Richard Huckle: Prisoner found guilty of murdering 'Britain's worst paedophile'

Watch: Prisoner found guilty of murdering 'Britain's worst paedophile'

A prisoner has been found guilty of murdering one of Britain's worst paedophiles, Richard Huckle.

Paul Fitzgerald, 30, had said he wanted Huckle to experience what his victims had felt in a killing described by the prosecution as designed to "humiliate and degrade" him.

Huckle, known as the "gap year paedophile", was found dead in his cell at Full Sutton prison in Yorkshire last year.

The 33-year-old, who was serving 22 life sentences for abusing up to 200 children, was strangled with an electrical cable sheath in his cell and had a pen inserted into his brain.

Huckle used religion and an English teaching qualification to gain access to children in an impoverished community in Malaysia where he raped babies, toddlers and children.

On Monday, the jury at Hull Crown Court took around an hour to reach a guilty verdict for Fitzgerald after a four-day trial.

Prosecutor Alistair MacDonald QC opened the case earlier this week, saying Fitzgerald had described his victim as "Britain's worst paedophile", whom he told doctors he had also sexually assaulted, despite not finding him sexually attractive.

The barrister, who recounted Huckle as a "predatory paedophile" that was "notorious in the press", said Fitzgerald had found the killing to be "poetic justice".

"He said that Richard Huckle was a man who raped and abused children for fun and that he suspected Richard Huckle had done more than merely rape his victims," Mr MacDonald said.

During the trial, the court also heard how the defendant had taken objects to Huckle's cell to carry out what he thought was "a form of punishment associated with the offending which had led Mr Huckle to prison".

The objects included weapons created by Fitzgerald such as a melted toothbrush fitted with a screw, along with items that were ultimately used as ligatures for the victim's hands and feet.

Mr MacDonald said: "This was a carefully planned and executed attack, in the course of which Mr Huckle had been subjected to a prolonged attack also designed to humiliate and degrade him."

He then added that Fitzgerald had told staff at the prison he had "enjoyed it" and had "murdered Mr Huckle in cold blood", later requesting cooked bits of his body.

Fitzgerald had denied the murder charge, having argued that his medical conditions of mixed personality disorder, psychopathy and gender identity disorder had impaired his ability to exercise self-control.

The defendant also said he had "constant ruminations" of torture, rape and murder, adding: "My problem is I just don't have the ability to control myself.

"I don't have the ability to look at people and see them as human beings. I don't value them, I don't care about them.

"I don't feel bad about hurting people, I don't have the capacity to feel remorse."

Fitzgerald is due to be sentenced at Hull Crown Court on Tuesday.