Steven Gerrard’s daughter reacts as her boyfriend’s mobster dad is jailed for gun plot

Steven Gerrard’s daughter expressed her delight after her boyfriend’s mobster dad avoided a lengthy prison term for a failed weapons plot.

Mobster Liam Byrne pleaded guilty to firearm charges in the Old Bailey and was sentenced to five years behind bars last week.

His son, Lee, who has no involvement in crime, has been dating Lilly-Ella Gerrard since October 2022 and after the verdict, he wrote “get in there” online before adding: “I love you da. See you soon.”

Showing her support, Lilly-Ella, daughter of Liverpool legend Gerrard, wrote to her 205,000 Instagram followers: “So happy for my Lee, Love you so, so much always.”

Inside their romance

Lilly-Ella is a social media influencer and she often shares glimpses of her glamorous lifestyle in the Middle East where her father is manager of Al-Ettifaq in Saudi Arabia.

She started dating Lee Byrne when she was 18 and he was 23 and the pair have been on holiday together in Ibiza.

Lee has previously described his girlfriend as “the best person he’s ever met” and in January, Lilly-Ella shared a picture of the pair online with the caption: “Best friend. Happy new year.”

He has also hit it off with her father who last year wrote on Instagram: “Happy birthday mate, have a boss day.”

Mobster dad

While Gerrard, his daughter and her boyfriend have no involvement in crime,the same cannot be said for Liam Byrne.

The 43-year-old is a well-known Irish criminal who was named as the leader of the ‘Byrne Organised Crime Group’ and was described in the High Court as being a “trusted lieutenant of Daniel Kinahan and the Kinahan Organised Crime Group”.

The Kinahan cartel was founded by Christy ‘Dapper Don’ Kinahan (father to Daniel Kinahan) who reportedly supplied Byrne with drugs in his earlier years so he and others could sell cannabis and ecstasy on the streets of Dublin.

In February 2016, Byrne’s brother, David Byrne, was shot dead in one of the most notorious gangland murders in Irish history.

This happened inside the Regency Hotel and was the most defining moment in the bloody Hutch-Kinahan mob feud that resulted in 18 murders.

Kinahan cartel crime boss Byrne, who moved to the UK and is also a convicted armed robber, was arrested in June last year by Spanish police after a UK extradition warrant was issued following a National Crime Agency investigation.

Prison sentence

Byrne, alongside his notorious brother-in-law Thomas ‘Bomber’ Kavanagh, recently pleaded guilty to firearm charges after originally proclaiming their innocence.

They did so in the Old Bailey on September 18 after a botched plot to get a lighter sentence. Kavanagh is serving a 21-year sentence for being the brains behind a £30million drug smuggling operation. But he masterminded a plot behind bars, with the help of Byrne and a man called Shaun Kent, to amass firearms.

They then pretended to act as informants by tipping off the National Crime Agency about where the firearms were after they entered Northern Ireland from Holland. The haul included three handguns, four machine guns, a rifle and three pistols.

The plot was eventually foiled after encrypted chats were hacked by cops before the trio eventually pleaded guilty to firearm charges. They also pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to possess a prohibited weapon and two counts of conspiracy to possess ammunition for a firearm without a certificate.

Byrne was sentenced to five years in jail, while Kavanagh was sentenced to six years and Kent meanwhile was also handed six years.

National Crime Agency (NCA) Branch Commander Ty Surgeon said: “At the instruction of their leader Thomas Kavanagh, Shaun Kent and Liam Byrne orchestrated a cynical and dangerous plot to plant a cache of weapons so Kavanagh could direct the NCA to them and reduce his time in prison.

“The NCA’s mission is to protect the public from serious and organised crime, and as this case shows, we will pursue every avenue, including overseas, to ensure criminals are brought to justice.”