The parents of murdered British schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman have been contacted by detectives investigating phone hacking at the News of the World.
A police source said relatives of the two children murdered by Ian Huntley were visited by Scotland Yard officers several months ago.
A Cambridgeshire police spokesman said: “Both families have been contacted by officers from the Metropolitan police and are assisting with them with their inquiries.”
The families are understood to be seeking further clarification from Scotland Yard before making any comment.
A Met police spokeswoman said the force would not be commenting.
Former school caretaker Huntley is serving a life term for the 2002 murders of Jessica and Holly, both 10, in Soham.
Huntley’s throat was slashed with a makeshift knife in Frankland Prison, Durham, in March last year.
Allegations of hacking in the Soham case were first aired by British Labour MP Tom Watson.
But the Cambridgeshire police statement is the first time it has been confirmed that the phone hacking inquiry, Operation Weeting, is looking at the Soham case.
Holly’s parents, Kevin and Nicola, and Jessica’s mother and father, Leslie and Sharon Chapman, said after Huntley’s trial that they were haunted by the murders “each and every day”.
Holly and Jessica went missing on August 4th 2002 after leaving the Wells family home to buy sweets.
A picture of them wearing identical Manchester United shirts sparked an international search but their bodies were found a fortnight later in a ditch.
PA