Bennell, also known as Richard Jones, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2018 after being convicted of 52 child sexual assaults on 12 boys.

In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, the former Crewe Alexandra coach assaulted boys.

When he was sentenced to four years in prison again in 2020, a judge at Liverpool Crown Court referred to him as “the devil incarnate.”

“Prisoner Barry Bennell died at HMP Littlehey on September 16, 2023,” a Prison Service official said. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, as with other fatalities in custody, will conduct an investigation.”

Bennell had been receiving cancer treatment for several years and had surgery to remove tumors from his tongue in 2004 and 2016, however he was expected to be in remission by 2020.

His death cause has not been revealed.

When he was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court in 2018, Recorder Clement Goldstone QC stated that he “may well die in prison.”

His ultimate prison sentence, in 2020, marked his fifth time behind bars.

The court was told at that hearing that he had a detached retina after being attacked in prison and was in remission from cancer.

Bennell was initially imprisoned in Florida in 1994 for raping a British youngster while on a football tour in America, before facing prison sentences in the United Kingdom in 1998, 2015, 2018, and 2020.

More than 80 other claimed victims came forward to denounce abuse after his convictions in 2018.

At his sentence hearing in 2020, prosecutor Owen Edwards stated that the case would be the final prosecution after a decision was taken to only prosecute cases involving the most serious offenses.

He said Bennell was responsible for “industrial sexual abuse of boys” while also helping to launch the careers of several international footballers.