A SERIAL bigamist has been found dead on the day he was due to appear in court on child sex charges.

Police who had been sent to discover why 55-year-old Robert Hutchings was not in court identified his body, found slumped in the kitchen of his flat in Mather Road, Newcastle.

The father of six was given a 15-month suspended sentence two years ago after he was found guilty of two charges of bigamy.

A warrant was issued for his arrest after he failed to attend Teesside Crown Court where he faced 13 charges - seven of rape and six of indecent assault - against two children.

Detectives said Hutchings had originally faced more than 40 sex charges, which had been reduced to 13.

He was arrested only weeks after being released from prison where he had served a nine-month jail term imposed last year for indecently assaulting a young girl.

A spokeswoman for the crown court said: "We issued a bench warrant and received information throughout the morning that a body had been found, and an officer went to Newcastle."

Hutchings, a former Irish Guardsman, hit the headlines in 2000 when he was convicted of marrying twice in Newcastle, although he never divorced his first wife, Violet, who he abandoned in Belfast in 1978.

Judge Tony Briggs told him then that he was incapable of telling the truth, after hearing how he wooed his wives-to-be by spinning a web of lies.

Hutchings, a Protestant, had claimed at the trial at Teesside Crown Court that he had been forced to leave Belfast because of death threats from the IRA.

He had made outrageous claims to Samantha Bone, an 18-year-old he married in 1995, who was staying in a youth hostel he managed in Newcastle.

Among the tales he told her were that he had served with the SAS, joined the Foreign Legion, had been a mercenary in Angola, and had fought in the Vietnam War.

In 1988, unemployed Hutchings, who lived in Hartlepool at the time of the bigamy trial, had married 31-year-old civil servant Jean Thompson.

The relationship ended because of his alleged adultery but Hutchings had never been divorced from his first wife.

His body was formally identified to a coroner's officer on Tuesday by the Cleveland Police officer whose investigation led to the child sex charges being brought.

Judge John Walford terminated the latest trial after hearing of Hutchings death.

A spokesman for Northumbria Police said yesterday: "Shortly after noon yesterday, police attended a house in Mather Road, Newcastle.

"They were unable to raise the occupant and on forcing entry found the occupant, Robert Hutchings, 55 years old, dead.

"There are no suspicious circumstances and a report has been submitted to the coroner."