A MAN facing jail for child sex offences was found dead yesterday, just hours before he was due to be sentenced.

Former lifeboatman Malcolm Swales is thought to have committed suicide before he was expected in court.

The body of 50-year-old Swales was found in a fume-filled car by relatives yesterday morning.

He was due to appear at Teesside Crown Court to be sentenced for sex attacks on boys stretching back more than 15 years.

Swales, of Westbourne Road, Hartlepool, pleaded guilty to 24 charges of indecent assault when he appeared in court in October.

Judge Guy Whitburn, QC, adjourned the case two months ago for reports to be prepared, but warned Swales that he was facing a sentence of considerable length.

News of his death was broken yesterday by barrister Graham Reeds, who told the court that formal identification of the body was still to be carried out.

Judge Whitburn said Swales would have been given credit for his guilty pleas but said he had adjourned sentencing to see if an extended prison sentence would have been appropriate.

He said yesterday: "It is absolutely clear that this man, over a period of 15 years, traumatised six or seven young children, as they were then, who still bear the scars to this day."

The earlier hearing, at Newcastle Crown Court, was told Swales had originally pleaded not guilty to 40 charges of sex attacks and the prosecution offered no evidence on a further two counts of sex assaults on a young boy.

The 24 charges he admitted related to seven boys aged between nine and 15, and dated back to the late 1980s.

Swales had been remanded on bail and ordered to surrender his passport and report to Hartlepool police station every day at 8am.

A statement from Cleveland Police said: "We can confirm that a man has been found dead at a house in the Burn Valley area of Hartlepool. There are no suspicious circumstances, and the matter is now in the hands of the coroner."