A ONE-LEGGED pervert who sexually abused children has died while serving a five-year sentence for his crimes.

Wheelchair-user Ronald Hodges, 61, was caged last May after showing his victims two boys and two girls, aged between five and 12 pornographic videos.

He got them to copy what they had seen, in one case intercourse, with offers of cash and then filmed them in the process, a court was told.

Hodges, previously of Church Street, Harle Syke, Burnley, died in Royal Preston Hospital last Wednesday after suffering a heart condition and partial paralysis.

A spokesman for the Home Office said Hodges was seen by a prison doctor after falling ill on March 13.

He was taken to hospital where he remained for nine days before he died.

An inquest will now be held to determine exactly how he died and an investigation has been launched by the prison ombudsman.

A spokesman for the Home Office said: "We can confirm that Ronald Hodges died from natural causes in Royal Preston Hospital on March 22 after he was admitted to hospital on March 13."

During the court case, it was said that Hodges had made repeated deals with one little girl he would let her ride on his stair lift if she let him perform a sex act on her, and did it several times.

Hodges admitted three allegations of inciting gross indecency, two of indecent assault and one of gross indecency, between 2000 and 2003. He had served 10 months of his sentence of five years and four months.

Sentencing, Judge Christopher Cornwall said Hodges had exploited and despoiled the children's innocence for his sexual gratification, had cast a dark shadow on their childhood and "put their whole being in jeopardy."