Barry Bennell, the paedophile football coach at the centre of one of sport’s worst abuse scandals, has died in prison.
The 69-year-old, who had been battling throat cancer for several years, had been serving a 34-year sentence at HMP Littlehey, near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.
During various trials over the past six years, Bennell, who worked for a string of clubs including Stoke City, Crewe Alexandra and Manchester City, was described as a “child molester on an industrial scale”, who used the promise of making children football stars to groom them and then stop them speaking out. Bennell was convicted of sexual offences against boys on five separate occasions – four in the UK and one in the United States.
Abuse campaigners say he is believed to have raped and assaulted at least 115 young boys in his care. Bennell abused the boys at his homes, where he had installed arcade games and kept exotic pets, including a puma and a monkey, but also on trips away and in his car to and from training.
Former Crewe Alexandra player Steven Walters, who was one of those abused by Bennell, and other whistleblowers prompted a host of investigations. Bennell’s victims have accused the football establishment of caring more about the reputation of clubs than the safety of children.
Bennell, who changed his name to Richard Jones, told detectives in 2018 he thought the oral cancer, which left him needing to be fed through a tube in recent years, was “karma”.
In February 2018, he was sentenced to 31 years in prison for 50 counts of child abuse against 12 boys aged eight to 15 between 1979 and 1991.
In 2020, his jail term was increased to a total of 34 years as he pleaded guilty at Chester Crown Court to three further counts of buggery and six counts of indecent assault against two boys. The court heard it would be the final prosecution against Bennell. Former Manchester City youth player Gary Cliffe, who Bennell was convicted of abusing in 2018, said at the time that the justice system was “inept” at dealing with cases on the scale of Bennell’s offending.
He had previously been convicted in the US during 1995 of sexually abusing a 13-year-old British boy on a tour.
A Prison Service spokesperson 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.”
Last month, former Crewe manager Dario Gradi was stripped of his MBE. Gradi had been criticised in an independent report for failing to act on rumours and concerns expressed about Bennell when he was Crewe’s youth coach.
The 82-year-old, who was made an MBE in 1998, was suspended by the Football Association in 2021, and the reason given for the forfeiture of that honour on a list published by the Cabinet Office on Tuesday was “professional disbarment”.
