A MAN due to appear in court on a string of sexual charges has died after apparently committing suicide. Session musician Ashley Godsall, 34, perished in a blaze at Cedars Road, Beckenham on Friday. He was found dead by firefighters at around 3pm in his basement. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Godsall was due to appear at the Old Bailey that day for the verdict of a case in which he was accused of a catalogue of sexual offences. A warrant had been issued for his arrest after his non-appearance at the court.

In his absence a jury acquitted him of three serious sexual assaults, three charges of having unlawful sex with a girl under 16 and one of indecent assault.

And Judge Neil Denison, QC, discharged the jury from returning verdicts relating to nine other counts of indecent assault and three of assault causing ABH after members failed to come to a decision. Godsall was accused of a string of sex crimes against a woman, now aged 20 and living in Cambridgeshire. The offences were said to have taken place between May 1988 and May 1997.

But Godsall - who conducted his own defence - denied all the charges and maintained that any sexual contact began when the woman was over 16.

Godsall had been convicted by the jury of sending a video of the woman performing a sex act to her employers. He was due to be sentenced for that offence and was facing a possible retrial over the charges the jury had not decided on.

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