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Richard Huckle, a child rapist known as ‘Britain’s worst paedophile’ was raped and strangled to death by a fellow inmate, a British court heard on Wednesday.
The rapist was brutally attacked and killed by Paul Fitzgerald because he wanted him to ‘feel what all those children felt’, the prosecution alleged.
Huckle, 33, who was serving 22 years life sentence for abusing nearly 200 children, was found dead in his cell at HMP Full Sutton, East Yorks, on October 13, 2019.
Paul Fitzgerald, 30, who was also in prison for a sexual offense, strangled Huckle with a ligature and forced a pen up his nose into his brain and inserted a kitchen utensil in his anus, the Hull Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Alistair Neil Macdonald said the insertion of an object into Huckle’s anus and brain was ‘a form of punishment’ for the crimes he had committed.
He added that the attack was ‘carefully planned and considered’ by Fitzgerald, who was sentenced indefinitely in 2009 for a sex attack on a dog walker.
The case was heard on the first day of Fitzgerald’s murder trial. He denies the offence, with the defense claiming it was manslaughter by diminished responsibility. The court was told that he said he carried out the sexual assault to give his victim ‘a taste’ of what he did to so many children.
In an interview with a consultant called Dr Shenoy, Fitzgerald said his attack was ‘poetic justice’, Mr Macdonald told the court, according to Mirror.
The defendant told her: ‘This is a man who rapes and abuses children for fun. He could have killed them as well. I’m inclined to think he did worse than just raping them.
‘When he was laid down with his pants down and he knew what was coming, he did not enjoy it I am sure. I knew what it feels like, but he doesn’t.
‘Rape was more about him getting a taste of that.’ Huckle, a freelance photographer from Ashford in Kent, targeted vulnerable youngsters while volunteering in orphanages in Malaysia.
According to the prosecutor Fitzgerald told Dr Shenoy that Huckle was ‘Britain’s worst paedophile’.
Mr Macdonald said: ‘A description that probably comes from media stories about Richard Huckle when he was extradited and tried in the UK for a very large number of child sexual assault charges.’
Fitzgerald allegedly told the doctor he had been having thoughts of killing people and eating them for a long time.
Mr Macdonald said: ‘He concluded his account by saying that he felt as high as a kite when he had done it and felt amazing and that he would recommend it to anyone.
‘He also said that he was only pleading not guilty because the court can send him to hospital.’
Mr Macdonald told the jury they must decide whether Fitzgerald is guilty of murder, as he claims, or manslaughter by diminished responsibility, as contended for by the defense.
It was heard that at the time of the killing the defendant was suffering from mixed personality disorder, psychopathy and gender identity disorder.
The trial continues and is expected to last five days
