Richard Huckle, one of Britain's worst paedophiles, is 'murdered' in his prison cell
Richard Huckle, one of Britain's worst paedophiles, has been killed in his prison cell in the north of England, sources have confirmed.
The 33-year-old, who was serving 22 life sentences, at Full Sutton Prison in East Yorkshire, was found dead in his cell at the weekend.
Huckle, from Ashford in Kent, was jailed in 2016, after being arrested on his return to the UK from Malaysia, where he had been living and abusing children.
He pleaded guilty to 71 offences involving 22 children, but it is thought there were many more victims across South East Asia.
Huckle was found by prison staff in his cell having been stabbed repeatedly with a makeshift blade.
A Prison Service spokesman said: “HMP Full Sutton prisoner Richard Huckle died on 13 October. It would be inappropriate to comment further while a police investigation is ongoing.”
The former grammar school boy targeted poverty-stricken communities in Malaysia and Cambodia.
He systematically abused boys and girls as young as six months old between 2006 and December 2014 when he was finally arrested as he returned to Britain for a Christmas holiday.
When he was arrested investigators from the National Crime Agency said the scale of the offending was "unprecedented and exceptional".
Huckle, who worked in a mobile phone factory, first went to Malaysia in 2005 on a gap year teaching placement.
The following year he visited Cambodia and while staying with a local family took indecent images of their child who was aged around three at the time.
He then began to visit Malaysia regularly, posing as a teacher, photographer and philanthropist in order ingratiate himself with a local Christian community before raping and abusing their children.
Huckle focused his offending on vulnerable children in a poverty stricken community in Kuala Lumpur, even boasting of his exploits to other paedophiles online.
In one posting he wrote: "Impoverished kids are definitely easier to seduce to than middle-class Western kids."
He used sick websites on the dark web to sell images of his abuse to other child molesters, accepting payment in Bitcoins.
In one exchange found online he wrote about "hitting the jackpot" after discovering a three-year-old girl who he said was as "loyal as a dog".
Investigators found a post in which he said: "I have found a three-year-old girl who I can have so much sex with it's boring."
Although his offending took place overseas, prosecutors made use of Section 72 of the Sexual Offences Act which allows a UK national to be charged in Britain for offences committed abroad.
Following his arrest his parents questioned him about the allegations and he confessed to them that he was a paedophile.
His mother was described as being completely devastated and his father, who works as an engineer, contacted the police and told them what he had said.
They both gave statements to the court in support of the prosecution.
In 2011 child killer, Colin Hatch, was murdered in his prison cell at Full Sutton by another inmate.
Convicted robber, Damien Fowkes, later admitted strangling Hatch after he was transferred from Durham's Frankland Prison, where he had attempted to kill Ian Huntley.
