A PAEDOPHILE ex-Radio 1 DJ and college lecturer died after falling into a river, The Sun can reveal.
Michael Willis, 79, had changed his name to David Evans after being freed from an 18-month jail sentence for having sick pics of kids.
The former Radio 1 DJ was jailed in 2020 after hundreds of indecent images and movies were found on his laptop[/caption]
Willis was friends with infamous paedophile Jimmy Savile[/caption]
Cops said he went missing in December after he was last seen taking a water taxi to a pontoon where his yacht was moored in Dartmouth, Devon.
A source said: “The next morning his boat was unlocked and his phone was inside.
“His torch was found still lit on the pontoon next to the boat.
“Something happened and he must have gone into the water.”
Coastguard and RNLI searched the river Dart but did not find him.
Then on January 20 a body was found half a mile down the river by Dartmouth Castle and it was later identified by the coroner as David Evans, 79.
There was no mention of his previous identity.
Willis, who used the stage name Steve Merike in the 1970s, was caught with 500 images on his computer on his yacht Appalachian Spring in Plymouth.
He was jailed for 18 months in 2020.
The former lecturer and Lib Dem parliamentary candidate in Loughborough is understood to have moved to nearby Dartmouth and was living on a small cabin cruiser yacht called High Cirrus.
At the opening of his inquest in Exeter on Wednesday it was heard he was divorced and a retired college lecturer.
Devon area coroner Alison Longhorn said: “The circumstances are David resided on the boat which was moored on the River Dart.
“He was reported missing to the police as he had not been seen for several days.
“A body was located further down the river several weeks later and it has not been confirmed as that of David Evans.
“There are no suspicious circumstances. The medical cause of death is unascertained.”
The Sun approached his ex-wife Julia at her home in Loughborough for comment.
Her new husband responded to the news Willis had died saying: “Good.”
He added Julia had no contact with him for “many, many years”.
Willis had worked on Radio Caroline before a short spell on Radio 1 and was friends with infamous paedophile Jimmy Savile.
He was a presenter on TV show Pop Quest and interviewed stars such as T-Rex’s Marc Bolan.
He had also worked at Radio Trent in the 1980s, ran stations in Australia and lectured on radio and in the media.
Willis also lectured for 15 years at New College Nottingham and Nottingham Trent as well as being the governor at a number of schools in the Midlands.
He was previously given a suspended nine-month jail term at Leicester Crown Court in 2015 after admitting nine counts of downloading indecent images and movies of children between 2006 and 2013.
He had initially claimed he had been “intrigued by the Jimmy Savile affair” and wanted to pass on his findings to a sociologist.
Savile was unmasked as one of Britain’s worst paedophiles following his death in 2011.
The former Top of the Pops and Jim’ll Fix It presenter carried out a horrifying catalogue of abuse, attacking an estimated 1,000 victims – many of them children.
After his first conviction, he moved from Loughborough to Plymouth, where he lived on his boat Appalachian Spring at Plymouth Yacht Haven.
His yacht was raided in August 2017.
The 74-year-old denied possession of 238 Category A indecent images of children on his computers – showing them being sexually abused by adults. He also denied having 226 Category B images.
Willis pleaded guilty to having just 10 pictures in the least severe Category C, on a memory stick.
However the jury at Plymouth Crown Court rejected his claims and found him guilty by unanimous verdicts after a two-day trial.
