A convicted child killer who had claimed he was a victim of miscarriage of justice has died in a North-East prison, it has been revealed.

Andrew Pountley, 40, who was convicted of the rape and murder of his girlfriend's five-year-old daughter Rosemary McCann in February 1997, died in his cell at Durham City's Frankland Prison.

Rosemary disappeared from her home in Oldham in January. Seven weeks later, on March 4, her body was found by police in the corner of a small patch of waste ground.

Pountley was put on trial at Manchester Crown Court and convicted on February 1997. Mrs Justice Steel gave Pountley two life sentences and said he should serve 25 years.

But last night the Manchester-based campaigning group Innocent said it would continue to fight to clear his name.

An Innocent spokesman said: "The case of Andrew Pountley is horrifying and deeply disturbing, not just because it concerns the worst kind of crime imaginable, nor because the Oldham police were so keen to build a case against an unlikely suspect, using very dubious evidence.

"But above all because whoever committed this terrible crime remains free to do it again."

According to Innocent a key witness who said he had given a lift to a man with a small girl wearing pyjamas had only had a feeling that he recognised Pountley.

When the police searched his house for the third time, they found a pyjama top with a Thomas the Tank Engine design on it. They took it to show the mother and the baby-sitters, who said it was the one that Rosemary had been wearing when she was put to bed.

Along with other forensic evidence the case seemed damning, but it could have all been challenged, according to Innocent.

Mr Pountley is believed to have died of natural causes. An inquest will open in Chester-le-Street on Wednesday.