Soham accused Ian Huntley's fingerprints and hair linked him to the blackened remains of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman's Manchester United shirts, his murder trial heard yesterday.

All the girls' clothing was cut from their bodies and burned in a bin at Soham Village College, where Huntley worked as caretaker, said Richard Latham, QC, prosecuting.

A photograph of the charred remnants was shown to the Old Bailey jury trying Huntley for their murder.

Huntley tried to distract attention away from himself after killing the girls, Mr Latham alleged.

But 12 days after the murders, his fingerprints and hairs from his head were found inside the bin containing the clothing, the court heard.

Mr Latham said: "We place very considerable reliance on the fact that Mr Huntley's fingerprints were on the inside of a liner put on top of the clothes.

"We say the clothing was in the bottom of the bin, and after the clothing was there, a new bin liner was put in."

The court watched a 3D graphic reconstruction of how police discovered Holly and Jessica's clothes in the dustbin.

A police officer had searched five bins in the college grounds.

In one of them, after removing a bag of rubbish and a second bin liner, he found the girls' clothing.

"All the clothes of Holly and Jessica, right down to their trainers and underwear," Mr Latham said.

"Each item of clothing had been cut off."

Earlier, the court heard how Huntley's car was "sanitised" the day after the girls disappeared. The tyres on the Ford Fiesta were changed, the carpet was taken out of the boot and he was spotted cleaning the car thoroughly.

Police visiting his house noticed washing on the line, even though it was pouring with rain, and said the ground floor was "immaculately tidy and there was a strong smell of lemony cleaning product", said Mr Latham. He alleged Huntley had "a devious and calculating mind which was well able to think about what he needed to do to distract attention away from himself".

Mr Latham said Huntley later told police he had seen a man running with a bin liner near the spot the girls disappeared. Nothing was found in a subsequent search.

Mr Latham told the jury Huntley's actions often followed telephone contact with his then girlfriend, Maxine Carr, who was in Grimsby. "We attach significance to contact followed by action," he said.

Huntley, 29, the former caretaker at Soham Village College, denies the murder of the girls but admits conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

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

The girls vanished after leaving Holly's home in Soham, on August 4 last year.

The trial continues.