Kinahan cartel boss Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh lives hellish existence in notorious British prison

Just last year the prison was the subject of a Channel 5 documentary ‘Evil Behind Bars’ – during which it was dubbed ‘the prison that even criminals fear’

• Share

Kinahan cartel boss Thomas “Bomber” Kavanagh now lives a hellish existence in one of Britain’s toughest prisons, it has emerged.

The 55-year-old, who this week faced his first court appearance over new charges relating to firearms, has been moved to HMP Full Sutton – reserved almost exclusively for the most dangerous and feared criminals. We have learned that the mobster, who was once considered to be second only to Daniel Kinahan in the hierarchy of the cartel, now spends his days almost entirely confined to his cell.

The jail has housed the likes of infamous Charles Bronson, child killer Ian Huntley, and Dennis Nilsen, one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers. “Bomber”, who is serving a 21-year sentence for conspiracy to import €36millon worth of cocaine, was recently moved from the high-security facility of HMP Belmarsh in London – where he spent much of last year amidst terrorist lags – before being sentenced for his role in conspiring to import millions of euro worth of drugs.

Before that he enjoyed a much more lenient regime at HMP Dovegate – a more relaxed facility that enjoys a hedgehog sanctuary. However, Kavanagh is now being held at HMP Full Sutton – a facility in the Yorkshire area that houses upwards of 600 prisoners and imposes a strict regime on its lags – many of whom are life prisoners.

The facility is well known in the UK for its strict conditions. Prisoners are generally confined to their cells but are given time to attend workshops, Open University courses, and a gym.

Most Read

1

And just last year the prison was the subject of a Channel 5 documentary “Evil Behind Bars” – during which it was dubbed “the prison that even criminals fear”. In June it was reported that violence among inmates and officers had risen.

Prisoner-on-prisoner assaults went from 28 in 2021 to 35 in 2022 at the jail. Incidents against staff also rose from 25 in 2021 to 38 in 2022, seven of which were classified as serious, according to the prison’s Independent Monitoring Board.

In its annual report, the IMB for HMP Full Sutton said that in 2022 individual wings began to have lockdowns imposed at short notice and prisoners were locked in their cells for either the morning, afternoon, or evening. The prison is also well known for an incident in which serial child sex offender Richard Huckle was murdered behind bars.

Huckle was arrested by the National Crime Agency in 2014 and convicted in 2016 of 71 charges of sexual offences against children in Malaysia, where he posed as a teacher and photographer. However, his prison time was cut short when another inmate and convicted sex offender tortured and murdered him in his cell in October 2019.

Kavanagh’s new prison woes come as he is now accused of sourcing 11 firearms and telling cops their location in a bid to get a reduced sentence for drug trafficking. The bombshell allegation was made at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on Tuesday as Kavanagh appeared via video link from prison.

The investigation arose out of Kavanagh’s previous case where he was jailed for overseeing a €36million drug smuggling operation in the UK, for which he was handed down a 21-year sentence last year. It is also linked to the same probe in which his son Jack Kavanagh and brother-in-law, senior Kinahan figure Liam Byrne, were arrested in Spain earlier in the summer. They remain there as they fight their extradition cases.