A NOTORIOUS and remorseless killer who is currently serving a minimum of 30 years in jail for knifing a teenager to death was yesterday jailed for another year for trying to escape lawful custody.
Appearing in the dock of court 11 at Belfast Crown Court, the same dock he stood in to be convicted of murdering 15-year-old Thomas Devlin, 26-year-old Gary Taylor confirmed his name and then pleaded guilty to trying to escape lawful custody and two counts of assaulting the two prison escort group officers on January 3 last year.
No facts were opened officially to the court, and no reports were ordered given Taylor’s most recent conviction, but it is understood the charge relates to him trying to escape after being taken to hospital, lashing out at the officers in the process.
Jailing Taylor, originally from Mount Vernon in north Belfast but whose address was given as c/o Maghaberry Prison, Belfast, Recorder Judge David McFarland ordered that he serve the 12-month sentence consecutively to his life term
Although defence lawyer Mark Farrell submitted that that was an incorrect approach to the case, Judge McFarland told him: “You can appeal me if you want. He has to be punished for this so on the expiry of the term he is to serve another year.”
Fifteen-year-old Thomas was knifed to death near his north Belfast home while out buying sweets and drinks with friends on a warm summer’s evening in August 2005.
Having stalked their victims, Taylor and 29-year-old Nigel Brown launched their murderous attack on the Somerton Road, not far from Thomas’s house.
On Thursday at Belfast High Court, Brown’s tariff of 22 years was reduced to 20 years but Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan upheld Taylor’s sentence, one of the longest ever handed down by a Northern Irish court.
The Lord Chief Justice pointed out that Taylor had gone out armed with a knife intent on carrying out a random and motiveless killing.
He said: “Murders on such a basis naturally strike fear in the minds of those within the local community because such conduct is the mark of the serial killer.”
n It emerged last night that a review of Taylor’s 12-month sentence will take place next week.