Thomas “Bomber” Kavanagh, the Irishman who led the Kinahan cartel’s British operation, gave a list of names to the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) of Irish criminal and paramilitary figures that he suggested may have owned guns his gang had secretly planted for him in Co Down, his barrister said.
Kavanagh (57) and fellow cartel member Liam Byrne (43) were sentenced to six years and five years in prison respectively at the Old Bailey on Tuesday over a ruse involving the guns.
They had arranged for the weapons to be planted in a Newry field. Kavanagh then tipped off the NCA about the cache, in the hope that appearing co-operative would get him a lighter sentence in a separate drugs case.
At their Old Bailey sentence hearing on Tuesday, Kavanagh remained impassive on videolink from Belmarsh prison as he was given six years on top of a 21-year sentence he was already serving for drugs. Byrne, meanwhile, smiled and joked with prison guards after he was given five years; with time already served, he is likely to be eligible for release by Christmas next year.
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It was the first time over the two-day sentence hearing that Byrne had showed emotion. On Monday, when he and the other defendants had appeared at the Old Bailey in person, Byrne had only dipped his head momentarily when his barrister told the court his father had died while he was in custody.
Kavanagh, Byrne and Liverpool man Shaun Kent (38) pleaded guilty in September to charges relating to the weapons plot. But in legal argument in a London courtroom heard in the absence of a jury, which can only be reported now the case is finished, Kavanagh’s legal team told a judge he had “put himself at risk . . . as an informant” to the police in relation to the guns, which were found in 2021.
During legal argument last month, Kavanagh’s barristers tried to prevent bits of evidence from being put before a jury; the three men had not yet pleaded guilty at that stage and a trial was imminent.
Kavanagh’s lawyer complained he should have been cautioned in advance of one particular police interview in 2021, during which he suggested names in relation to the weapons cache that his gang had assembled for the ruse.
His barrister Tim Owen KC argued that, unknown to Kavanagh, the police already considered him a suspect over the guns ruse at the time. He said they did not tell him this, but should have.
“If they had cautioned him, he would probably have clammed up,” Mr Owen told Judge Philip Katz in the Old Bailey. Instead, he said, Kavanagh gave the police a list of names: “All the names that he gave were of people who were involved in serious criminal activity.”
Mr Owen said that if all the evidence gleaned from this interview was allowed at trial, Kavanagh might be forced in open court to go into the entire background of the interview, including the fact that he had given names to police.
“He was never intending to go into a witness box. He is not going to do so now because of the consequences for him and his family,” said Mr Owen. He added that “defending himself [in court] against that background” gave Kavanagh a “dangerous dilemma”.
In the end, the judge rejected Kavanagh’s legal arguments and did not restrict the interview evidence. Days later, Kavanagh and the others pleaded guilty.
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