Child killer left 'tidily tucked up in bed' after being stabbed to death in prison cell

Kyle Bevan was stabbed 25 times during the attack.

Share Article Facebook X LinkedIn Reddit Bluesky Email Copy Link Link copied Add us as preferred source By Catherine Mackinlay, News Reporter 14:44, Thu, Jun 18, 2026 Updated: 16:03, Thu, Jun 18, 2026

Kyle Bevan was stabbed 25 times during the attack (Image: PA)

Three prisoners have been found guilty of murdering a child killer who was stabbed to death in his cell and left “tidily tucked up in bed”. Kyle Bevan was stabbed 25 times during an attack by convicted killers Mark Fellows, Lee Newell and David Taylor at high-security HMP Wakefield in West Yorkshire.

Bevan, 33, was serving a life sentence with a minimum tariff of 28 years for murdering his partner’s two-year-old daughter, Lola James, in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, in 2020. The three defendants were seen on CCTV following Bevan into his cell after 5.30pm on November 4 and emerging less than five minutes later in “a satisfied, job-done mood”, prosecutors said. He was “put to bed” after the attack and was not discovered until the following morning when prison staff were tipped off by an inmate that “something was wrong with Bevan”. It was found he had bled to death after suffering 25 stab wounds caused by at least two different weapons. On Thursday, Fellows, 45, Newell, 57, and Taylor, 64, were found guilty of murdering Bevan after a jury at Leeds Crown Court deliberated for less than three hours.

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David Taylor, 64, (Image: Greater Manchester Police)

The trial heard there was “a lot of tension in the prison at the time” and there had been two other serious attacks 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.

Jurors 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.

The court heard the three defendants had a hostility to people who had committed offences against children and Fellows and Newell had expressed a desire to be transferred away from Wakefield.

In his closing speech during the trial, prosecutor Jason Pitter KC said Newell, who is serving a whole life order, had previously strangled a prisoner who murdered a child and left him in his bed, telling jurors there was “a chilling similarity to that and the circumstances of Kyle Bevan’s death”.

Fellows, known as “the Wakefield Dexter”, had previously committed two murders “to take out people he was opposed to or did not like”, and had formally applied to move from Wakefield not long before Bevan’s killing because of his dissatisfaction with the regime there.

The trio that have been found guilty of murdering a child killer (Image: MEN Media)

Taylor had recently been transferred to Wakefield in relation to the murder of an associate, to which he pleaded guilty, and the attempted murder of a police officer while he was in custody.

The court heard Taylor boasted about his ability to make makeshift weapons “out of all sorts” and after Bevan’s death some were found in a bottle of chilli sauce in his cell, although they could not be matched to the fatal attack.

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.

Summing up the case to jurors, the judge, Mrs Justice McGowan, said: “We do not know who did what in the cell. At least one person must have inflicted the fatal injuries. At least two weapons were used… it seems likely (Bevan) was held by his arms.

“He was stabbed to either side of his neck and repeatedly to the front of his body.”

The notorious high-security HMP Wakefield in West Yorkshire (Image: PA)

She told jurors: “You have to be sure that (all three defendants) had at least been part of the group, even if it was only helping or encouraging in some way, even if it is only by blocking the door or acting as a lookout.”