Kenneth Lingard, the grandfather of former Manchester United and England footballer Jesse Lingard, has died while awaiting a retrial over alleged historic child sex offences, a court has heard. He was 87.
Lingard had stood trial at Liverpool Crown Court last year on accusations that he sexually abused a girl from the age of five. The jury cleared him of two counts of indecent assault but could not reach verdicts on 15 remaining counts. A retrial had been planned after the original case ended without decisions on those allegations.
The court was told the retrial was first expected in May, but it was postponed to next year after Lingard was reported to be in hospital. On Monday, prosecutor Benjamin Aina KC informed the court that Lingard died on June 10, and a death certificate had been produced. Judge Katherine Pierpoint said that, in light of his death, any existing indictments no longer had legal effect unless the court was shown otherwise.
The allegations against Lingard were reported to police in November 2022, after a documentary aired in which Jesse Lingard spoke about his grandfather’s positive influence on his football career. Following the broadcast, the complainant messaged the midfielder directly, accusing Kenneth Lingard of molesting and sexually abusing her and saying he knew what had happened.
Jesse Lingard later returned to the UK from South Korea, where he was playing for FC Seoul, to give evidence in his grandfather’s defence at the trial last April. He told the court he had not known about any alleged abuse and said he would have cut ties with his grandfather if he had been aware of such claims.
Kenneth Lingard, described in court as a former gymnastics coach and powerlifter, denied the allegations and told the jury that the assaults “never happened.”
The case drew public attention because of Jesse Lingard’s profile and his family connection to the defendant, as well as the way the allegations emerged after his own comments about his grandfather in a television documentary. The proceedings are now effectively at an end following Kenneth Lingard’s death.
