Will Maxine ever be free?

IT should have provoked a wave of sympathy. The image of a slight, timid woman weeping uncontrollably in court, hardly able to look at her betrayer. Vulnerable and exposed, she flounders under the rapier-sharp questioning of the barrister, a man whose job it is to exploit any signs of weakness. Exasperated, the woman becomes defiant, all too aware that her liberty is at stake. Her voice rises above the courtroom muttering, setting the reporters scribbling: "I am not going to be blamed for what that thing in that box has done to me or those children."

Yet, in the public's eyes, Maxine Carr's performance in last year's Soham murder trial did nothing to help her cause. While Ian Huntley was found guilty of murdering ten-year-old friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, receiving two life sentences, his girlfriend Carr was sentenced to three-and-a-half years for conspiring to pervert the course of justice. The only thing she was found guilty of was lying to the police to give Huntley an alibi. But, in the public's imagination, she had already been cast as a villainess, culpable by association with her evil partner.

Throughout her jail term, spent at London's Holloway prison and Foston Hall, in Derbyshire, the monstrous image of Maxine Carr has endured. When she was eligible for release under the electronic tagging system, the Home Office, fearing an outcry, changed the law, reserving the right to intervene. Inevitably, she was turned down, because "it would undermine public confidence in the scheme".

Earlier this week, Carr was back in court, facing 20 charges of deception. Investigations into her background had revealed that, since 1996, she had lied about her qualifications to get jobs - including as a classroom assistant at Holly and Jessica's school - and fraudulently claimed benefits. She admitted the charges, partly blaming Huntley, and received a three-year community rehabilitation order. While the judge claimed he could have imposed a prison sentence, Carr's barrister was sceptical, questioning why she was pursued for old offences and saying: "This prosecution has the hand of the Home Office all over it."

Yet Maxine Carr is now in the process of being freed. Currently in a safe house following her release on licence from Foston Hall, she will remain there until it is deemed safe for her to move to more permanent accommodation. Much speculation has surrounded this, fuelled by Tuesday's theft of documents relating to her release. After suggestions that she would resettle in Australia were dismissed, the latest rumour is that she will live with her mother in the North-East.

Assistant chief probation officer and a key figure in Durham and Darlington's public protection unit, Sue Hine, says the arrangements for Carr's release would have been made well in advance. She will be looked after by the Probation Service, with the police and social services also playing vital roles. According to Ms Hine, the main concern will be avoiding vigilante attacks. "What we are always doing is trying to minimise the risk of harm to the community, and vigilante action increases the risk of harm, not only to the individual, but also to the community," she says.

It is inevitable that, wherever Carr lives, she will have some form of security, such as CCTV cameras and panic buttons, but officials have been quick to dismiss claims that it will cost taxpayers £1m. It has also been suggested that she will be given a different identity, with a new passport, national insurance number and birth certificate. She may decide to opt for plastic surgery.

Wherever she is settled, and however much protection she has, Carr's life won't be easy. She is unlikely to be welcome in her home town of Grimsby and there is not a corner of the British Isles in which she will be safe from reprisals. Unlike Newcastle girl Mary Bell, who murdered two young boys in 1968, and James Bulger's killers Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, Carr has not been granted lifelong anonymity, although the High Court yesterday imposed a ban on revealing her new name and address. And while Bell, Venables and Thompson were only children when they committed their crimes, their adult faces yet to form, Carr's is instantly recognisable. It is etched on the public consciousness as belonging to 'Myra Hindley Mark Two'; a hate figure tainted by the crimes of Ian Huntley, the blood of the two little girls also on her hands.

Yet why has the public cast her as a cold-blooded murderess, when she was not directly involved in Holly and Jessica's deaths? Dr Joan Harvey, a chartered psychologist at Newcastle University, says Carr has become a scapegoat. "People are making a massive judgement on Huntley and they are dolloping some of that on her. They need someone on which to lay the blame, and he is in prison," she says.

Dr Harvey believes that being a woman, Carr is especially vilified. "We make judgements that women are nurturers and carers and the idea of a nurturer and carer involved in murder is unacceptable," she says.

The picture that has emerged of Maxine Carr is of a nave woman immature for her 27 years. Having lied to get the job, she failed to impress as Holly and Jessica's classroom assistant and was ultimately dismissed. She has an eating disorder and claims she was bullied by Huntley and was scared of him, but that she loved him anyway.

What seems clear is that Huntley was the dominant character in the relationship, the strong sexual predator who exploited Carr's weakness. When he asked her to cover for him she allowed him to lead her, despite knowing about his earlier rape charge, and told the lie that she was there when Holly and Jessica called; the lie that would seal her fate. Now, as she prepares to re-enter society and start a new life, what are her thoughts of the past, her hopes for the future?

Dr Harvey says: "Everybody thinks she's been an accessory or that her judgement is flawed because she lived with this monster, but of course she didn't see him as a monster. She only sees things from her own perspective. She's in a very odd position and she's not going to be able to fathom how other people feel about her."

Dr Harvey thinks that, while Carr may be tempted to sell her story, this would only provoke further wrath. But she believes that one day she may live something approaching a normal life. "I think that people will mostly forget and that, in ten years, when all this is history, she will be lost in the mists of time," she says.