An inmate has been found guilty of murdering a fellow inmate who was one of Britain’s most notorious predatory paedophiles.
Paul Fitzgerald was three years into a 22-year sentence when he decided to torture, mutilate and kill Richard Huckle at HMP Full Sutton in October 2019.
Fitzgerald was sentenced to 34 years for the ‘poetic justice’ murder of Huckle.
The Daily Mail has reported that Fitzgerald ‘broke out in laughter’ while the Honourable Mr Justice Lavender addressed him before sentencing.
Justice Lavender said:
“You are a psychopath and derive pleasure from imagining torturing, raping, killing and even eating others.
“You went into his cell equipped and intended to rape and kill Mr Huckle and if possible cook and eat parts of him.
“You did this for your own pleasure and to carry out justice. You also did this for help and to be referred to a high-security unit.
“This case involves sadistic conduct.
“You have convictions for indecent assaults from when you were 13 and 15, battery and criminal damage, assault occasioning actual bodily harm with intent to commit a sexual offence and while in possession of an offensive weapon and false imprisonment.
“I am sure you made a conscious decision to kill him. As you said yourself, you committed murder in cold blood.”
The court heard how Huckle was subjected to 78 minutes of torture before being killed by Fitzgerald.
During the 78 minutes, Huckle was raped and stabbed before being strangled with an electrical cable.
By the time another inmate entered the cell, Huckle was gagged and had both of his feet and hand bound together.
Huckle had severe injuries to his face after being assaulted with a blunt object. He also had a stab mark on his neck that had been left by a toothbrush that had been melted into a blunt weapon.
Britain’s Most Notorious Paedophile
The National Crime Agency was tipped off by Australia’s Queensland Police Service about Huckle’s vile and heinous crimes against young children in Asia.
When Huckle arrived in London in 2014, he was arrested before being questioned about the allegations.
His camera, mobile phone, laptop and computer hard drives were all seized by investigating officers.
Huckle confessed to his parents about his truly evil crimes, and they kicked him out before calling the police.
Huckle was charged with 91 counts including creation and possession of child pornography, rape of a child under the age of 12, digital penetration, child abuse, and facilitating the commission of child sexual offences by creating a paedophile manual.
Huckle’s victims ranged in age from 6 months to 12 years old; one was abused while wearing a nappy, and another was abused for several years between the ages of 5 and 12.
Huckle belonged to a sick and depraved website called ‘The Love Zone’ on the dark web, which was obscured from general discovery and only accessible by anonymised means.
On the vile site, Huckle shared photos of his sick and depraved crimes with other paedophiles.
He even boasted about his crimes to other paedophiles, posting comments such as “Hit the jackpot, a three-year-old girl as loyal to me as my dog and nobody seemed to care” and “impoverished kids are definitely much easier to seduce than middle-class kids”.
In a series of postings in 2013 Huckle admitted sexually abusing four girls from the same family.
He awarded himself points for sexually abusing children, and could not ‘win points’ if he abused the same child in the same week.
Huckle wrote that he also wanted to marry a girl he had raped from the age of seven and have children with her, although he claimed he was “not a big fan of incest”.
In total, prosecutors uncovered a total of 29 victims and over 20,000 photos and videos.
But investigators believe that there could be up to 200 victims all over Southeast Asia and thousands more photos in encrypted areas of Huckle’s laptop, which authorities were unable to access.
The hearings revealed some of the methods Huckle employed to get victims, such as taking children out on day trips from orphanages and escorting them home from their own birthday party.
Huckle had even talked about marrying one of his young victims so that he could set up a foster home and abuse “a cycle of children” who would pass through his home and turn paedophilia into a full-time job.
Huckle also created a ledger of his abuses and where he scored the scale of abuse each victim suffered.
On 6 June 2016, he Huckle was given 22 life sentences with a minimum prison term of 25 years.
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