Emma Rawson has told of the moment she could have blown the whistle on evil Ian Huntley’s abuse, before he went on to kill Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
But Emma, 15 at the time, was so under the spell of her manipulative lover she lied to social workers who asked if she was having sex with him.
Now 42, Emma fears her silence back then may have left him free to go on and cruelly cut short the lives of the 10-year-old pals seven years later. She has lived with the guilt ever since.
As the 20th anniversary of the Soham murders approaches, she has revealed the torment she suffered at the hands of her “first love” Huntley who was five years older.
Emma said she became pregnant by the monster but when she told him he gripped her by the throat and warned her: “I’ll kill you.”
She also revealed police told her she was “lucky” she survived his abuse.
Emma started dating Huntley, now 47, in 1995 after being kicked out of her abusive family’s home.
The mum of three said: “I’m sorry for lying to social services and saying we weren’t in a relationship.
“Had I said we were sleeping together, things might be different, he might not have been free to kill those girls. I feel guilty. I’m also angry that no one stopped him.
“He’s evil. He’ll be grinning about how many lives he’s ruined. That’s the sort of person he is. He’s clever, manipulative.
"He preyed on me because I was vulnerable.”
Emma said that within weeks of moving in with former school caretaker Huntley and his then partner, he coaxed her into switching to his mother’s home with him.
She added: “He was a really, really nice guy. He couldn’t do enough for me. He said, ‘If you ever need to talk I’m always there for you.’
“For some reason we all slept in the same bed. It was just a living arrangement. The next thing I know he had split up with his girlfriend and we’d moved into his mum’s flat where he had a proper bedroom.”
Within days Huntley convinced Emma to play cards, which turned into a “strip game”.
It sparked a 12-month period during which abusive Huntley became “coercive and controlling”.
Emma said: “All of sudden he just started kissing me. I had never been intimate with anyone before and I wasn’t expecting anything.
“I thought I was in love and this was a relationship. This guy had taken me in and I was super-grateful to him.
“We’d hold hands down the street and go shopping together. He didn’t care that everyone knew he was with a 15-year-old.
“He was helping me. I had nothing, I had no clothes. His mum went out and bought me stuff.
“I felt fortunate. He never asked anything of me.”
Social workers later investigated a “rumour” Emma was sleeping with Huntley.
But without the co-operation of the youngster or her parents they were powerless.
Emma told how Huntley had even set up a bed for her in a spare room at the flat in Immingham, Lincs, to dupe social services into thinking they were not together.
She said: “He had made it look like I was sleeping in there, but I wasn’t, I was sleeping in Ian’s room.
“It was so calculating. I was happy to go along with it, because I had a roof over my head and I was in love.
“It was easy to deceive social services, easy.
“How can a 15-year-old girl make them believe I wasn’t in a sexual relationship? Looking back, the police should have been banging the door down. It was a missed opportunity to stop him.
“If he was put on a register he would never have got a job at Holly and Jessica’s school.”
But their relationship turned sour when Huntley began working at a Grimsby fish factory and came home one night to tell Emma: “I’ve met someone else.”
She said: “I thought everything was hunky dory. Then this woman moved in and I had to pretend that I was his sister. My heart ripped in two.” Weeks later Emma discovered she was carrying Huntley’s baby.
But when she told him he grabbed her and barked: “If you spoil this for me, I’ll kill you.’”
Emma said: “He said, ‘If my new girlfriend finds out about this, you’re dead’. I knew he was capable, I was already scared of him.”
Emma then left the home but had a miscarriage. She said: “I’m very happy I lost the child. I wasn’t devastated. At that point I was 16 and pregnant to a scumbag. I hated him. I’m so relieved. Can you imagine trying to explain to your child that their dad is Britain’s most evil killer?
“Or even telling people you had a child with Ian Huntley?”
Holly and Jessica disappeared at Soham, Cambs, in August 2002, sparking a frantic two-week search.
Huntley killed them after they called in to see his girlfriend Maxine Carr, a teaching assistant at their school.
Emma was by then living in West London and working in a pub. She told how she opened a newspaper to see Huntley’s face and added: “I just said, ‘Oh my God.’ They were still looking for the girls at this point. I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach, I felt sick.
“He likes young girls. I’ll never get the image of Holly and Jessica out of my head. I can see them now, clear as day with the Man United T-shirts on. I don’t think that will ever leave me.
“I don’t want to imagine what he put those young girls through.”
Huntley was jailed for life in 2003 with a minimum sentence of 40 years. Carr got three and a half years for giving him a false alibi. She served 21 months. Despite being fully aware of Huntley’s deceit and manipulation, Emma has “no sympathy” for his ex.
She said: “She may not have helped kill those girls, but she tried to cover it up and she’s as guilty as he is.”
Emma has lived in Coningsby, Lincs, for the past 18 years, with husband Kevin, 42, and children, Luke, 13, Charlie, nine, and 20-month-old Frankie.
But she is still haunted by Huntley. Emma said: “I have nightmares about Ian. My husband will wake me up in the middle of the night when I’m screaming. When people say, ‘Do you remember your first love?’ and I say, ‘Ian Huntley,’ they just say I’m lying. It’s horrific.
“I can’t believe he’s still alive. I thought he would have killed himself in prison because he’s a coward.
“I’ve never hated anyone like that. He doesn’t deserve to be alive.
“I remember them [police] saying to me how lucky I was that I could have been a victim of something much worse. It’s terrifying. I trusted him.”
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