Disgraced celebrity publicist Max Clifford complained about prison conditions before he died of heart failure while serving an eight-year sentence, an inquest heard.

The 74-year-old, who was jailed for historical sex offences in 2014, collapsed at Littlehey Prison in Cambridgeshire on 7 December 2017.

He died at Hinchingbrooke Hospital near Huntingdon three days later.

Kimberley Aiken, the barrister representing Mr Clifford’s family, told a pre-inquest review hearing that the publicist had claimed prisoners were “locked up for 23 hours per day and forced to have freezing cold showers”.

The publicist was also said to have claimed that “only enhanced prisoners could have a jumper” as a privilege.

Ms Aiken told the hearing in Huntingdon on Tuesday: “The conditions within Littlehey were known to be pretty shocking and the family have concerns that any gentleman of Mr Clifford’s age and infirmity would have had their death hastened by the conditions.”

Georgina Wolfe, barrister for the Ministry of Justice, refuted the claims at the hearing on Tuesday.

She said: “Not only is there no evidence of this but there’s no evidence this had any impact on Mr Clifford’s health and how he came by his death.”

Ms Aiken told the hearing: “It has to be conceded that he would have died in any event, though perhaps not on that day.

“He would perhaps have been able to go home and have some family time if the family’s suspicions are correct.

“Perhaps that time was the most precious to him and (his daughter Louise Clifford).”

The medical cause of Mr Clifford’s death was congestive heart failure, an earlier hearing was told.

Further underlying factors were given as cardiac AL amyloidosis – a rare, serious condition caused by a build-up of abnormal proteins in organs and tissues – and plasma cell neoplasm, which are diseases in which the body makes too many plasma cells.

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.

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

Simon Milburn, assistant coroner for Cambridgeshire, did not set a date for the full inquest hearing.

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