Huntley was rushed to hospital following the attack on Thursday
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Ian Huntley remains in a serious condition in hospital after he was attacked with a metal spike in prison, police have confirmed.
The murderer, 52, was left fighting for his life after being attacked at HMP Frankland in County Durham at around 9am on Thursday.
He was allegedly airlifted to hospital from his prison wing after being "bludgeoned" and found "lying in a pool of his own blood."
Providing an update on Huntley condition on Friday, a spokesperson for Durham Constabulary said: "There has been no change in the 52-year-old man's condition overnight – he remains in hospital in a serious condition."
The force declined to identify the suspect but on Thursday it said a man in his mid-40s had been detained in the prison, but he had not yet been arrested.
His attacker has since been named as Anthony Russell, according to multiple prison sources, a triple killer who once raped a pregnant woman.
According to prison sources, Russell was heard to shout afterwards: "I’ve done it, I’ve done it. I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him."
According to Mail Online, Huntley was said to have been trying to "bully" Russell behind bars in an effort to "turn people against him."
But instead, Russell got to him first and a fight is believed to have broken out between the pair on Thursday morning.
Russell is believed to have swung at Huntley with the metal pole, hitting him with such force that part of the bar was lodged inside of his head.
"Huntley was working in waste management with other prisoners from Wing A, the segregated wing for prisoners who can't be in the normal jail population for their own protection," a source told the publication.
"The other prisoner got a metal bar from the waste metal crates and smashed Huntley three times in the head with it. It was a very, very serious injury, having been struck on the skull like that."
Despite officers fearing Huntley had died due to the extent of his injuries and concerns he was "not breathing," paramedics put him in a medically induced coma and transport him to hospital.
'Evil'
Russell strangled Nicole McGregor, 31, to death before dumping her body in woodland near Leamington Spa.
He also murdered Julie Williams, 58, and her son David, 32, during a week-long crime spree in October 2020.
Russell, from Coventry, strangled Mr Williams with a lanyard and left the body under his bed, where it was found by police five days later, covered in 87 injuries.
He then strangled his mother in an attack that saw her hit five times on the head and neck, prosecutors said, and left with 113 separate injuries.
The killer was eventually the subject of a national manhunt and fled Leamington Spa by stealing a car from a pensioner.
Russell rang the 78-year-old man's doorbell asking for directions and when the victim was distracted, he hit him over the head from behind with a brick, leaving him with a fractured skull and a bleed on the brain.
Huntley is currently serving a life sentence for murdering Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in 2002.
School friends Holly and Jessica vanished after leaving a family barbecue to go and buy some sweets.
They were lured into the home of school caretaker Huntley, who murdered them before disposing of their bodies in a ditch.
Following a widespread police search, their bodies were found a week later near an airbase, 12 miles from Soham.
Suspicions were raised about Huntley after he gave detailed interviews to the press about the girls, and he appeared to take an unusual interest in the case.
His chilling responses to questions led journalists to raise concerns with the police.
Huntley was convicted in 2003 after pleading not guilty.
His then fiancee Maxine Carr, a teaching assistant at Holly and Jessica's school in the Cambridgeshire town, was given a three-and-a-half year sentence for perverting the course of justice by giving Huntley a false alibi.
She infamously turned on Huntley as he sat in the dock during his murder trial, describing him as “that thing in the box”.
She was granted a lifelong anonymity order in 2005, which protects her new identity indefinitely.
Murderer Mark Hobson also threw boiling water over Ian Huntley in Wakefield Prison in 2005.
In 2018, a violent convict tried to slit Huntley's throat, eight years after armed robber Damien Fowkes slashed his throat and put him in hospital.
Huntley's beating comes after former Lostprophets singer and child sex offender Ian Watkins was killed in an attack at Wakefield Prison last October.