A notorious paedophile was branded the ‘epitome of evil’ – as an inquest heard that he died less than two months after being handed more jail time.

And Oxford Coroner’s Court heard on Tuesday (September 26) that medics had asked whether sex predator teacher Keith Cavendish-Coulson should be released on compassionate grounds, after it was found that the 79-year-old’s cancer had spread to his brain.

Ian Mucklejohn, who runs an online support group for survivors of abuse at one of Cavendish-Coulson’s former schools, told the Oxford Mail: “He was the epitome of evil.

"Men like him should never have been allowed near any child. Unfortunately, nobody noticed.”

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He said the damage done by abusers like Cavendish-Coulson was ‘unfathomable’.

“The wounds go very deep into the soul,” added Mr Mucklejohn, of the Survivors of Cookham Court group.

The septuagenarian sex offender arrived at HMP Bullingdon on December 13 after he was jailed for 16 months by a judge in Reading for historic sex abuse of a former pupil.

He had already faced eight years earlier, when he was caged for almost seven years for abusing 24 boys at Terra Nova private school in Cheshire in the 1970s.

Oxford Mail: Paedophile Keith Cavendish-Coulson's mugshot when he was jailed in 2014Paedophile Keith Cavendish-Coulson's mugshot when he was jailed in 2014 (Image: Cheshire Police)

The judge jailing him in 2014 blasted the authorities’ ‘shameful and abject failure’ to deal with the serious abuse.

By the time he was booked in to Bullingdon prison, he was already suffering from cancer – with scans conducted after he was admitted to hospital showing that the cancer had spread to his brain.

On Tuesday (September 26), Oxford Coroner’s Court heard that medics had enquired with prison authorities and Cavendish-Coulson’s lawyers whether an application could be made for him to be released on compassionate grounds.

Head of healthcare at the prison Jacqui Burnett, who works for private provider Practice Plus Group, told the inquest: “As a healthcare team, when we have men who have end of life diagnoses […] we will speak to the prison with regards to whether we can obtain compassionate release for the men so they don’t remain in prison.

“We were advised to contact Mr Cavendish-Coulson’s legal team for them to make the application for compassionate release.”

Senior coroner Darren Salter said that the prisoner’s next of kin had questioned whether ‘at his age and in his physical condition’ he should have been sent to jail.

“My office and I had to explain, actually, the decision of another court in sentencing someone was not a matter which I could enquire into because that would be outside the scope of the inquest, whereas our scope is more directly related to the death,” he said.

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The inquest heard Cavendish-Coulson was admitted to hospital within around a week of his arrival at the prison, when scans found the cancer had spread to his brain.

The inmate was due to return to Bullingdon shortly before Christmas.

However, because he was now bed-bound, the healthcare wing on the prison required specialist equipment before he could return to the jail on December 29.

Healthcare chief Ms Burnett said: “He’d gone completely off his legs, so he was no longer able to hold his own weight or self-mobilise.

“He was coming back to us as a bed-bound patient; basically, somebody who is unable to get out of bed. We obviously can’t do that with the standard prison-issue bed.”

He returned to hospital in early January for a short period, the inquest heard.

On February 5, staff on the medical wing observed him gasping for breath.

Cavendish-Coulson, who had a ‘do not resuscitate’ notice, was given pain relief and his death was confirmed at 8.26am.

A post-mortem gave his cause of death as pneumonia, contributed to by underlying causes of renal cancer, congestive cardiac failure and pulmonary thrombo-emboli.

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A clinical review of his care, commissioned by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman as part of its review into the prison death, concluded that the standard of care given to the inmate in Bullingdon was ‘equivalent to that he could have expected to receive in the community’.

It described the care he received by staff at the prison as ‘dignified and compassionate’.

He had a ‘peaceful death’, had been ‘made comfortable’ and was ‘not alone’, the clinical review said.  

The coroner recorded a conclusion of death as a result of natural causes.