A man serving a life sentence for the murder of a toddler, was fatally stabbed in his cell at one of UK’s most secure prisons, and three fellow inmates have now been told they will never be released for the crime.
Mark Fellows, 45, David Taylor, 64, and Lee Newell, 57, were found guilty of killing 33-year-old Kyle Bevan at HMP Wakefield in 2025, and in 2026, they were all handed whole-life orders, the most severe punishment available in the criminal justice system.
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| Kyle Bevan |
Fellows and Newell were already serving whole-life terms for previous murders, while Taylor was on remand awaiting trial for another killing when the three men targeted Bevan in his cell.
According to authorities, the attack took place shortly after 5.30pm on November 4, 2025, as per BBC.
CCTV footage captured Fellows, Taylor and Newell following Bevan through the prison wing and into his single cell, where he was cornered and assaulted with at least one makeshift weapon.
One of the weapons had been crafted from a metal part taken from the back of a television, and a search of Taylor’s cell later uncovered additional weapons hidden inside a bottle of chilli sauce.
Bevan was reportedly stabbed and injured more than 30 times, with wounds concentrated on his chest and abdomen. Several of the wounds proved to be fatal, and he bled to death inside the cell.
After leaving him, the three men arranged Bevan’s body in his bed so that he appeared to be asleep, and because of this, his death was unnoticed until officers conducted the morning roll call the following day.
Prison surveillance footage showed the men emerging from the cell roughly four and a half minutes after they entered.
Prosecutors described their mood after the crime as something like a “satisfied, job done” atmosphere, noting that they remained entirely comfortable with one another.
On returning to their own cells, there were congratulations, and word of what had happened began to spread quickly.
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| The killers |
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| The killers moment before the attack |
Evidence placed blood on Newell’s hands, and all three defendants had blood on their shoes, even though Fellows tried to dispose of a pair of bloodstained trousers after the killing.
The prosecution’s case was that even if a defendant did not wield a weapon, all of them participated by encouraging one another and shared the intention to kill or cause really serious harm.
Bevan was serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 28 years for the murder of his partner’s two-year-old daughter, Lola James, in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, in July 2020.
During that trial, the court heard that he subjected the child to a brutal assault inside her family home, leaving her with catastrophic brain injuries.
The judge who sentenced him in 2023 described his actions as an assertion of superiority over the only person he could feel superior to, a helpless child.
At HMP Wakefield, many inmates are classified as vulnerable prisoners, often because they have been convicted of offences that carry particular moral repugnancy, such as sexual crimes or crimes against children.
Bevan fell into that category, but he kept himself to himself and was not known to associate with Fellows, Taylor or Newell in any way.
The prosecution said the three men chose him as their target specifically because he had killed a child.
The judge, Mrs Justice McGowan, said Fellows had returned to the area near Bevan’s cell twice later that evening, probably to check that he was dead.
She noted that all three men had killed before, and she imposed new and separate life terms on Fellows and Newell, while Taylor was given a whole-life order for Bevan’s murder on top of the time he was already facing for other serious crimes.
Fellows had been handed a whole-life term in 2019 for two gangland murders. He shot notorious Salford crime figure Paul Massey, 55, with an Uzi sub-machine gun outside his home in 2015, and three years later he killed mob fixer John Kinsella, 53, from Liverpool.
Newell first received a life sentence for murder in 1989, when he strangled a female neighbour in her 50s after she refused to give him money.
In 2013, he was given a whole-life order for killing a fellow prisoner who had murdered a child, leaving that victim in his bed with what the court described as a chilling similarity to the way Bevan was found.
Taylor had recently been transferred to HMP Wakefield and was already on remand for the murder of 24-year-old Alisha Apostoloff-Boyarin, a vulnerable woman from Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, with whom he had been in a relationship.
She was reported missing by her family in February 2022, and her body has never been recovered.
While in custody awaiting trial for that killing, Taylor told detectives he had fresh information about the whereabouts of her remains.
During a meeting in a prison interview room at HMP Frankland in Durham, he produced an improvised weapon and stabbed Detective Constable Darren Bratby in the chest, narrowly missing his heart and causing serious injuries.
The officer has since made a full physical recovery. On top of the whole-life term for Bevan’s murder, Taylor was sentenced to life with a minimum of 20 years for the murder of Apostoloff-Boyarin and received a 30-year term for the attempted murder of the police officer.
Bevan’s death came less than a month after another high-profile inmate, disgraced Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins, was fatally stabbed in the neck at the same prison. In the weeks surrounding that period, HMP Wakefield saw at least two other serious attacks.
Speaking after sentencing, senior investigating officer Ch Insp James Entwistle said the killing of Kyle Bevan was a premeditated brutal attack carried out by three long-term inmates whose actions showed a complete disregard for life and for the rules designed to keep people safe in custody.
He added that while prisons exist to deny offenders their liberty, they must also remain environments protected from unlawful violence.
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