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Kinahan gang boss Liam Byrne sharing prison with some of UK’s worst criminals

Byrne watched proceedings from HMP Belmarsh which was featured in a new TV show ‘HMP Belmarsh: Evil Behind Bars’ just last week

Neil Fetherstonhaugh

Today at 17:28

Senior Kinahan crime figure Liam Byrne who was extradited from Spain last month is sharing his new prison space with some of the UK’s most notorious criminals.

The 43-year-old appeared at the Old Bailey in London yesterday via video link from HMP Belmarsh, one of the toughest high security prisons in Britain.

Byrne and his brother-in-law Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh (56), described as the cartel’s ‘top man’ in the UK, are facing charges over a weapons plot which was busted after the Encrochat messaging service was compromised by authorities under Operation Venetic.

Kavanagh is currently serving a 21-year jail term for conspiring to import £30m worth of cocaine and cannabis into the UK and was arrested by the National Crime Agency (NCA) as part of that operation.

He is serving his sentence in HMP Belmarsh, after being transferred there for “security reasons”.

His son Jack Kavanagh was detained in Spain last year and is currently fighting extradition.

Byrne, who had been residing in Dubai but flew in to Spain last May for a family gathering where he was arrested on foot of an extradition warrant, was returned to the UK last month.

A trial date has been set for September with the case expected to last up to six weeks.

Byrne, whose younger brother David was shot dead in the Regency Hotel in 2016 as part of the Hutch/Kinahan feud which claimed 18 lives, watched proceedings from HMP Belmarsh which was featured in a new TV show HMP Belmarsh: Evil Behind Bars just last week.

In the programme aired on Channel 5, former inmates and retired prison staff reflected on their encounters with the likes of John Sweeney, otherwise known as the Scalp Hunter, various IRA prisoners and Charles Bronson.

First imprisoned in 1974, armed robber Bronson has seen his sentence repeatedly increased for attacking prison staff and taking them hostage.

n and out of prison for most of his adult life, Bronson was finally given a life sentence after kidnapping prison teacher Phil Danielson in 1999, in Hull, and causing destruction to the prison.

After being held at a number of prisons across the country – including Belmarsh – he returned to HM Prison Woodhill in 2018, where he remains.

Sweeney, who got the nickname of ‘Scalp Hunter’ based on the drawings he made depicting his crimes, was told he will die in Belmarsh after he was convicted in 2011 of the murder of two former girlfriends who he cut up and dumped in canals in both Rotterdam and London.

Byrne will also possibly encounter Julian Assange, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks who remains at his majesty’s pleasure since April 2019, as the US government’s extradition battle continues in the British courts.

Another high-profile inmate Byrne may come across is the former police officer David Carrick, who believed his position as a trusted officer made him “untouchable” as he raped, assaulted and inflicted “irretrievable destruction” on at least 12 women.