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<\/p>\nThomas Haigh, who murdered Wirral boxer Brett Flournoy and David Griffiths, died in HMP Manchester last month<\/p>\n
16:51, 03 Apr 2026<\/p>\n
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Wirral Prizefighter boxer Brett Flournoy was murdered by Thomas Haigh <\/p>\n
It was a case that had everything. A double shotgun murder, a mule with a hefty debt, a County Lines-esque plot before that style of drug dealing even had a name, and alleged links to an IRA gang that supposedly “ran” Liverpool’s drugs trade.<\/p>\n
But at the heart of it were two men who were murdered and disposed off<\/a> in the most callous way, leaving their loved ones searching for answers that eventually came in the form of a highly-charged four-week trial in Cornwall. Wirral<\/a> boxer Brett Flournoy, 31, and David Griffiths, 35, were gunned down by Thomas Haigh, then 26, in June 2011.<\/p>\n Both men were blasted with a shotgun at an isolated farm near St Austell in Cornwall, before being buried at the scene. Haigh, a cage fighter and drugs mule owed the victims tens of thousands of pounds in debts. The murders were said to have been carried out in response to Flournoy and Griffiths’ bullying attempts to make Haigh make another trip to pick up drugs in Brazil.<\/p>\n Haigh was ultimately handed a life sentence for the double murder<\/a>, while Ross Stone, then 28, escaped charges of murder and manslaughter but admitted obstructing a coroner by illegally disposing of the bodies on his land. The case returned to the news cycle on Thursday following confirmation that Haigh had died at Manchester’s Strangeways prison<\/a> on March 15 this year, aged 40.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO), the organisation that investigates all deaths in custody, told the ECHO<\/a>: “[The ombudsman] Adrian Usher is conducting an independent investigation after the death of Thomas Haigh on 15 March 2026 at HMP Manchester.”<\/p>\n A Prison Service spokesperson added: “HMP Manchester prisoner Thomas Haigh died on 15 March 2026. As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate.”<\/p>\n Flournoy, a champion kickboxer in his teens, spent six years in the Royal Engineers before leaving in 2006. He later became a welterweight and light middleweight boxer and also ran the Brown Cow pub in Bebington. Described as a boxer who “could have gone all the way,” he retired from the ring after reaching the final of Sky’s Prizefighter tournament.<\/p>\n Murder victim Brett Flournoy<\/p>\n But at some point during his adult life he also became involved in the supply of drugs. Prosecutors alleged that the muscle-clad pair, Flournoy and Griffiths, acted as gangland enforcers for an Irish Republican Army (IRA) gang<\/a> which “ran” the Liverpool drugs trade.<\/p>\n They were said to have demanded Haigh, who was also deeply involved in the drugs game but owed the pair tens of thousands of pounds, to go to Brazil for a second time to bring back cocaine. Meanwhile Stones, a builder by trade, had also run up debts touching \u00a340,000 after intervening to help a friend and was under immense pressure to pay off the money.<\/p>\n He claimed he faced constant death threats “from the first day” against him and his family from the pair and their associates, who would ring him on his mobile telephone “every 10-15 minutes”.<\/p>\n He even borrowed money from his mother and allowed Flournoy and Griffiths to turn his home into a cocaine processing plant, supplying users in Cornwall. He told the trial how the pair had arrived unannounced at the home of his partner’s parents, hours after she had given birth to their second child because he turned his phone off while they were in the labour ward.<\/p>\n The murdered men were said to have sent Haigh to “babysit” Stone and a crop of cannabis he was growing in a bid to give them their money. But Haigh, who had gone already to Brazil to collect and return drugs, feared to go again because a friend was in a South American prison after being caught on a recent trip.<\/p>\n Undated Devon and Cornwall Police handout photo of David Griffiths(Image: PA Media)<\/p>\n Flournoy drove down from Merseyside in a Citroen Berlingo van, picking Griffiths up on the way to the Devon\/Cornwall border. Stone told the trial that Haigh talked about killing the two men in the days before they died. He maintained on June 16, 2011 he had returned to his farm to find the drug dealers’ lifeless bodies on the ground<\/a>.<\/p>\n Haigh, who had previously served time in a young offenders’ institution for dealing class A drugs, was on the run at the time of the shooting after skipping a court appearance in Carlisle for possession of an air gun because he was in Brazil on his first cocaine smuggling trip.<\/p>\n Flournoy had been shot in the back and Griffiths in the face. Haigh, said to be topless and dishevelled, allegedly told Stone “Dave would not die” and claimed he had been beaten up. Stone told the trial he almost went to the police but later used his own mechanical digger to bury the pair in their van in a 2.5m deep hole on the farm.<\/p>\n Flournoy and Griffiths were reported missing after failing to check into their hotel in Newquay. After weeks of searches police made an unrelated drugs raid on the farm and arrested Stone for growing cannabis in two buried shipping containers. He later admitted to police that two men were buried on the property and told officers where to dig.<\/p>\n The police line at the time was that the pair had travelled to the south west on a “social visit”. Following an excavation of the land, police found the human remains and van, but initially struggled to positively identify it as the missing vehicle because of extensive fire damage.<\/p>\n Haigh fled to his native Yorkshire after the killing and initially went to ground. He later walked into a police station in Huddersfield and told officers how Griffiths had beaten him up over a girl he had brought back to the farm and he had run off when the men were still alive.<\/p>\n Bay View Farm near St Austell, Cornwall – scene of double murder of Brett Flournoy and David Griffiths. The trench is where a camper van was buried with bodies inside<\/p>\n Had he been involved in the killing, he said, he would not have left it to a “thick farmer to tidy up” – a reference to Cornishman Stone disposing of the bodies – but would have taken them to “a friend\u2019s pig farm”. He also boasted of links to Triads and Turkish gangsters who could have whisked him from the country “with a click of their fingers” if he had been guilty.<\/p>\n But following a month-long trial in Truro Crown Court, Haigh was convicted of the two murders. Judge Mr Justice Mackay told Haigh that he was an arrogant young man who had got out of his depth in the criminal underworld.<\/p>\n “These were bad men but they were bad men with the right not to be killed because trading in drugs does not carry the death penalty,” he said. “You were attracted to the gangster way of life, you convinced yourself you were a big boy playing in the big league.<\/p>\n “But I found your erratic behaviour made you unsuited to this elusive trade. This was no more than a result of your chosen lifestyle. You knew the rules of the criminal club you joined and you broke them.”<\/p>\n The judge added: “You shot these men dead, acting alone and not in concert with Stone. You left him to cover up the carnage you left behind you. Why you did this is, to my mind, perfectly clear. How you went about it is less clear. But you aimed and fired the shots that killed these two men.”<\/p>\n Thomas Haigh<\/p>\n Haigh was sentenced to a minimum of 35 years in prison for the two murders. Stone, who admitted “tidying up” after the shooting, which included dumping the shotgun and blotting up pools of blood using cement powder, was sentenced to five years.<\/p>\n Speaking on the courtroom steps after Haigh and Stone were convicted, Mr Flournoy’s family said: “We have been left totally devastated by Brett’s death. He was a loving son, fianc\u00e9, father and brother. His death has left a huge gap in the lives of all our family<\/a>.<\/p>\n “The worst thing is that as a result of the actions of Ross Stone and Thomas Haigh we never had a chance to say goodbye and we still expect him to walk through the door.”<\/p>\n Detective Chief Inspector Keith Perkins, who led the probe into the murders, said: “Despite what we have heard about organised crime during this trial they have left behind young children, partners, parents and brothers and sisters. The origins of this case are in organised crime. This was not a case of gangs running amok with firearms.”<\/p>\n Following his convictions, Haigh alleged new evidence had emerged which he claimed pointed to Stone’s involvement in the murders. The Court of Appeal heard how a serving prison inmate, David Johnson, had told how Stone had confessed to the murders in his cell soon after he was found not guilty.<\/p>\n![\"Murder](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2855957.jpg\")
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