Ian Huntley, the Soham accused, was the focus of a schoolgirl crush just weeks before he allegedly murdered Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, his Old Bailey trial heard yesterday.

A youngster got ''too close'' to the then caretaker at Soham Village College and had to be spoken to by the vice principal.

The court heard that Huntley's predecessor was sacked the year before, following an ''inappropriate relationship'' with a 13-year-old girl.

As a result all applicants for the post, including Mr Huntley, were questioned on what they would do if a girl at the school was attracted to them.

Stephen Coward QC, Mr Huntley's barrister, cross-examining college vice principal Margaret Bryden, said: ''Because of previous history, there were concerns. Therefore, all applicants were asked tricky questions.''

He said Mr Huntley had answered in an ''exemplary fashion''. Mrs Bryden agreed.

Mr Huntley said that should such a situation arise, he would report it to a senior member of staff.

Mr Coward said: ''In actual fact, it happened, did it not? It happened in July. It was reported to you and dealt with by you.''

Mrs Bryden said: ''It was not only reported to me but reported to the principal as well. I dealt with it with the girl in question.''

Mrs Bryden also said that Mr Huntley had ''confided'' in her about his father.

Cross-examining her, Michael Hubbard QC, Maxine Carr's barrister, said: ''He made some pretty shocking and outrageous allegations about his father, did he not?

''He made some pretty shocking allegations about what had happened to him in his early life. Did it ever occur to you that he lived in a world of his own fantasy?

''Did you ever think he was making things up?''

Mrs Bryden said: ''There were times I thought he was exaggerating things but did not think he was making them up.''

Mr Huntley applied for the job of site manager under the name Ian Nixon and was interviewed on November 9, the court heard.

Mrs Bryden said that during interviews all candidates were asked to imagine that a girl on the college premises had become attracted to them, and to say what action they would take.

She said: ''Huntley gave a very, very specific reply that he would be reporting it to myself as his line manager or to the principal if anything was untoward.''

Asked what she had thought of Mr Huntley as a candidate, she said: ''I was delighted. Here we had a very sensible approach to it, someone who was going to marry, whose fiancee was there, and a very level-headed person.''

Mr Huntley was offered the job, pending police checks ''for child protection''.

He and Ms Carr moved into a cottage on the site and Mrs Bryden said she was aware of rows between the couple, especially towards the end of the summer of 2002, and Huntley would become ''sullen''.

After the girls vanished, Mrs Bryden said that Mr Huntley told her several times he was the last person to see them alive.

He phoned her on August 13 - the day police feared they might have found the girls' bodies in shallow graves in Warren Hill, near Newmarket.

The ''graves'' were later found to be badger setts, but Mrs Bryden said she and Mr Huntley had discussed the possibility that the girls could be dead.

''He told me that he had been to his GP and he had been given medication and was being treated for depression and high blood pressure,'' she said. ''He told me he was the last person to see them alive.''

In a previous phone call on August 8 - four days after the girls disappeared - he complained he was ''being hounded by the press and police and he needed to go away for the weekend'', she said.

Mr Huntley, 29, denies murdering the two girls but has admitted conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Ms Carr, 26, a former classroom assistant at the girls' primary school in Soham, denies conspiring to pervert the course of justice and two charges of assisting an offender.

The trial continues.