John Alford, the disgraced London’s Burning and Grange Hill actor who died in prison last week, reportedly placed a winning bet on a horse just hours before his death.
Alford, 54, who had been serving an eight-and-a-half-year sentence for a series of sexual assaults involving teenage girls in 2022, was found dead at HMP Bure on March 13.
It has since emerged that the former actor had placed a bet on a horse shortly before he died. According to The Sun, Alford had called his sister to ask her to place the wager on his behalf.
However, he was found unresponsive in his prison cell before learning that the horse had won.
A friend later questioned why Alford had decided to place the bet, revealing the wager had been placed on a horse named Johnny’s Jury.
An investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death is ongoing. A Prison Service spokesman said: “As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate.”
Alford rose to fame in the late 1980s when he appeared in the BBC series Grange Hill, playing Robbie Wright. He later joined the ITV drama London’s Burning in 1993.
He also briefly pursued a music career in the 1990s, scoring three Top 30 hits on the UK singles chart, before stepping away from the entertainment industry in the 2000s.
Earlier this year, Alford was jailed after being found guilty of sexually assaulting two girls aged 14 and 15 at a property in Hertfordshire on April 9, 2022.
He was convicted of four counts of sexual activity with a child, as well as sexual assault and assault by penetration.
During the trial, jurors heard how Alford — who was prosecuted under his real name, John Shannon — assaulted the girls after a drunken night at a pub.
The court heard he spent around £250 on food, alcohol and cigarettes, including a bottle of vodka that both teenagers drank.
Alford had previously served a nine-month prison sentence after being convicted of supplying illicit drugs to a former News of the World journalist known as the “Fake Sheikh.”
