THE serial pedophile Barry Bennellwho molested underage boys as a football coach, died in prison at the age of 69, the British Ministry of Justice announced. Bennell died of canceron Saturday morning, while serving combined jail terms at HMP Littlehey in Cambridgeshire for more than 50 offenses against 22 boys while he coached them in the 1980s and 1990s. A Prison Service spokesman said: “Prisoner Barry Bennell has died at HMP Littlehey on 16 September 2023. As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Custody Ombudsman will investigate.’
Bennell’s first conviction was in Florida for an offense he committed while on tour with a Staffordshire youth group and he served four years in prison on four charges innocent in a 13-year-old boy. He was subsequently extradited to stand trial for attacks that took place in the UK following an investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches. In June 1998 he pleaded guilty at Chester Crown Court to 23 charges of sexual abuse 15 boys aged between 9 and 14 between 1978 and 1992 and was sentenced to nine years in prison.
In 2016, a former professional soccer player, Mr Andy Woodwardstated to Guardian that he was a victim of Bennell, with other former players following suit. Bennell, also known as Richard Jones, was jailed for an additional 30 years in 2018 after being convicted of 52 sex offenses against 12 underage boys.
The judge at Liverpool Crown Court, when handing down the sentence, said: “To these boys you appeared as a god… in reality you are the devil incarnate. You stole their childhood and their innocence.” He was ordered to serve an additional four years in 2020 after pleading guilty to other offenses against two boys.
When he was sentenced in 2018, Judge Goldstone QC, of Liverpool, said he “may well die in prison”. His latest prison sentence, in 2020, was the fifth time he has been imprisoned. At that hearing, the court was told he had a detached retina after an attack in prison and was in remission from cancer.
Bennell was a youth coach at clubs such as Crewe Alexandra, Manchester City and Stoke City when he carried out attacks on boys who were promising young footballers. Many later spoke of how deeply the abuse had affected them, in some cases ruining their careers.
Earlier this year, a court found that the Manchester City she could not be held responsible for the attacks that took place while she was working there. Judge Johnson accepted the claims of the men, who were sexually assaulted by Bennell when they were boys, in a written judgment published in January, the judge said that while there was a “good explanation” for the delay in the claims against the City, they they were brought too late for the club to have a fair trial. He said that even if the claims were not time-barred, the fact that Bennell was City’s scout, coached the youth teams and helped organize trial matches did not make the club vicariously liable for the abuse incidents, contrary to what the eight men.
Source: News Beast
With 6 years of experience, I bring to the table captivating and informative writing in the world news category. My expertise covers a range of industries, including tourism, technology, forex and stocks. From brief social media posts to in-depth articles, I am dedicated to creating compelling content for various platforms.
