Perverting the course of justice certainly does pay
Carr told police she was with Huntley on the day the girls vanished.
During the 13 days before their bodies were found, she vouched for Huntley repeatedly, meaning police initially ruled him out as a suspect.
She even gave press interviews claiming she had been in the house as Huntley spoke to the girls on the doorstep.
She said: "I only wish we had asked them where they were going ... if only we knew then what we know.
Then we could have stopped them or done something about it."
In fact, Carr was 100 miles away in Grimsby – at a nightclub with another man.
She was pictured kissing and cuddling a 17-year-old rugby player, eight years her junior.
By the time Huntley and Carr were first quizzed by police on August 16, detectives already had information from several Grimsby residents who recognised the pair in TV interviews.
Mobile phone records showed that she was with her mother in Grimsby at the time and they were spotted out drinking together in the town at The Parity in Grimsby.
Two days after the murders, Huntley travelled to Grimsby to be reunited with Carr.
They were spotted by a neighbour of Carr's mother on Cromwell Road, talking next to a small red Ford Fiesta car.
An intriguing aspect of that sighting is that they were looking into the boot of the car - said to have been used to carry the bodies of Holly and Jessica.
The female witness said: "Maxine was sobbing and Ian just looked really thin and pale.
"I opened my gate, it made a noise and they both turned round and looked to look at me. Ian closed the boot.
"Maxine put her head down and continued to cry."
The neighbour asked Huntley if everything was all right but added: "He said rather abruptly 'yes' and they went inside.
"Maxine just looked – you could see the tears – and put her head down."
Carr also admitted that she had lied repeatedly to police, journalists and anyone who asked her about the events of that weekend.
But she insisted that, although Huntley told her Holly and Jessica had been in their home at College Close, she did not know that he had killed them.
Convicted and jailed for three-and-a-half years for perverting the course of justice, Carr served 21 months of her jail term and was given a new identity on her release amid concerns she would be attacked.
Since her release from prison in 2004 it has cost the taxpayer around £2.5 million to give her a new identity and police protection.