Ex-cage fighter who gunned down two underworld enforcers at distant farm discovered lifeless

Thomas Haigh was jailed for life for the double murders of David Griffiths and Brett Flournoy at a farm near St Austell in Cornwall in June 2011 – he has been found dead in prison

View 4 Images

A convicted double murderer jailed for life for shooting two gangland enforcers at a farm has died behind bars. An inquiry into the death of 40-year-old Thomas Haigh has now begun following his death at Category A Strangeways prison in Manchester.

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, which investigates all deaths in prison custody, has posted details of the case on its website. Haigh – a former cage fighter originally from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire – was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 35 years in February 2012, for the brutal murders of David Griffiths and Brett Flournoy, in June 2011 on a remote farm near St Austell in Cornwall.

The bodies of Flournoy, a 31-year-old boxer and pub landlord with two children, from Bebington on the Wirral, Merseyside, and father-of-three David Griffiths, 35, from Bracknell, Berkshire – but originally from Plymouth – were discovered after co-defendant Ross Stone admitted to disposing of their remains, reports Devon Live.

Stone was acquitted of the men’s murders, but was sentenced to five years after admitting to burning the bodies before burying them in their own van following the shooting at his home, Sunny Corner Farm, Trenance Down, St Austell.

During a four-week trial at Truro Crown Court, it was revealed that Stone and Haigh owed the victims approximately £40,000 in drug debts. The court heard that Mr Flournoy and Mr Griffiths had been putting pressure on Haigh to make another journey to fetch drugs from Brazil when he carried out the murders.

Mr Justice Mackay, the sentencing judge at the time, described Haigh as an “arrogant young man” who had found himself out of his depth in the criminal underworld.

“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.

“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.”

Haigh’s trial disclosed that the victims were underworld enforcers operating for an ‘IRA gang’ that dominated Liverpool’s illegal drugs trade.

Haigh displayed no emotion as the judge declared that the pressure he was experiencing from Griffiths and his “role model” Flournoy was “no mitigation” for the crimes he had committed.

“You shot these men dead, acting alone and not in concert with Stone,” said Mr Justice Mackay.

“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.” Haigh, who escaped back to West Yorkshire after the murders, willingly surrendered himself to police in Huddersfield before his arrest and charge.

Stone informed the trial that Haigh had discussed murdering the two men in the days leading up to their deaths.

Mr Griffiths hailed from Plymouth originally and the court heard he operated a drugs business from a house there, primarily trafficking cocaine.

When the men failed to return home, their families reported them missing and a missing persons investigation commenced.

A fortnight after their deaths, on 1 July, police conducted an unconnected drugs raid on Sunny Corner and detained Stone for cultivating cannabis in two shipping containers he had fitted with hydroponics equipment and concealed underground to avoid detection by infra-red heat-sensing cameras.

Days later, Stone confessed during a police interview that the two men were interred on the property and revealed to officers where to excavate.

Stone told the jury he had travelled with his mother to Newquay to report the crime to police but had been too frightened of the deceased men’s accomplices and chose to make them vanish instead.

Providing testimony, he said he had returned to the farm to discover the drug dealers’ lifeless bodies on the ground. Haigh, he said, had emerged topless and dishevelled. In July 2013 Haigh tried to get his conviction overturned.

A report in the Western Morning News highlighted how after his convictions at Truro Crown Court, evidence surfaced which he alleged implicated his cleared co-defendant, Stone, in the murders.

During the hearing, serving prison inmate David Johnson – doing a 22-year stretch for attempted murder – alleged that Stone chuckled as he admitted to the killings.

But in November 2013 when delivering judgment, Lord Justice Aikens, Mr Justice Irwin and Mr Justice Cranston declared Johnson’s evidence was “not credible”.

“He is a habitual and gratuitous fabricator of stories, he is a convicted liar,” said Lord Justice Aikens.

“We have concluded that this evidence about the conversation with Ross Stone is not even arguably credible.”

The judges ruled Haigh’s appeals against conviction were “unarguable” and dismissed them, though they reduced the minimum tariff he had to serve before being eligible for parole from 35 to 32 years.

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has confirmed that an investigation is now ongoing. Haigh’s date of birth and the date of his death – 15 March – has been published on its website, along with confirmation he died while a prisoner at HMP Manchester.

The ombudsman stated an investigation was ‘in progress’, but no further details have been revealed surrounding his death. A Prison Service spokesperson confirmed: “HMP Manchester prisoner Thomas Haigh died on 15 March 2026. As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate.”