He died at HMP Bure in Norfolk on Friday, the Prison Service said
He died at HMP Bure in Norfolk on Friday, the Prison Service said
23:53, 14 Mar 2026Updated 00:07, 15 Mar 2026
Former London’s Burning actor John Alford has died in prison, months after being jailed for the sexual assault of two teenage girls.
The convicted paedophile., 54, was jailed for eight-and-a-half years in January.
He died at HMP Bure in Norfolk on Friday, the Prison Service said.
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The former actor, star of nineties television shows London’s Burning and Grange Hill, was convicted of four counts of sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl and charges of sexual assault and assault by penetration relating to a 15-year-old girl at a property in Hertfordshire on April 9, 2022.
Jurors heard during the trial that the defendant, charged under his real name John Shannon, sexually assaulted the girls while they were drunk following a night out at the pub with the father of a third girl, with both men arriving at the property around 2am.
The victims were left alone with the defendant after others at the property went to bed, and he asked them how old they were.
Ms Whitby said: “Mr Shannon was in no doubt that these two girls were both under 16.
“They just thought they were having an evening with a family friend.”
Alford then briefly left the property and went to a nearby petrol station, and came back with a bottle of vodka.
He asked the 14-year-old girl to sit on his lap after going outside into the property’s garden for a cigarette, which the girl described as feeling “a bit strange”, the court heard.
Alford then started to kiss and touch her before having sexual intercourse with her.
Ms Whitby said: “She didn’t say stop beforehand, but she didn’t want it to happen.”
Later in the evening, Alford then had sex with the girl for a second time in a downstairs toilet in the property after pulling her onto him, jurors were told.
“He asked her ‘Do you want this babe?’ and she said no,” Ms Whitby said. Alford then sexually assaulted a second 15-year-old girl.
Both girls did not say anything about the assaults immediately after they happened as they had been drinking “a fair amount of vodka”, the prosecutor said.
The defendant was arrested the following day after both girls were interviewed.
In a statement provided to the force, Alford said one of the two girls “kept on trying to kiss me” and had told him she was 17.
He added: “At no point did I touch her in any sexual way whatsoever.”
Alford claimed that the two alleged victims were “trying to extort money from him and they were trying to trick him”, but no evidence supporting these claims was found on either the girls’ or the defendant’s phones when searched, according to Ms Whitby.
A Prison Service spokesman said: “John Shannon died in prison on March 13 2026.
“As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate.”
