One of Britain’s most prolific paedophiles has been found stabbed to death in his prison cell.
Richard Huckle, from Ashford in Kent, was serving 22 life sentences after admitting dozens of sexual offences against children in Malaysia.
The 33-year-old was found dead at HMP Full Sutton, in East Yorkshire, at around 12.30pm on Sunday.
Humberside Police launched an investigation and said they were treating the death as suspicious. It has been reported that he was attacked with a makeshift “shiv” knife.
Huckle, a freelance photographer who first visited Malaysia aged 18 or 19 during a gap year, preyed on victims in poor neighbourhoods of the capital, Kuala Lumpur.
Posing as an English teacher and Christian volunteer, he abused children from the age of six months to 12 years between 2006 and 2014.
Huckle also wrote a manual titled “Paedophiles And Poverty: Child Lover Guide” and a Pedopoints ledger which awarded points for different types of sexual abuse of children.
He even tried to earn money by crowdfunding videos of him abusing a three-year-old girl.
More than 20,000 indecent pictures and videos were found on his computer following his arrest at Gatwick Airport in 2014. He had returned to the UK to spend Christmas at home with his family.
Detectives identified 23 victims from mainly poor Christian families but it is believed he may have abused up to 200 children.
After pleading guilty at the Old Bailey to 71 sexual offences, including multiple rapes, he wrote a letter to the court blaming his “immaturities” and the “pathetic, perverted lust of those who drew me into the dark net”.
In June 2016, Judge Peter Rook QC sentenced Huckle to a minimum of 23 years before parole, adding: “It is very rare indeed that a judge has to sentence sexual offending by one person on such a scale as this.”
