Two paedophiles – serving lengthy sentences at a Cambridgeshire prison – died within days of each other in December. Patrick Mugford, 69, was jailed in 2022 for raping a Canterbury schoolgirl as she slept next to her new born baby.
It took 20 years for the victim to get justice after her mother refused to believe her at the time.
Mugford, originally from Cornwall, was jailed at Maidstone Crown Court in 2022 for seven and a half years for rape and indecent assault.
In 2012 he had been jailed for five years after admitting five charges of indecent assault and a sixth charge of indecency with a child.
He died on December 17, 2023, at Hinchingbrooke Hospital after being taken there from Littlehey Prison. An inquest has since given his provisional cause of death as pneumonia.
Seven days before, on December 10, Frederick Stallwood, 89, died at Littlehey Prison of prostate cancer.
Stallwood, from Carmarthenshire, was jailed in 2017 for 18 years for historic rapes committed when he was in his 30s.
An appeal judge the following year refused to lessen his sentence.
The appeal judge said that whilst age and infirmity were factors to be taken into account, these had been balanced against the harm done to victims.
The judge said he was mindful, too, of “the concern of the public that offenders receive appropriate sentences for serious crimes”.
Littlehey is a prison near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire for men convicted of a sex offences.
HMP Littlehey is a category C prison. It holds both sentenced and convicted male adults and young adults and has a capacity of 1,206.
It’s a purpose-built building which opened in 1988, though previously, a borstal had stood on the same site.
Over the years, the prison has expanded considerably, with further units being added in 1997, 2003 and 2010. It also has an all-weather sports pitch, an education centre and gym.
