Three convicted murderers have been found guilty of murder again after a child killer was stabbed to death in a high security jail.
Details of the Crime
Contract killer Mark The Iceman Fellows, 45, who previously shot dead gangland kingpins Paul Massey and John Kinsella; David Taylor, 64; and Lee Newell, 57; have all been convicted of murdering 33-year-old Kyle Bevan in HMP Wakefield. The trio joined forces to kill Bevan, who had been serving a life sentence for murdering Lola James, his two-year-old stepdaughter, at their home in Wales.
Bevan was stabbed 25 times with improvised weapons in the jail on November 4 last year. After the attack, his body was placed in his bed and made to look as if he were asleep, Leeds Crown Court heard. CCTV footage from inside the jail showed the three category A prisoners following Bevan into his cell, one by one. Once they left the cell just under five minutes later, Bevan never emerged alive again. So convincing was Bevans position on the bed that his body was not discovered until the following morning, when he had already been dead for hours and after officers had carried out checks at the door of his cell.
Motive and Background
The motive for his death remains unclear. Prosecutors said the trio disliked vulnerable prisoners including sex offenders and those who had committed crimes against children, and claimed they may have wanted to be transferred out of HMP Wakefield. At the time, vulnerable prisoners including sex offenders and those who committed offences against children were free to mix with main prisoners in the jail, which has been nicknamed Monster Mansion due to its notorious former inmates, including Harold Shipman.
Fellows and Newell were in the West Yorkshire prison serving whole life orders, the most severe sentence which judges can pass in the English criminal justice system, meaning they must serve the rest of their days behind bars. Fellows was behind bars for murdering Massey and Kinsella following the eruption of gang warfare in Salford. Hitman Fellows was allied with the citys Anti A-Team faction, said to be led by Michael Carroll, with Mr Big Massey considered as being a mentor figure to the alleged leader of the A-Team, Stephen Britton. Fellows blasted Massey outside his own home with an Uzi sub machine gun in July 2015. Then in May 2018, Fellows shot dead John Kinsella as he walked his dog in Merseyside. Kinsella had carried Masseys coffin at his funeral.
Newell was handed a whole life order in 2013 for murdering child killer Subhan Anwar in HMP Long Lartin in 2013. Anwar, from Huddersfield, was serving a life sentence for the murder of his partners two-year-old daughter. At the time of the killing in the Worcestershire jail, Newell had already been serving a life sentence for strangling his neighbour, 56-year-old Mary Neal, to death in Norwich in 1988.
David Taylors Other Crimes
It can now be reported in full for the first time that Taylor has admitted murdering a missing woman, and been found guilty of attempting to murder a police officer in prison. Taylor pleaded guilty to murdering Alisha Apostoloff-Boyarin, from Ashton, who was reported missing by her family in February 2022. Her body has never been found. Taylor then tried to murder a Greater Manchester Police officer who had attended HMP Frankland in Durham, where Taylor was then being held, to interview him about Alishas disappearance. Taylor had claimed to have information about her whereabouts.
But during an interview in July 2024, Taylor produced an improvised weapon and stabbed Detective Constable Darren Bratby to the chest, an attack captured on shocking CCTV footage. The full circumstances surrounding Alishas murder have not yet been disclosed in open court. He has not yet been sentenced for the murder and attempted murder cases. However, Taylor answered questions about her in his attempted murder trial when he still denied the offence. Taylor told his trial at Manchester Crown Court that he knew Alisha as she was the girlfriend of a friends son. At one stage he claimed that Alisha had left of her own accord and had just got on with her life.
