Richard Huckle, one of Britain's most notorious paedophiles who groomed and sexually abused young children in Malaysia over nine years, was recently found dead in his prison cell.

Attacked in cell and stabbed to death

Police revealed on Oct. 14, 2019 that Huckle was found dead in prison under "suspicious circumstances", reported The New York Times.

He was reportedly attacked in his cell on Oct. 13, and had been stabbed to death with a makeshift knife.

He was held in Full Sutton Prison in the United Kingdom at that time.

The police have since launched an investigation into his death.

In 2016, the 33-year-old admitted to 71 offences against 22 Malaysian children aged between six months and 12 years, and had been serving 22 life sentences.

However, British police believe that the total number of young victims who had suffered at the hands of Huckle added up to 200.

It was believed that Huckle preyed on children in other Southeast Asian countries, such as Cambodia as well.

Took over 20,000 photos and videos of victims

Before his arrest in 2014, Huckle worked in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur as a freelance photographer, and also posed as an English teacher and devout Christian philanthropist.

According to The Straits Times, Huckle targeted vulnerable families that were "extremely trustworthy, naive, close-knit, religious and poorly educated".

Aside from carrying out photography work, he would also tutor young children, and volunteer at churches and shelters which took in orphans and needy children from poor or dysfunctional families.

This was where he would find children to groom.

A judge during the case stated that Huckle had made the statement that "impoverished kids are definitely much easier to seduce than middle-class Western kids".

During this period of time, Huckle had been documenting his sexual exploits, taking some 20,000 photos and videos of children he had groomed and sexually abused.

Some 1,000 of which depicted him raping or sexually abusing these children, investigators revealed.

He would then upload the child porn to the Dark Web, and attempt to sell them.

Gave himself "Pedopoints" and maintained a blog about his crimes

Huckle also wrote consistently about his sexual aspirations and crimes in a blog on the Dark Web.

In the blog, he wrote about a scoring system he had devised, where he awarded himself "Pedopoints" based on the level of abuse he dished out on the young children, reported CNN.

He also detailed how he hoped to marry a girl he allegedly knew since she was seven, in order to "influence her young mind" and mould "her into the perfect wife".

Huckle had apparently even been brash enough to upload his photos to publicly accessible photo-sharing sites.

These images included those of the children naked or topless playing at popular locations such as Port Dickson and beaches at Negeri Sembilan, reported ST.

During his first plea hearing, it reportedly took over an hour to read out the charges against Huckle.

The 71 charges against him included 14 rape charges, 31 sexual assault charges, one count of making photographs and one of advertising indecent photographs.

The judge of the case said at the time: "It is also clear that, had you not been arrested, you planned to continue the same lifestyle using the expertise that you were keen to show off to and share with other abusers so as to continue your sexual exploitation of the children of such communities."

Top photo from The Star Online / YouTube