A PENSIONER who groomed and sexually abused a young girl has died in prison.

Reginald Warry, who was 88 at the time of his death, was jailed for 12 years at Oxford Crown Court in January 2022 after he was found guilty late last year of eight counts of sexual assault.

The Barton man touched the girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, over several years starting when she was eight.

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Sending him down for 12 years and ordering he spend an additional year on licence as an offender of particular concern, Judge Nigel Daly noted that Warry had shown no remorse for what he did to the girl.

He said: “The nature of this offending is a series of increasingly serious sexual offending over a period of years against the same victim.”

A report by The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) has revealed that Warry died on March 27 last year at HMP Ashfield, a Category C adult male sex offenders prison located near Bristol.

He was taken to hospital where he died from pneumonia, a lung infection, and urosepsis, a bladder infection.

The PPO family liaison officer wrote to Warry’s next of kin, his grandson, to explain the investigation into his death to check if there were any non-clinal reasons for his death, and to ask if he had any matters he wanted us to consider. He did not respond.

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In the report, the PPO stated: “The clinical reviewer concluded that the clinical care Mr Warry received was of a reasonable standard and was largely equivalent to that which he could have expected to receive in the community.

“The PPO investigator investigated the non-clinical issues relating to Mr Warry’s care. We did not find any non-clinical issues of concern. We make no recommendations.”

An inquest was held into Warry’s death on April 4 this year which ruled that the prisoner had died from ‘natural causes’.

Warry had worked in engineering in a managerial capacity and retired over a decade ago. He had no previous convictions.

Warry, of Bayswater Farm Road, Barton, was found guilty of six counts of sexual assault and two charges of sexual assault by penetration of a child under 13.

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He was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment and an additional year on licence as a sexual offender of particular concern.

In a victim personal statement read out during Warry’s, the victim said she had nightmares about what happened to her.

The girl’s mother said in her own statement that she will ‘forever blame and hate herself’.