A MAN who battered a friend to death with weapons including a frying pan in an East Oxford bedsit has been found dead in his prison cell weeks before he was due for release.

Robert Horrex, 45, was serving life after killing David Richards, 49, in the flat in Aston Street, more than 10 years ago.

Horrex, of Maidcroft Road, Cowley, stamped repeatedly on Mr Richards’s head, strangled him and smashed him with a chair and the frying pan before leaving his bloodstained handprints around the bedsit.

He returned the next morning to make sure he was dead.

A post mortem revealed Mr Richards took 15 hours to die.

He was found lying on a blood-soaked bed in the flat, which belonged to a mutual friend, Annie Gurnitt. A broken ashtray, chair and blood-stained frying pan were found nearby.

Horrex protested his innocence and screamed ‘I didn’t do it’ when he was jailed for life at Oxford Crown Court in April 1998, but an appeal against his conviction was thrown out by the Court of Appeal later that year.

Horrex could have been released from prison in June.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said his body was discovered in his cell at HMP Stocken, in Rutland, on Sunday.

Horrex was taken to a local hospital but pronounced dead in the early hours of Monday.

The spokesman added: “As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Om- budsman will carry out an investigation.”

Police are not treating the death as suspicious.

Horrex was due before a Parole Board hearing in the next few weeks to discuss his release.

His life tariff came to an end on June 22, which meant he could be released on licence from that date.

A spokesman for the Parole Board said a meeting had not taken place before his death.

The trial heard Horrex was angry with Mr Richards, who was in a relationship with Ms Gurnitt, as Mr Richards had assaulted her. Horrex regarded her as a mother figure. All three were alcoholics.

Tests found Mr Richards’ blood on Horrex’s boots, trousers and jacket and the pedal of his mountain bike.

Horrex’s fingerprints were also discovered among the bloody prints left on the wall.

Mr Richards was a former cloth-cutter for a Manchester tailor. He had three children After the trial, Mr Richards’ brother, Patrick McDade, said: “Fifteen hours my brother was left there to die. Imagine the pain and agony he was in.

“He left Manchester and came to Oxford to find himself. He had mental problems but was proud and thought he would get over it without help.

“David was a very intelligent man and a decent lad with a lot of problems that he couldn’t handle.”