LONDON, 18 December 2003 — A former school caretaker was convicted yesterday of murdering two 10-year-old girls and sentenced to two life behind bars.

Ian Huntley, 29, had denied murdering the girls, claiming Holly Wells accidentally drowned in his bathtub when he was helping her stop a nosebleed, and that he apparently smothered Jessica Chapman while trying to stop her screams.

He acknowledged bundling the bodies into his car, dumping them in a remote ditch and burning them after cutting off their clothes. Huntley had admitted a single charge of conspiring to obstruct justice.

As the guilty charges were read out, Huntley stared straight ahead. with no signs of emotion.

Sentencing Huntley, Judge Alan Moses told him: “You murdered them both, you were the only person who knows how you murdered them. Your tears have never been for them, only for yourself. In your lies and manipulation up to this very day you have increased the suffering you have caused the two families.”

Huntley’s former girlfriend, Maxine Carr, 26, was acquitted of aiding in the killings but found guilty of conspiring with Huntley to obstruct justice.

Prosecutors said Carr had helped her boyfriend cover up the murders. She acknowledged lying to protect him, but denied aiding him and conspiring to obstruct justice.

“If you had the slightest true regard for those girls or families you would have told the truth,” the judge told Carr in sentencing her to three and a half years in prison.

The jury reached the guilty verdicts by votes of 11 to 1, shortly after the judge told them he would accept majority, rather than unanimous, decisions, as long as 10 jurors agreed.

The jurors had deliberated for more than three days in the case, which transfixed Britain when the two friends vanished on Aug. 4, 2002, as they walked through their hometown of Soham in eastern England.

A photo of Holly and Jessica taken hours before they disappeared, wearing identical bright red soccer shirts, was widely published as police, family and villagers searched for the girls.

Their remains were found two weeks later by hikers in a forest, 7 miles (11 km) from home.

Both Huntley and Carr had given a number of television and newspaper interviews during the search, expressing concern for the girls.

Huntley had testified that he did not call police after the two girls died in his house because he feared they would not believe his explanation. “I kept thinking ‘How do I explain this to the police?’” Huntley said.