Child rapist George Alexander Rose died in his Wymott Prison cell after medical appointments for a life-threatening abdominal aortic aneurysm were repeatedly missed because of hospital strikes and staff shortages that left no officers available to escort him, an inquest has found.

The 75-year-old, who received a 15-year sentence in May 2021 for 22 indecent assaults and six rapes committed in Blackpool and Oldham during the 1980s, was warned at sentencing he would likely die behind bars. Two years into his term, prison medical staff discovered the aneurysm, but his first hospital slot was cancelled by the hospital and the rescheduled date could not be kept because Wymott lacked the officers to transport him. When he arrived at a clinic in August 2023, doctors had walked out on strike and no one had told the prison; by the time a vascular surgeon finally examined him six months after diagnosis, the bulging vessel could rupture at any moment and Rose signed a “do not resuscitate” order.

Officers found Rose unresponsive on 18 January 2024 after he failed to collect his evening meal; paramedics pronounced him dead. A 30 April 2025 inquest recorded natural causes, but the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman reported that earlier assessment in June 2023—blocked because no escort was available—might have allowed life-saving intervention. The watchdog also revealed that healthcare staff had omitted to check whether Rose, formerly of Mill Road, Barnstaple, Devon, had undergone age-appropriate NHS screening, including the abdominal aortic scan, when he arrived at Wymott in May 2021. Since his death, prison managers have launched an urgent review of escort staffing levels to ensure the current workforce can meet inmates’ medical needs.

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