PETALING JAYA: Convicted paedophile Richard Huckle, who sexually abused Malaysian children, was found dead in prison according to UK media reports.

The reports said that the child sexual predator had been found stabbed multiple times with a makeshift blade in his cell, north of England on Sunday (Oct 13).

The former photographer gained infamy after being found to have sexually abused around 200 children between 2006 to 2014, especially in Malaysia.

In 2016, the British paedophile, who preyed on Malaysian children in an impoverished part of Kuala Lumpur, was sentenced to life.

He was given 22 concurrent life sentences after pleading guilty to 71 counts of child sex offences.

Among the admitted offences were 22 charges of rape against children he groomed while posing as a volunteer working with Christian communities in the Malaysian capital.

Huckle had posted pictures of the abuse of boys and girls on website True Love Zone (TLZ), with the youngest victim believed to have been around six months old.

He was eventually snared by an Australian investigation into the site.

British police arrested Huckle, from Kent in southeast England, at London Gatwick Airport in December 2014 as he returned home from Malaysia to spend Christmas with his parents.

He was carrying a heavily-encrypted computer and camera that contained images of child sex abuse, over 1,000 of which showed him committing offences including rape.

The laptop contained a ledger in which he detailed the abuse of 191 victims, but officers were unable to press charges on all cases as there was no photographic evidence, AFP had reported.