David Taylor

Whole-life orders for trio who murdered child killer Kyle Bevan at HMP Wakefield

Mark Fellows, Lee Newell and David Taylor have all been given whole-life orders for the murder of child killer Kyle Bevan at HMP Wakefield

One of three inmates who killed child murderer Kyle Bevan at HMP Wakefield last November has received a whole-life tariff, matching the sentences his two co-conspirators were already serving.

Convicted murderers Mark Fellows, 45, Lee Newell, 57, and David Taylor, 64, inflicted 25 stab wounds on Kyle Bevan before leaving him "tidily tucked up in bed" to bleed to death.

Bevan, 33, was serving life with a minimum 28-year term for murdering his partner's two-year-old daughter, Lola James, in Pembrokeshire in 2020.

Fellows and Newell were already under whole life orders when they carried out their lethal assault on Bevan last November.

Taylor was on remand at the time of Bevan's stabbing for murdering missing 24-year-old Alisha Apostoloff-Boyarin – a vulnerable woman he'd been in a relationship with but had tired of – and attempting to murder a police officer in an interview room at another high-security prison. He received a whole life order for these crimes, reports the Mirror.

The judge, Mrs Justice McGowan, also handed down "new and separate" whole life orders to Fellows and Newell for Bevan's murder.

Mrs Justice McGowan sentenced Taylor to life with a minimum 20-year term for Ms Apostoloff-Boyarin's murder and gave him a 30-year sentence for the attempted murder of the officer.

She then imposed a whole life order for Bevan's death, as it constituted a second murder conviction. After expressing gratitude to the trial jurors present at the sentencing hearing, the judge remarked: "I've never had to sentence someone for a third murder, and in two of these defendants' cases that's what just happened."

Fellows was the sole defendant physically present in court for the proceedings, while Newell and Taylor participated via video-link from their respective prisons.

The court was informed that Newell's first murder conviction came in 1989 after he strangled his female neighbour, who was in her 50s at the time, following her refusal to give him money.

Subsequently, he received a whole life tariff in 2013 after strangling a fellow inmate who had killed a child and positioning him in his bed, bearing "a chilling similarity to... the circumstances of Kyle Bevan's death".

Fellows, a hitman known as "the Wakefield Dexter", had carried out two gangland murders and was handed a whole life sentence in 2019.

He had formally applied to move from Wakefield shortly before Bevan's killing due to his dissatisfaction with the regime there. Taylor had recently been transferred to Wakefield.

The court learned Taylor had boasted about his ability to make makeshift weapons "out of all sorts", and following Bevan's death some were discovered in a bottle of chilli sauce in his cell, though they could not be linked to the fatal attack.

During Taylor's video-link appearances for hearings before the jury was sworn in, he was escorted into a room at Full Sutton prison, near York, by a number of officers in full riot gear. Prison staff had to remove two sets of handcuffs from him before he was allowed to sit and listen to lawyers discuss fears over the danger he posed.

The court heard there had been concerns from prison authorities that Taylor had somehow managed to secrete a weapon in his body – for some weeks – but this could not be found.

The judge was also informed that prison authorities wanted all three defendants to be handcuffed if they gave evidence in the witness box, but in the end none of them took to the stand.

Evidence presented at trial revealed there was "a lot of tension in the prison at the time" and two other serious attacks had occurred in the weeks leading up to Bevan's death – one in which paedophile Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins was stabbed to death and one in which David Minto, who murdered 16-year-old Sasha Marsden in Blackpool in 2013, was seriously injured.

The jury heard that unlike other jails, vulnerable prisoners were not separated from other inmates at Wakefield.

The regime at the time meant "main prisoners" such as Fellows, Newell and Taylor "had to mix with, in a distorted moral hierarchy, other criminals that were beneath them" such as child killers, prosecutors said.

Evidence emerged that the trio harboured hostility towards individuals convicted of offences against children, with Fellows and Newell having expressed a desire to be transferred away from Wakefield.

Bevan "kept himself to himself" and would mainly stay in his cell, often asking to be locked inside, jurors were told. On the day of his death, he was seen on CCTV walking to his cell, followed by the three defendants, who were just seconds behind.

Taylor could be seen taking something from his waistband as he went in.

The court was told it is not known "who did what" inside the cells, but that Bevan was likely held by his arms while being stabbed 25 times with at least two weapons.

The court heard the trio left the cell less than five minutes later "as if nothing had happened".

They could be seen shaking hands and apparently congratulating each other.

Newell had an injury to his hand while Fellows could be seen rolling up his tracksuit bottoms after realising they had blood on them, and later disposing of them.

Jurors heard one weapon, made from a folded piece of metal from the back of a television, was thrown from Bevan's cell and found on the ground outside. It had Bevan's blood on it.

The weapon which caused the fatal injuries has never been found.

The trial heard that, as Taylor was being transferred out of Wakefield, he was heard to shout in the vicinity of Newell: "Nice working with you and the Iceman" – a nickname for Fellows.