Viral image of Ian Huntley in hospital is fake
What was claimed
A picture shows Soham murderer Ian Huntley in hospital after he was attacked in prison.
Our verdict
This image isn’t real and was made using artificial intelligence.
A viral image claiming to show Soham murderer Ian Huntley in hospital after being attacked in prison isn’t real and was made using artificial intelligence.
Huntley, a former school caretaker who murdered 10-year-old Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Cambridgeshire in 2002, died last week after being attacked in prison.
The Ministry of Justice confirmed to Full Fact that a widely shared picture [warning: graphic] that appears to show him severely wounded isn’t real, and a reverse image search also says it was “made with Google AI”, meaning it has a SynthID watermark indicating it was generated or edited with one of Google’s AI tools.
It’s important to consider whether what you see on social media comes from a verifiable and trustworthy source before sharing. Our Full Fact toolkit and guides to spotting AI-generated images and videos can help you do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as altered because it was made or edited using Google AI tools and the Ministry of Justice confirmed the image is fake.
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