Holly Wells' parents attended the hearing

Had Phil Watters noticed this link, the danger Huntley posed to young women would have been recognised and action taken, he said in a written statement.

Mr Watters is giving evidence to the Bichard Inquiry into how Huntley got a job as a school caretaker.

After Huntley was jailed for Holly Wells' and Jessica Chapman's murders other allegations against him emerged.

No action taken

Holly's parents Kevin and Nicola Wells are attending Monday's hearing of the inquiry.

Mr Watters investigated three underage sex allegations against Huntley in Grimsby in 1996 within a month.

But he made no connection between each these cases or with an incident the previous year when Huntley admitted sleeping with a 15-year-old girl.

No action was taken by police or social services over any of these incidents.

In a statement Mr Watters said: "I cannot recall making a link and there is no evidence from files that I made a link in respect of Ian Huntley."

He said: "I have to accept that his name came to my direct attention on a number of occasions, three I think, within the space of four weeks.

Had the links been made, chid care social services and the police "would have been aware of the risks Ian Huntley posed to young women" he said in his statement, and a multi-agency meeting would have been called.

He also said a "clearer picture" of Huntley would have emerged if a letter from a deputy head teacher raising concerns about him had been passed to police.

Humberside Police never received a fax of the letter from Immingham School's deputy head Roger Davies, the inquiry has heard.

Mr Watters was principal social worker within the child protection section of North East Lincolnshire social services at the time of the allegations.

Unit overworked

Inquiry counsel James Eadie said: "We have got four incidents of a similar kind in a nine-month period. They were all drawn to the attention of social services.

"It appears that sometimes information might have got to the police and sometimes it did not".

Martin Eaden, deputy director at North East Lincolnshire Council's directorate of learning and child care, said he thought the social services' handling of one allegation that Huntley had sex with a 15-year-old " was totally inadequate in every sense."

The case was closed without the girl having been seen, her whereabouts discovered or her welfare assured, he said.

A Cambridgeshire police officer also told the inquiry the unit responsible for child access vetting requests was overworked when Huntley was being checked for his caretaker job.

By December 2001 the Cambridgeshire Criminal Records Bureau was "experiencing significant problems" with the volume of paper work, according to Det Supt Walter Haddow, the force's head of crime support .

In that month alone there was 1,723 child access vetting requests.