Notorious UK child killer, Ian Huntley, has been cremated in secret after his family refused to honour the murderer with a funeral service.

Huntley was severely injured when another inmate allegedly stuck his head multiple times with a spiked metal pole at HM Prison Franklin in the village of Brasside in County Durham, England on February 26.

The brutal bashing left him on life support at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, where he died nine days later after succumbing to “significant head injuries” he sustained in the attack.

A post mortem, conducted two days later by forensic pathologist Dr Jennifer Bolton, concluded that the cause of death was a “blunt head injury.”

The 52-year-old was serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 40 years at the maximum-security facility for the murders of Holly Marie and Jessica Aimee Chapman.

On August 4, 2002, the 10-year-old girls vanished after leaving a family barbeque to buy sweets.

They were later lured into Huntley’s home in Soham, where he killed them. Their bodies were discovered in a ditch two weeks later.

On May 11, the despised double-murderer was cremated in a £265 (AUD $498) jute coffin “without a funeral service or mourners” after his family refused a £3,000 (AUD $5,600) taxpayer-funded funeral.

It is understood Huntley’s family turned down the offer out of respect for the families of the victims.

“A trusted undertaker took his body away,” a source told The Sun.

“There was no funeral, no service and no mourners.

“His family was adamant — how could he have a funeral after what he did? Their thoughts remain with the victims and their families, and that’s why he will not be mourned.

“He was cremated, and that was it, nothing more.”

The former school care taker’s ashes were given to a relative and were scattered at a secret location.

In the wake of Huntley’s death, a former reporter who came face-to-face with the killer revealed the moment he realised the horrible truth about the man pretending to be a concerned citizen.

Nathan Yates, who was working as a journalist for The Mirror, had been sent to cover the investigation after police arrested Huntley on suspicion of abduction and murder following the discovery of the girl’s bodies in a field.

What he didn’t know was that he would come face-to-face with the girls’ killer as soon as he set foot in Soham.

“I got a call from the desk saying to go up to Soham because these two girls have gone missing. I happened to be in that direction, so when I got there, there was nobody else there, except for this bloke with his dog, who was looking for the two girls, and that was Huntley,” Mr Yates told The Mirror.

He described how Huntley put on an incredibly believable concerned citizen act.

“He was going through the fields, looking for these two girls with his dog, and he seemed really worried about them, and I had a little chat with him,” he said.

“I suppose he was about my age. So I just thought, nice enough bloke, he was doing the right thing and trying to help. And he carried on like that, really, through the whole search.

“He put on this amazing charade of being very concerned and trying to help in every way he could”.

A full probe will be held once criminal proceedings into his alleged killer, Anthony Russell, 43, are complete.