The death of John Alford, known for his role in London’s Burning, is not being considered suspicious after the actor was discovered dead in his prison cell.

Alford, whose birth name was John Shannon, passed away only weeks after being incarcerated for the sexual abuse of two young girls.

Reports indicate that he was found unresponsive in his bed when prison staff entered his cell at HMP Bure in Norfolk on Friday.

According to the Daily Mail, authorities are not treating Alford’s death as suspicious.

A spokesperson for the Prison Service stated, “John Shannon died in prison on 13 March 2026. As is standard procedure with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will conduct an investigation.”

The actor, also known for his role in Grange Hill, was sentenced in January to eight-and-a-half years for engaging in sexual activities with an intoxicated 14-year-old at a house party and assaulting her 15-year-old friend.

Glasgow-born Alford, 54, had been left with his two young victims in the early hours of the morning after others at the house went to bed.

He had sex with the younger girl in the garden after asking her to sit on his lap while he had a cigarette and again later in a toilet.

Alford, a father-of-two, sexually assaulted the older girl as he sat between the two victims while they were ‘dozing off’ at the Hertfordshire house.

He had denied the offences and claimed he was the victim of a blackmail plot after someone rang him and tried to ‘extort money from me’.

Alford was in the BBC school drama Grange Hill in the 1980s and played Billy Ray in London’s Burning from 1993 to 1998.

On the night of his assaults – April 8, 2022 – Alford had spent the evening at a pub with the father of a third girl before going to the property where the offences took place.

After others went to bed, he was left alone with his victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

He bought a bottle of vodka at a nearby petrol station before returning and asking the 14-year-old to sit on his lap when he went to the garden for a cigarette.

Alford kissed the girl before having sex with her.

Later in the evening, Alford had sex with the girl again in a downstairs toilet after pulling her on to him.

He then sexually assaulted the older girl while sitting between the two victims. 

In a victim impact statement, the younger girl – who had turned 18 by the time of the trial in September – said Alford’s sexual assault had ‘affected me and my family in every way’.

She said being hugged by her own father no longer ‘feels comfortable because he was a man’.

She had told the trial she was good friends with the second victim and another friend had invited both to her house in Hertfordshire for the evening.

Tearful as she spoke, the girl said the sex with Alford in the garden lasted ‘no longer than ten minutes’, while the second instance in the bathroom lasted five minutes.

Houzla Rawat, defending Alford, suggested she had been ‘physically friendly’ towards the defendant throughout the evening. She replied: ‘I disagree.’

The victim also denied following Alford into the garden after he went out to have a cigarette.

Asked by prosecutor Julie Whitby why she went along with what Alford told her, she said: ‘Most children, if an adult is telling you to do something, you’ll do it … especially if you are drunk or impaired.’

In a video of her police interview played to the court, she revealed she had never had sex before.

‘I told him to stop because I didn’t want to have sex with an old man,’ she said.

The 15-year-old told officers during her interview how ‘we were all just like dozing off… that was when John started to touch me’.

It made her feel ‘absolutely sick’, she added.

Since the assault she said she had tried to take her own life and told the court Alford ‘destroyed my mental wellbeing’.

She said she had showered immediately after being dropped off at the other girl’s house the next day as she was ‘stressing out’.

The pair did not mention the assaults at the time because they had been drinking ‘a fair amount of vodka’, the jury heard.

It was only while visiting a different friend’s home on April 11 that the older girl shared the abuse.

‘I had a mental breakdown to my best mate’s mum in the garden and she called my mum. (I was) crying, screaming, very sad,’ she said.

The 15-year-old’s mother reported Alford to police and he was arrested the following day.

Alford angrily denied touching either girl during his police interview, saying: ‘None of this makes sense.

‘It’s a set-up. I didn’t rape anyone. I am not a nonce. This is f****** scandalous.’

He claimed he had been outside when the then 14-year-old was suddenly ‘sitting on my lap with her arms around me, trying to kiss me. I recoiled, I stood up… I literally had to prise her off’.

Alford added: ‘It was quite obvious that she was very drunk and being flirtatious.

‘I did not reciprocate in any way, shape or form at any time.’

Crying while giving evidence in court, he told jurors he ‘never touched either of them girls’, adding there was ‘no DNA’ evidence and he would stand by his denial ‘until the day I die’.

Alford suggested he was the victim of a blackmail plot and described a phone call he received on April 10, 2022, from ‘an Irish-sounding traveller-type voice’.

‘He said “Is that John? Do yourself a favour and come to Broxbourne car park, Hoddesdon”,’ the defendant said.

‘I said something stupid like “I’m with my children”. Then he said to bring the money and I said to f*** off.’

The actor told police that they were ‘going to extort money from me’.

But the jury heard there was no material supporting these claims on the defendant’s phone or those of his young victims.

Hertfordshire Constabulary’s Laura Harrison noted the victims had been ‘born long after his career began’ and had no idea of his status – undermining his claims they were trying to blackmail him.

She added: ‘There is no doubt that Shannon’s behaviour that evening was predatory and carried out solely for his own sexual gratification. Reporting offences of this nature is never easy.

‘I want to commend the victims for their courage in coming forward and for the strength they have shown throughout this lengthy and complex investigation. Their determination has never wavered and this is testament to their bravery.’

A jury at St Albans Crown Court convicted Alford in January on all six charges he faced by a 10-2 majority after his trial.

As he was handed his jail term, Recorder Caroline Overton said Alford was the ‘one remaining adult’ at the party.

She added: ‘You were a trusted family friend and fully aware that the girls were 14 and 15 years of age.’

Recorder Overton said Alford’s ‘focus’ during the trial was ‘on the impact to you and your family rather than the victims’, which she said ‘limits the extent to which mitigation can be applied’.

Alford had denied two charges of engaging in non-penetrative sexual activity with a girl aged under 16 and two of engaging in penetrative activity with a girl under 16.

He had also pleaded not guilty to assaulting a female aged 13 or over by penetration with part of body and sexual assault on a female.

His original trial was postponed after it collapsed the day before it was due to start.

As the guilty verdicts were returned on September 5, Alford slumped in the dock with his head in his hands.

He was also heard saying: ‘Wrong, I didn’t do this.’

Once one of British television’s most famous faces, Alford was written out of London’s Burning – which attracted up to 18 million viewers a week – when he was caught in a News of the World ‘Fake Sheikh’ sting.

The actor was found guilty by a jury at London’s Snaresbrook Crown Court in 1999 of one count of supplying cocaine to Fake Sheikh Mazher Mahmood and another similar charge involving cannabis resin.

Alford said he had been invited to the meeting with the Fake Sheikh at the Savoy Hotel in London in 1997.

He was offered the chance to attend the celebrity opening of a nightclub in Dubai, where he would get the chance to meet Robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone, and possibly work with them in future.

During this meeting, Mahmood asked whether Alford would be able to supply some cocaine and cannabis on his behalf.

Mahmood was later convicted of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice after using illegal methods to get stories, but Alford’s attempts to get his own convictions overturned are understood to have failed.

With his career in tatters, he turned to driving a taxi and scaffolding work to get by.

He was banned from the roads for 16 months in January 2006 for drink-driving after a crash in Islington, north London, in April 2005.

But he was in trouble with the law again in 2018 when he was accused of assaulting two police officers after jumping behind the wheel of a bin lorry left with a smashed windscreen.

The disgraced star sparked chaos in Camden, north London, when he got behind the wheel of a 10-tonne truck.

More than 20 officers in seven patrol cars were joined by an ambulance.

One witness said that the huge police presence suggested they ‘seemed to respond like it was a terror attack’.

Footage of the early morning incident showed the former actor initially smiling while behind the wheel of the stationary vehicle.

He then yelled to the man filming him: ‘I tried to save your truck. It was reversing,’ before staggering out of the cab.

Alford can then be heard cheering as the sound of police sirens echoes down the street.