Former actor John Alford has died in prison, just two months after being jailed for sexually assaulting two girls.
Alford was jailed for eight-and-a-half years in January after being convicted of assaulting the teenagers during a party at a friend’s home in April 2022.
The 54-year-old, who appeared in London’s Burning and the BBC drama Grange Hill, was found guilty of four counts of sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl and charges of sexual assault and assault by penetration relating to a 15-year-old girl at a property in Hertfordshire.
The Prison Service said that he died at HMP Bure in Norfolk on Friday.
“As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate,” a Prison Service spokesman said.
During the trial, jurors heard that the defendant, who was charged under his real name John Shannon, sexually assaulted the girls while they were drunk following a night out at the pub. All of the offences took place at the home of a third girl.
The former actor bought some £250 worth of food, alcohol and cigarettes from a nearby petrol station in the early hours of the morning, including a bottle of vodka which the victims subsequently drank, the court heard.
Alford then had sexual intercourse with the 14-year-old girl in the garden of the home and later in a downstairs toilet, and inappropriately touched the 15-year-old girl as she lay half asleep on the living room sofa, jurors heard.
Police received a third-party report from the 15-year-old girl’s mother outlining the allegations two days later, before the defendant was arrested.
The 15-year-old girl said in her evidence that she had felt “absolutely sick” following the assault and had planned to keep the incident secret before having a “mental breakdown” to her friend’s mother.
Alford told jurors during the trial that all the allegations were “scandalous” and a “set-up”, and that there was no DNA evidence to support the assaults.
Alford was previously convicted of supplying illicit drugs to former News of the World journalist Mazher Mahmood, who was known as the “fake sheikh”, following a trial in 1999, and was jailed for nine months.
