Clifford ‘locked up 23hrs a day’
MAX Clifford complained about prison conditions before he died of heart failure, an inquest heard yesterday.
The celebrity publicist collapsed in his cell while serving an eight-year sentence for historical sex offences.
Kimberley Aiken, representing Clifford’s family, told a pre-inquest review hearing that he had made a number of complaints about conditions at Littlehey Prison in Cambridgeshire.
Clifford, who died in 2017 aged 74, had claimed that prisoners were ‘locked up for 23 hours per day and forced to have freezing cold showers’.
He said ‘only “enhanced” prisoners could have a jumper’ as a privilege, Miss Aiken told the hearing in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.
She added: ‘The conditions within Littlehey were known to be pretty shocking and the family have concerns that any gentleman of Mr Clifford’s age and infirmity would have had their death hastened by the conditions.’
Georgina Wolfe, for the Ministry of Justice, told the hearing: ‘Not only is there no evidence of this but there’s no evidence this had any impact on Mr Clifford’s health and how he came by his death.’
Miss Aiken said: ‘It has to be conceded that he would have died in any event, though perhaps not on that day. He would perhaps have been able to go home and have some family time if the family’s suspicions are correct.’
The medical cause of Clifford’s death was given as congestive heart failure, along with a variety of other underlying factors, an earlier hearing was told.
Clifford was jailed in May 2014 after being convicted of a number of charges under Operation Yewtree, the Metropolitan Police investigation set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal. He was the first person to be convicted as part of the national investigation.
The former publicist, who used his celebrity connections as a lure for women, was found guilty of a string of indecent assaults between 1977 and 1984. In 2016, he was cleared of indecently assaulting a 17-year-old girl in the 1980s.
Simon Milburn, assistant coroner for Cambridgeshire, asked the family to produce evidence for their allegations within 21 days.