Inquest due into death of ex-celebrity publicist Max Clifford who collapsed at Cambridgeshire prison

He died of congestive heart failure months after his family voiced concerns about his health, a pre-inquest review earlier this year was told.

Clifford, 74, collapsed at Littlehey Prison in Cambridgeshire, where he was serving an eight-year sentence for sex offences.

He died at Hinchingbrooke Hospital near Huntingdon on December 10 2017.

It was recorded that among the underlying factors in his death were cardiac AL amyloidosis - a rare, serious condition caused by a build up of abnormal proteins in organs and tissues - and plasma cell neoplasm, a disease in which the body makes too many plasma cells.

Clifford's daughter Louise Clifford told the preliminary hearing at Huntingdon Law Courts: "I accept he died of natural causes, but there were matters that exacerbated his condition.

"Being cold, lack of heating, the shock of the shower - he complained for weeks and weeks to me that it was becoming impossible to shower adequately."

A central issue is likely to be the treatment Clifford received at various locations, the court heard.

Clifford was jailed for eight years in May 2014 after being convicted of a number of charges under Operation Yewtree, the Metropolitan Police investigation set up after the Jimmy Savile scandal.

He was the first person to be convicted as part of the national investigation.

The PR guru, who used his celebrity connections to lure women, was found guilty of a string of indecent assaults between 1977 and 1984.

In 2016, he was cleared of indecently assaulting a teenage girl after being accused of using his power to humiliate the 17-year-old into performing a sex act on him in the 1980s.

He had been due to appeal against all his convictions on the basis of fresh evidence.