Soham murderer Ian Huntley has taped a confession of how he killed Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, it was reported today.

He gave previously unknown details of his crimes in a tape made before a suicide bid.

The former school caretaker said that when he told his lover Maxine Carr that he wanted to own up to the murders of the 10-year-old girls in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in August, 2002, she slapped his face.

She told him to pull himself together - because she did not want to lose her job as a teaching assistant or the house they shared.

He also said he lied in court about how he disposed of the bodies and was ordered by Carr to burn them.

He said it was believed he disposed of the bodies on the Sunday evening.

"That wasn't the case. It was actually Monday morning about 8.30 in the morning that I took them to Lakenheath.

"They spent the night in the boot of my car."

He said he was brushing his dog, Sadie, when he saw Jessica and Holly, who had a nose bleed.

At some point Holly fell into the bath, but he took her out, and there were "clearly signs of life at that point".

He took Jessica downstairs to the living room and she walked towards the door.

"I just grabbed hold of her, realising I couldn't let her go. At that point, with one hand over her mouth and the other round her neck, she died."

When he turned his attention back to Holly, she was dead.

A judge has ruled that Huntley should serve 40 years for the murders.

Carr was convicted of conspiring to pervert the course of justice