Richard Huckle

On 13 October 2019, Huckle was stabbed to death (over 22 times) in his cell.

On 13 October 2019, Huckle was found strangled and stabbed to death in his cell at Full Sutton prison, aged 33. Another prisoner was charged with his murder in January 2020.

Huckle has been described as one of Britain's worst ever paedophiles, although he was only 28 years old at the time of his arrest. On 6 June 2016, he was given 22 life sentences with a minimum prison term of 25 years before being eligible to apply for parole.

At an initial hearing at the Old Bailey, in January 2016, Huckle pleaded not guilty to all 91 charges, which took over an hour to read in court, and prosecutors started to prepare three separate trials as they did not believe a jury should be subjected to all of the graphic evidence that would be presented in a single trial. In April, during a preliminary trial hearing, Huckle pleaded guilty to 71 of the 91 charges he was facing after a request to watch all of the evidence against him in court. As a result of his confession, prosecutors decided not to pursue a prosecution against the remaining 20 charges, and asked that they lie on file, to spare a jury the horror of having to watch graphic images and videos of child abuse since the 71 charges which Huckle admitted to would be sufficient for a lengthy sentence.

Huckle's sentencing hearing began at the Old Bailey on 1 June 2016 and lasted until 3 June 2016, with the sentence itself being passed on 6 June 2016. At the start of the hearing, the judge stated that Huckle should expect to go to prison for a very long time, as he was considering multiple life sentences due to the gravity of the offences committed.

At the Old Bailey on 6 June 2016, Judge Peter Rook QC sentenced Huckle to life imprisonment on 22 counts with a minimum prison term of 25 years before being eligible to apply for parole. Before passing down the sentence, the judge stated that Huckle carried out a campaign of rape and was driven by his own sexual gratification:

The National Crime Agency received criticism from the Malaysian Government, as well as a number of child protection charities in Malaysia, for their handling of the case. Officers from the NCA travelled to Malaysia to engage local charities, who performed child protection workshops in the community where Huckle lived, but they were kept in the dark about the gravity of his crimes. The Malaysian Government stated that they would like further details of the victims so they can offer counselling. On 4 June 2016, the Attorney General of Malaysia, Tan Mohamed Apandi Ali, stated that he was in the process of contacting his counterpart in the UK, and the British High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur, to obtain information about the case, which would help his investigation into the crimes and his efforts to help Huckle's victims.

The National Crime Agency responded to the comments from the Malaysian authorities, stating that they revealed enough details to be able to help the charities but were unable to provide full details until the prosecution was completed. For the same reason, severe media restrictions were put in place, which prevented anybody from reporting the story until the British Government had taken steps to ensure that all of Huckle's material had been taken down and that steps had been taken to protect his victims from other predators. On 6 June 2016, however, the National Crime Agency referred itself to the police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, due to the fact that they were aware of Huckle's continued attendance at two churches in the UK up until the time of his re-arrest in January 2015 but did not contact them until sentencing had already begun. The IPCC will look into whether the NCA had acted appropriately and whether more could have been done to determine whether Huckle abused any children in the UK through his relationship with the churches.

After the gravity of Huckle's crimes became known, the Malaysian Government set up a telephone hotline for people to call if they have any information about Huckle or if they were abused themselves. The Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, added that he was angered and saddened by Huckle's sexual violation of Malaysian children and called for all parties involved to ensure that children are not exposed to situations where irresponsible people can take advantage of them. In August 2016, in response to the criticism following the Huckle case, Najib Razak announced that a special task force had been set up to investigate how Malaysia's child protection laws could be redrafted to take into account the new ways that child sexual predators such as Huckle were preying on Malaysian children, with the aim of having a new version ready by the end of the year.

Huckle was a regular worshipper at Ashford Baptist Church, where he was described as a quiet man. He was also a member of a church in London, which he continued to attend up until the time of his re-arrest in December 2014. His pastor said in an interview of a series in "Undercover Asia" that he rarely came to church unless to see children.

On 19 December 2014, Huckle was arrested by officers from Britain's National Crime Agency at London's Gatwick Airport and questioned on suspicion of serious offences against children. His arrest followed an earlier tip-off from Task Force Argos, a highly specialised branch of Australia's Queensland Police Service responsible for the investigation of on-line child exploitation and abuse. Huckle initially refused to answer officers' questions and was bailed under the condition that he stay at his parents' house, while his camera, mobile phone, laptop and computer hard drives were seized.

Police assumed the identity of McCoole and ran his site to catch other paedophiles. In doing so, police rescued 85 children from ongoing abuse and arrested hundreds. One member that stood out was Huckle, due to the number of children he had abused and the attitude of his posts. After discovering his real identity, they learned that he was due to return to the United Kingdom to spend Christmas with his family and immediately alerted the National Crime Agency. He was arrested at Gatwick airport on 19 December 2014.

Richard Huckle completed a Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) course in 2008 which provides training to individuals to teach adult learners. Following the course, we have no records to indicate he was ever engaged as a teacher in Malaysia with us, either for adult students or children.

During the hearings, the full scale of Huckle's crimes became apparent for the first time. The prosecution, led by Brian O'Neill QC, showed evidence of a long line of crimes that started during Huckle's gap year in 2006 and continued for eight to nine years until he was apprehended in 2014. They included rape of children under the age of 12, possession and distribution of child pornography, creation of child pornography, child abuse, creating a paedophile manual entitled "Paedophiles And Poverty: Child Lover Guide", digital penetration of a child under the age of 12, and raising money for his activities via a crowd-funding website. His victims ranged in age from 6 months to 12 years old; one was abused while wearing a nappy, and another was abused for a number of years between the ages of 5 and 12. Huckle belonged to a website called The Love Zone on the dark web, which is obscured from general discovery and only accessible by anonymised means. On the site, he shared photos of his crimes with other members. He boasted about his crimes to other paedophiles, posting such comments 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 he 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. In total, prosecutors unveiled 29 victims and over 20,000 photos and videos, but believe there could be up to 200 victims all over Southeast Asia and thousands more photos in encrypted areas of Huckle's laptop, which authorities have so far been unable to access. The vast majority of child abuse on his laptop was never recovered as he refused to help police retrieve the encrypted data. Police were only able to find a tiny percentage of his videos and photographs.

After leaving education, Huckle spent a gap year in Malaysia from 2005 to 2006. He returned regularly, helping out at local churches and among local communities, before moving there permanently in 2010.

Huckle was prosecuted under Section 72 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which allows British nationals to be tried and convicted in the United Kingdom for child sex crimes committed while overseas in an effort to prevent child sex tourism, a stratagem known as extraterritorial jurisdiction and a move welcomed by child protection charities.

Richard William Huckle (14 May 1986 – 13 October 2019) was a convicted British serial sex offender. He was arrested by Britain's National Crime Agency after a tip-off from Australian Police and convicted of 71 counts of serious sexual assaults against children while posing as a teacher, photographer and supposed Christian in Malaysia.

Huckle was born into a middle-class family in Ashford, Kent, on 14 May 1986. He was educated at the Harvey Grammar School, Folkestone, where he was described as "a bit of a loner, but nothing out of the ordinary" by friends. At the age of 16, he took part in a month-long expedition to visit a school in Namibia before leaving the Harvey Grammar School to study at the nearby South Kent College.