Convicted murderer Kane Hull has been given extra jail time for new offences after directing a revenge arson plot from custody using illegally held micro mobile phones.
Hull, 30, was handed a life jail term and ordered to serve at least 28 years behind bars late last year for knifing to death Ryan Kirkpatrick in Carlisle in September 2021.
Hull went on the run to Ireland with accomplice Liam Porter after that killing but the pair were brought back to the UK and convicted by a jury of Mr Kirkpatrick’s murder in October, 2022.
But just days before Hull was due to stand trial in that case, he committed new crimes while in custody on remand.
Carlisle Crown Court heard today how Hull had become increasingly possessive and angry about a former girlfriend, and her failure to contact him and explain her movements. This prompted Hull to begin threatening the woman and her family from HMP Frankland in County Durham.
Using tiny mobile phones, which he later hid up his bottom, he directed a different partner-in-crime, 25-year-old Steven Paul Kidd, to torch a family car.
Prosecutor Tim Evans said of Hull: “The start of his murder trial was in fact delayed two days when the ‘internal’ presence of the phones was detected and whilst the prison authorities waited for them to be passed.
“That happened overnight when Hull was alone in his cell, giving him the opportunity to smash them beyond repair but, more importantly, behind analysis.”
But detectives contacted a phone company and retrieved the damning content of text exchanges both involving Hull and Kidd, and those sent by Hull to his ex-partner and her relatives.
The car was torched by Kidd on a public road, in the Morton area, on the night of October 3.
Just hours before, as Hull desperately sought to contact his ex, he sent one message to Kidd which read: “tel them am lightn al ther gafs up if they dnt tel me wer she is.”
Ten minutes later, Hull contacted a relative of the woman, saying: “am nt jokn if use dnt tel me wer she at am setn ya gafs on fire on my kids lifes.”
Hull also sent one to his ex which read “im gna ruin evry 1of ur family”, before warning “watch this”. Her father was woken at 9.45pm and found his car well alight.
When arrested the following day, Kidd commented that he owed someone called Kane — plainly Kane Hull, said Mr Evans — £5,000 in drug arrears.
Kidd, of Oaklands Drive, Carlisle, later admitted conspiracy to commit arson and two motoring offences. Hull admitted the conspiracy offence — unrelated to the murder — and also two counts of possessing prohibited items on Monday as he was about to stand trial.
Both men had taken steps to dispose of evidence in the aftermath of their offending, the court heard.
Judge Nicholas Barker told Hull: “You clearly are a dangerous offender. You clearly are habituated, and were at that time, to issuing threats, acting on them and using extreme violence — as you did in the murder — and doing what you could here to intimidate and seek to control (the woman).”
The judge had earlier said: “From your confines of prison you were unable to have the control you were generally accustomed to.”
Hull was given a 30-month prison sentence, half of which will be added, consecutively, to the minimum 28-year term to which he is subject.
Kidd was jailed for 37 months.
