A child killer was stabbed 25 times in his high-security prison cell and left to bleed to death in his bed, a court has heard. Kyle Bevan, 33, was serving a life sentence for the brutal murder of two-year-old Lola James in Haverfordwest, west Wales, in 2020. He was attacked at HMP Wakefield in West Yorkshire on November 4 last year, jurors at Leeds Crown Court were told.
Three fellow inmates – Mark Fellows, 45, Lee Newell, 57, and David Taylor, 64 – are on trial accused of murdering Bevan. Jason Pitter KC, prosecuting, showed the jury of seven women and five men CCTV footage of Bevan entering his cell, followed by the three defendants who, he said, came out four minutes and 39 seconds later. The trio emerged displaying “something of a satisfied, job-done mood”, Mr Pitter said.
“Child killer Kyle Bevan was stabbed 25 times in his cell at HMP Wakefield by three inmates, a court has heard.”
Bevan was put in his bed after the attack and was not discovered until the following morning, when it was found he had bled to death. He had suffered 25 stab wounds which penetrated his jugular vein, aorta and heart, plus other injuries thought to have been caused by a different pointed weapon. A folded piece of metal later found with Bevan’s blood on it had been made from a piece of a television, the court heard.
Bevan was jailed for life with a minimum term of 28 years for murdering his partner’s daughter Lola James in 2020. The judge described it as a “sustained, deliberate, and very violent” attack. At the time of Bevan’s death, around 77% of inmates at Wakefield were classed as vulnerable prisoners, Mr Pitter said. Unlike other prisons, vulnerable inmates were not separated from main prisoners, and the wing had an “open door” policy allowing inmates to freely interact during “association”.
“Whilst there may be an obvious temptation to question the need and wisdom of that regime, the mixing of the prisoners, that is not a question for you in this trial. What it did, though, was to contribute to a situation where there was tension, in an obvious direction, between those groups of prisoners,” Mr Pitter told the jury.
The trial continues.