Mark Fellows, 45, David Taylor, 64, and Lee Newell, 57, have been sentenced to whole-life orders for the murder of inmate Kyle Bevan at HMP Wakefield. The trio were found guilty of stabbing Bevan 25 times in his cell on 4 November last year, an act the court heard was motivated by Bevan's conviction for the murder of his partner's two-year-old daughter, Lola James, in 2020.
During proceedings at Leeds Crown Court, Mrs Justice McGowan detailed how Fellows, Taylor, and Newell were captured on CCTV following Bevan into his cell around 5:30 pm, where they “cornered him”. They emerged less than five minutes later, described as being in “a satisfied, job-done mood”. Jurors were told the men then placed Bevan in his bed to give the impression he was asleep, delaying the discovery of his death until the following morning. The judge noted Fellows was seen near Bevan's cell twice more that evening, likely to confirm his death.
The court heard that Fellows and Newell were already serving whole-life terms for previous convictions. Fellows was given his whole-life order in 2019 for two gangland murders, including the shooting of Paul Massey in 2015. Newell, who was first jailed for murder in 1989, received a whole-life order in 2013 after killing another prisoner who had murdered a child, an incident the court described as having “a chilling similarity” to Bevan's death, as he also left that victim in his bed.
David Taylor, who received his first whole-life order for Bevan's murder, was already in custody awaiting trial for the murder of 24-year-old Alisha Apostoloff-Boyarin, a vulnerable woman whose body has never been found after she went missing in February 2022. Taylor was also sentenced on Friday for attempting to murder a police officer, Det Con Darren Bratby, whom he stabbed in the chest with an improvised weapon during a meeting in a prison interview room, narrowly missing his heart. For Apostoloff-Boyarin's murder, Taylor received a life sentence with a minimum term of 20 years, and a 30-year sentence for the attempted murder of the police officer.
Chief Inspector James Entwistle, the senior investigating officer, described the incident as a “premeditated brutal attack carried out inside a prison by three long-term inmates.” He emphasised that the actions of Fellows, Taylor, and Newell demonstrated “a complete disregard for life and for the rules designed to keep people safe in custody.” The court was also informed that there had been two other serious attacks at HMP Wakefield in the weeks leading up to Bevan's death, including the fatal stabbing of disgraced singer Ian Watkins.
Mrs Justice McGowan specifically addressed the defendants, stating, “You chose him as your target as he had been convicted of the murder of a child. Acting together you wounded him more than 25 times, several of those wounds were fatal.” She added that there were “congratulations when you returned to your own landing. Word had spread.”
Source: Leeds Crown Court