Richard Huckle, one of Britain’s worst paedophiles who abused up to 200 Malaysian children, has been stabbed to death in prison.

He was found dead in his cell at Full Sutton prison in Yorkshire on Sunday, sources said.

Huckle was given 22 life sentences in 2016 for an unprecedented number of offences against children aged between six months and 12 years.

The freelance photographer, from Ashford in Kent, awarded himself “Pedopoints” for different acts of abuse against 191 children, and sold images of his depravity on the dark web.

In online posts, Huckle bragged that it was easier to target impoverished children in Malaysia than those from wealthy Western backgrounds.

Commenting on one of his victims, he boasted: “I’d hit the jackpot, a three-year-old girl as loyal to me as my dog and nobody seemed to care.”

This file picture from 2016 shows an area where British child sex-abuser Richard Huckle roamed the streets taking pictures of children in this predomintly poor Indian community, according to witnesses, in Kuala Lumpur. Photograph: Getty

At the time of his arrest, he was writing a guide to teach fellow paedophiles how to abuse children and avoid detection.

Huckle was arrested when he was stopped at Gatwick Airport en route to spend Christmas with his family in 2014, after Australian authorities tipped off the UK’s National Crime Agency.

Officers seized his encrypted laptop and managed to uncover more than 20,000 indecent pictures and videos although there were other files they were unable to crack.

A spokeswoman for Humberside police said: “An investigation has been launched following an incident at HMP Full Sutton on Sunday, October 13.

“We were called shortly after 12.30pm reporting that a man had died at the prison.

“Humberside police are working closely with the prison service to investigate the death of an inmate and at this time we are treating the death as suspicious.”

A spokesman for the UK’s prison service confirmed that Richard Huckle had died but would not comment further while the police investigation was ongoing.– PA