It began when defence lawyer Stephen Coward QC rose to his feet and said: "I call Mr Huntley." The former caretaker stood and made his way from the dock past the members of the jury and into the witness box to face his counsel.

As he did, the already hushed Old Bailey courtroom became even quieter.

Few seats remained in Number One court or in the public gallery and all eyes were trained on the oak box to the left hand corner of this most famous of courtrooms.

Among the dozens looking on were the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman who had taken their regular seats for the fifth week of the double murder trial.

Nicola and Kevin Wells sat at the back of the courtroom while Leslie and Sharon Chapman chose the seats to the right of the dock. They looked on expressionless and dignified.

Huntley read the oath in a quiet voice. It was not the first time his voice had been heard in this case. The jury has already seen replayed video interviews of him in Soham during the hunt for the missing ten-year-olds.

But yesterday, day 20 of proceedings, was the first time the seven women and five men of the jury had heard him speak since being charged with the double murder.

Huntley denies the murders of Holly and Jessica but has admitted one count of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. His former girlfriend, Maxine Carr, denies two counts of assisting an offender and one of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Mr Coward explained to his client that if there were any questions he did not follow, he must ask for them to be repeated before answering.

Huntley then confirmed his full name - Ian Kevin Huntley.

Above, many in the gallery rested their chins on their hands and leaned forward to listen.

The court was so quiet that even the sound of a notepad falling on the floor echoed around the room.

Mr Coward then went through the events from when Huntley said he first saw the girls on August 4 last year to the realisation they were dead in his house.

At times Huntley would pause before answering the questions and on occasions asked for them to be repeated.

There was a long pause when he was asked about coming to the decision that he must get the girls' bodies out of his house.

The defendant, who wore a dark suit and tie, drank water at regular intervals and stopped at one point to ask for more.

His voice was quiet and the microphone in front of him had to be adjusted twice so the court could hear better.

At times his voice would falter, especially when he discussed the events in the bathroom where the two girls died.

Huntley looked on the verge of tears when he told the court how he had somehow slipped on the bathroom floor, falling towards Holly and knocking her into the bath.

At other times he would stutter when answering a question or mentioning one of the girl's names and on other occasions would sway from one foot to the other.

As he spoke about text messages he received from Maxine Carr from Grimsby before the girls went missing, Huntley would glance at the dock where his former girlfriend sat.

At the back of the court Mr Wells regularly took notes of the proceedings, while his wife watched Huntley in the box.

The Chapmans, likewise, looked at Huntley with Mr Chapman, often with his arms folded, listening to the evidence.

As the afternoon progressed and Mr Coward continued to question his client on the events after Holly and Jessica's deaths, Huntley's voice would again crack with emotion.

His answer trailed off as he explained how he put the girls' bodies into a ditch on the night they died.

The subject later turned to that of Maxine Carr and once again emotion welled up as he said he had wanted to tell her what had happened to the girls.

His voice breaking, he asked: "How do you tell somebody you are responsible for the deaths of two girls and then, then what happened after that?"

A picture of the girls' burnt clothing when it was discovered in a dustbin at Soham village college was shown again to the jury on the TV monitors.

Huntley gave the image a brief glance before turning back to his counsel. After a short while the trial judge, Mr Justice Moses, asked if it was necessary to keep the picture up and it was removed from the screen.

Huntley's voice faltered as he told the court how frightened and ashamed he was of "what I had done".

But he was firm in his answer when Mr Coward put to him the prosecution's allegation that he had murdered the girls, with an emphatic "No."

Huntley's voice wavered as he said he had wanted to commit suicide and he was choking back tears as Mr Coward drew his questioning to a close.

Asked how he felt to be in the Old Bailey, Huntley said, after a pause of several seconds: "I wish I could turn back the clock. I wish I could do things differently."