Crime boss ran gun plot to dupe police, court hears

The boss of an organised crime gang orchestrated a plot from jail to lead police to a stash of guns to help him get a lighter jail term, a court heard.

Irish national Thomas Kavanagh had hoped that National Crime Agency (NCA) officers finding the 11 weapons would be taken into account by the sentencing judge in a multi-million pound drug smuggling case, the OId Bailey was told.

Kavanagh, 57 and of Tamworth - who ran the plot from HMP Dovegate - enlisted brother-in-law Liam Byrne, 44, of Dublin, and associate Shaun Kent, 38, from Liverpool, in the operation.

The three men admitted conspiracy charges over the plot last month and have returned to court for sentencing amid heightened security.

The court was told that in May 2021, Kavanagh provided the NCA with information about the weapons that led them to a field in Newry, where two holdalls were unearthed.

They contained seven machine guns, three automatic hand guns, an assault rifle and ammunition.

The plot was later foiled after the NCA uncovered incriminating messages on encrypted EncroChat, which had been cracked by French counterparts.

Prosecutor Tom Forster KC said the case involved "organised crime at a high level".

"But for the NCA's possession of the EncroChat evidence there is every likelihood the plot would have been successful," Mr Forster told the court.

Between January 2020 and June 2021, the defendants agreed to "acquire as many arms as possible" from the UK, Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Kavanagh was already serving a three-year sentence for possession of a stun gun and had also been remanded on serious drug charges since March 2020.

Those charges related to smuggling "multiple kilos" of cocaine and cannabis into the UK, for which he was jailed for 21 years, in March 2022.

Mr Forster said Kavanagh hoped he would be “rewarded” for helping the authorities to recover the weapons, by way of a discount from his sentence.

"However, the true position was that he and his co-conspirators did not intend to provide any real assistance, because they had orchestrated the acquisition of weapons and ammunition through their own serious criminality. It was a 'put-up job’,” Mr Forster added.

Kavanagh, Byrne, 44, from Dublin, and Kent, 38, from Liverpool, all admitted two charges of conspiring to possess a prohibited weapon, and two charges of conspiring to possess prohibited ammunition, between 9 January 2020 and 3 June 2021.

Kavanagh and Kent also admitted conspiring with others to pervert the course of justice.

Judge Philip Katz KC is expected to hand down sentences on Tuesday.

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