![\"men\"](\"https:\/\/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/assets\/men\/images\/premium-byline-men.svg\"\/)
<\/p>\nEXCLUSIVE: An investigation into former cage fighter Thomas Haigh’s death has been launched<\/p>\n
17:38, 02 Apr 2026Updated 10:37, 04 Apr 2026<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2_Haigh.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Thomas Haigh(Image: Submit)<\/p>\n
A convicted double murderer has died while serving a life sentence at Strangeways prison in Manchester. An investigation into the death of Thomas Haigh has now been launched.<\/p>\n
Haigh was 40 and died while a prisoner at HMP Manchester – also known as Strangeways – last month, the prisons watchdog has confirmed. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, which investigates all prison custody deaths, has now published details on its website.<\/p>\n
Haigh – a former cage fighter originally from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire – was jailed for life, with a minimum sentence of 35 years, in February, 2012, for the brutal murders of two gangland enforcers, David Griffiths and Brett Flournoy, in June, 2011.<\/p>\n
Get MEN Premium now for just \u00a31 HERE<\/a> \u2013 or get involved in our WhatsApp group by clicking HERE<\/a>. And don’t miss out on our brilliant selection of newsletters HERE.<\/a><\/p>\n Mr Flournoy, a former Merseyside boxer, was 31 and from Bebington, Wirral. Mr Griffiths was 35 and from Bracknell, Berkshire.<\/p>\n Both were shot dead by Haigh with a shotgun at a remote farm near St Austell in Cornwall then buried.<\/p>\n During a four week-long trial at Truro Crown Court, it was said that Haigh, who was 26 when he was sentenced, owed them tens of thousands of pounds in drug debts.<\/p>\n The court heard Mr Flournoy and Mr Griffiths had been bullying Haigh into making another trip to pick up drugs in Brazil when he killed them.<\/p>\n HMP Manchester(Image: Jason Roberts \/Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n The sentencing judge at the time said Haigh was ‘attracted to the gangster way of life’ who ‘convinced yourself you were a big boy playing in the big league’. He said: “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.<\/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 Haigh’s trial heard that the victims were gangland enforcers working for an ‘IRA gang’ which ran Liverpool’s illegal drugs trade.<\/p>\n An accomplice who admitted burning the bodies was given a five-year sentence after he was cleared of murder and manslaughter. He had admitted a charge of obstructing a coroner by illegally disposing of the bodies on his land – the farm.<\/p>\n Haigh, who fled back to West Yorkshire after the killings, voluntarily handed himself in to police in Huddersfield before he was arrested and charged.<\/p>\n He tried to get his conviction overturned, but Court of Appeal judges ruled his appeals were ‘unarguable’ and rejected them. That was in 2013. The judges, however, did cut the minimum sentence Haigh must serve before he could be considered for parole from 35 years to 32 years.<\/p>\n The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman confirmed an investigation was underway.<\/p>\n Haigh’s date of birth and the date of his death – March 15 – has been published on its website, together with confirmation he died while a prisoner at HMP Manchester. The ombudsman said an investigation was ‘in progress’, but no further details have been revealed surrounding his death.<\/p>\n A Prison Service spokesperson said: “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 No further details have been revealed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: An investigation into former cage fighter Thomas Haigh’s death has been launched 17:38, 02 Apr 2026Updated 10:37,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[924,59,57,58,50,8934,62322,56,54,55,112864],"class_list":{"0":"post-512363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-greatbritain","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-premium","14":"tag-strangeways","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom","18":"tag-unmissable"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_JRP_MEN_100924_strangeways_004JPG.jpg\")
<\/p>\n