A GRANDDAD who hanged himself in his prison cell while on remand for a string of sex offences was ‘supposed to be on supervised watch’.

Edwin O’Toole, 54, who was charged with rape of a child, was in custody for less than a week when he was found hanged.

O’Toole, known to friends as Eddie, had been accused of a series of sex attacks on two young girls starting when one was 12, in the early to mid 1990s.

But Judge Douglas Field, sitting at Swindon Crown Court, halted the prosecution after being shown an interim death certificate.

He said: “Upon the court receiving evidence that the defendant died on March 26, 2010, it is ordered that the indictment be endorsed accordingly and be declared now of no legal affect and the file be closed.”

There will now be an inquest before a jury to ascertain the circumstances surrounding the death in Bristol Prison, Horfield.

The court heard that O’Toole, of Cricklade Road, Gorse Hill, had been charged with eight counts of rape and one of gross indecency against a female between March 1991 and 1995.

He was also accused of indecently assaulting another female between 1992 and the end of 1994.

Magistrates had remanded him into custody on Saturday, March 20, after hearing he was also accused of failing to surrender to custody the day before. But on the morning of the following Friday he was found dead in his cell at the prison.

A spokesman for the prison service said that O’Toole was found hanging in his cell at 8.30am on March 26, and was was pronounced dead at 8.38am.

He said: “As with all deaths in custody the prisons and probation ombudsman will conduct an investigation.”

At an earlier hearing Lynne Henderson, prosecuting, told the court: “He was supposed to be on supervised watch.”

A death notice in the Advertiser last month spoke of him being a ‘Much loved husband of Linda and a proud dad and granddad,’ who would be sadly missed by his family.