Paedophile
Football coach Barry Bennell died in his
prison cell (Image: PA Wire)
BREAKING crime updates and news from the courts More Newsletters Subscribe Please enter a valid email Something went wrong, please try again later. More Newsletters We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. More info Thank you for subscribing! We have more newsletters Show me See Our Privacy Notice See Our Privacy Notice × Group 28 Breaking crime updates and news from the courts Invalid email Something went wrong, please try again later. Sign Up No thanks, close We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. More info × Group 28 Thank you for subscribing! We have more newsletters Show Me No thanks, close See our Privacy Notice Paedophile football coach Barry Bennell died in prison while on an end-of-life pathway for
cancer of the tonsils. He had to write things down to communicate and was fed with a tube, an inquest heard on Monday (March 25). The former Crewe Alexandra coach, 69, was found dead in his cell by an officer during hourly checks at HMP Littlehey in Cambridgeshire on September 16 last year. He had been convicted of a number of child sex offences and was serving a 34-year sentence. Bennell had legally changed his name to Richard Jones, and the inquest in Huntingdon was held under this name. Cambridgeshire's area coroner Elizabeth Gray said Bennell had a history of throat cancer from 2004 and had a recurrence in 2016. Read next: Gypsy and Traveller family gets green light for new homes near Cambs village Read next:
police investigate after blood found outside property on busy Cambridge road She said he was diagnosed with cancer of the tonsils in early 2023 and at the time of his death his care was palliative. She recorded a conclusion of natural causes. The coroner said Bennell was fed with a tube and his "means of communication was to write things down". She described Bennell having a "significant amount of pain which was managed by the healthcare team at the prison". Former football coach and serial paedophile Barry Bennell died in a Cambridgeshire prison (Image: PA Media) Bennell was seen for chest pain in July 2023 and in late July his speech started deteriorating. He had discharged himself back to prison from Hinchingbrooke Hospital against medical advice on September 12, four days before he died. He had become confused on September 14 but declined to go to the hospital. Ms Gray stated that Bennell had previously tried to take his own life and was found with opiates in his possession. She recorded his medical cause of death as bilateral bronchopneumonia, citing squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx as a contributing factor. A report from the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman concluded that the care Bennell received was of a "good standard and equivalent to that he would have received in the wider community". Photographers gather around a GEOAmey van leaving
Liverpool Crown Court after the sentencing of serial paedophile Barry Bennell (Image: PA Archive/PA Images) Police attended following his death, as is standard procedure. There were no signs of third party involvement. The coroner said: "I'm satisfied the conclusion for Mr Jones is he died as a result of natural causes." Bennell, who was born in Manchester, had been transferred to HMP Littlehey in July 2019. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2018 after being convicted of 52 child sexual offences against 12 boys. In 2020, he was ordered to serve an additional four years after pleading guilty to other offences against two boys. His final prison sentence, in 2020, was the fifth time he had been jailed. Bennell, a former scout for
Manchester City, abused boys he coached in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. He also worked for several other professional clubs. He was first imprisoned in
Florida in 1994 for raping a
British boy on a football tour in America, before going on to face prison sentences in
Britain in 1998, 2015, 2018 and 2020. After his convictions in 2018, over 80 other people claimed to have been abused by him. Do you want more of the latest Cambridgeshire news as it comes in? Sign up to our dedicated newsletter to make sure you never miss a big story from Cambridge or anywhere else in the county. You can also sign up to our dedicated Peterborough, Traffic and Crime newsletters for the latest updates on the topics you are most interested in. Story Saved You can find this story in My Bookmarks. Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right. Follow CambridgeLive
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