A ‘dangerous’ sex offender who targeted young girls on their way home from school in Tameside has died in prison, it has been confirmed.

Steven Collins was sentenced to seven years and six months in 2022 after admitting three counts of sexual assault. The then 23-year-old had ‘deliberately targeted’ girls in school uniform, assaulting two teenagers on buses and another outside a shop, threatening to kill one of the girls and following two of them to their homes.

Collins was apprehended after two of his victims managed to take photographs of him as he attempted to film under their school skirts in Tameside.

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has confirmed that Collins, now 25, died at Wymott Prison, near Leyland, on 26 March. An investigation into his death has been launched.