The son of a senior Kinahan organised crime gang member will walk free from prison after admitting his part in an arms cache plot aimed at engineering a lighter sentence for his father.
Jack Kavanagh, from Tamworth, England, was a trainee accountant when he became involved in the plot to help Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh (57), out of what Judge Philip Katz described as “misguided loyalty”.
It involved acquiring and then hiding a stash of handguns, machine guns and ammunition and then alerting the National Crime Agency (NCA) to its location, using an X to mark the spot on a map.
However, the scheme was foiled after the NCA uncovered incriminating messages on EncroChat, an encrypted text platform, which was cracked by French investigators.
Jack Kavanagh (24) was arrested in May of last year at Malaga Airport by officers from the Spanish National Police. He was extradited to the UK where he pleaded guilty to conspiring to possess firearms and ammunition.
Judge Philip Katz KC accepted that Kavanagh was more of an “enthusiastic messenger” than an “organiser” as he sentenced him to three years and one month in prison.
As he has already effectively served his time on remand, the sentence means Kavanagh will be released from Belmarsh Prison, from where he appeared by video-link for Thursday’s hearing.
Unlike Thomas Kavanagh, who Judge Katz described as “a notorious and leading member of an organised crime group”, the defendant had no previous convictions and was a young man of good character, the court was told. The judge noted that Jack Kavanagh was 20 when he got involved in his father’s scheme and had “promising career” as an accountant.
In earlier mitigation, the defendant’s barrister Tyrone Smith KC said: “This was a young man with a real opportunity in life to make good on his promise and was seeking to do so. He was not motivated by financial gain or the result of a long-standing criminal life but of misplaced loyalty.”
Serving inmate Peter Keating (43), from Clondalkin, Dublin, was jailed for four years and eight months on Thursday having admitted to the same charges, as well as one of plotting to pervert the course of justice. He is expected to be returned to Ireland where he is already serving 12 years for directing a criminal organisation.
Tim Moloney KC, for Keating, said his client was acting under direction, was put under pressure to comply and had since “severed” all contact with his co-defendants.
Prosecutor Max Baines said the conspirators agreed to acquire as many firearms as possible from the UK, Netherlands, Ireland and Northern Ireland between January 2020 and June 2021. Thomas Kavanagh was in HMP Dovegate at the time serving a three-year term for possession of a stun gun and was on remand for 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 2022. Thomas Kavanagh had also enlisted the help of his brother-in-law, Liam Byrne (44), from Dublin, and Shaun Kent (39) from Liverpool.
In May 2021, Thomas Kavanagh provided information to the NCA which led them to a field in Newry, where two holdalls were unearthed that contained seven machine guns, three automatic handguns, an assault rifle and ammunition.
In September, Thomas Kavanagh, Byrne, and Kent admitted their roles in the conspiracy.
Kavanagh was jailed for six years, which he will serve consecutively with his earlier jail sentences, Byrne was jailed for five years while Kent was given a six-year sentence. – PA
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