Barry Bennell dead – Paedo football coach who abused more than 20 boys while working at top clubs dies in prison aged 70
PAEDO football coach Barry Bennell has died in prison aged 70 – after he abused more than 20 boys at top clubs.
The Sun understands that the predator, who had cancer, died at HMP Littlehey in Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning.
Bennell was a youth coach at Crewe Alexandra, Manchester City and Stoke City in the 1980s and 1990s.
He also had links to youth teams across Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Greater Manchester – and used his position to sexually abuse boys.
The paedo was first jailed for four years in the US in 1994 after he abused a 13-year-old British boy at a football camp in Florida.
Bennell returned to the UK, where his broader record as an predator was exposed by the 1997 Channel 4 Dispatches film Soccer’s Foul Play.
He was jailed for nine years at Chester Crown Court after admitting 23 offences dating back to the 1970s.
In 2015 Bennell pleaded guilty to enticing a boy under the age of 14 to commit an act of gross indecency in the early 1980s – and was jailed for two more years.
More brave victims came forward after footballer Andy Woodward revealed he had been groomed and abused by Bennell for four years, starting when he was just 11.
He was convicted of more than 50 sexual offences against 22 boys at Liverpool Crown Court in 2018.
Handing the monster a 34-year jail term, the judge described him as the “devil incarnate”.
Bennell was jailed at HMP Littlehey, a prison for sex offenders in Cambridgeshire.
The court heard how Bennell contacted one of his former victims through Facebook to tell him that his cancer diagnosis was “payback”.
Eight men abused by Bennell are reportedly appealing after the High Court dismissed their damages claim against Manchester City.
One of the men slammed City’s “callous” compensation scheme for Bennell’s victims.
A Prison Service spokeswoman said: “Prisoner Barry Bennell died at HMP Littlehey on 16 September 2023.
“As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate.”