Maxine's lookalike job storm

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Aug 8, 2004 | by NIC NORTH

STAFF at a hospital cafe threatened to walk out because they thought a new colleague was Soham liar Maxine Carr.

Bosses had to be called in to break up the furious revolt by kitchen workers.

The woman, who bears a striking resemblance to child killer Ian Huntley's ex-lover Carr, told them her real name - but they didn't believe her.

And they demanded that she was sacked - or they would all quit.

Bosses triple-checked the woman's references. They also rang police to confirm the new worker was not 28-year-old Carr.

A spokesman for the Courtyard Cafe at Prince Charles Hospital, Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, said: "We established beyond any doubt our new employee was not and never has been Maxine Carr. She is now settling in to her job and we wish her a bright future here."

One worker said yesterday: "She looks so similar to Maxine Carr that some of us were convinced it was her.

"We were horrified at the thought and made it pretty clear that if she was then either she went or we went. Mercifully, it was a case of mistaken identity."

Carr became a national hate figure after the murders of 10-year- olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham in August 2002. She was jailed for conspiring to pervert the course of justice and freed in May.