H told her that the police were trying to frame him because he was the last person to see them. She believed him and tried to stop any questioning in it’s tracks by giving him an alibi.

*The ‘No comment’ at the end… She was being questioned by the press after being given a new identity- I assumed that just meant she no longer answered questions about her ‘former life’.

Agree with these points. Plus Huntley had previously been arrested for rape and iirc, no charges were brought. He told Maxine that if the police found out about these previous charges he would be the prime suspect, so she went along with him.

Her treatment by the press in this country far exceeds the prison sentence she received. There are actual murderers who live among us under their own names with none of this continuing interest and people making threats against them, saying the death penalty should be brought back for them, etc. Yet another example of a woman being held up to very different standards from a man and for a lesser crime. It's misogyny.

I don’t think she knew. I think she was not very bright, in an abusive relationship and gave him an alibi because he said they would accuse him due to his past. I think she was treated appallingly by the press.

Everyone is different

That was in the context of answering questions asked in the past tense.

I think the recent drama has definitely shone a light on the relationship between Huntley and Carr. I totally agree that she was in thrall to him, and as events unfolded, she started.to realise he was involved, but was probably too terrified to come clean.
I have always thought that Maxine was too harshly vilified by the media, and in the past I have been sneered at for having this opinion. It's good to read that there are others who share my thoughts

I watched this a while a go: www.channel5.com/show/soham-the-murder-of-holly-jessica

There's a neighbor from a previous house where Maxine and Ian lived. The neighbour still lives in the same house, they are at the back of the house pointing to where Maxine and Ian lived, she heard Ian beating Maxine, being verbally abusive, even raping her. Maxine was crying,. screaming, begging him.to.stop.