TWO gangland enforcers linked to an IRA drugs gang were unlawfully killed when they were gunned down by a former Huddersfield cage-fighter, a coroner ruled.
David Griffiths and Brett Flournoy were shot on a remote Cornish farm because they were demanding drugs mule Thomas Haigh, 26, go to Brazil for a second time to bring back cocaine.
Haigh, of Denby Dale, was jailed for 35 years at Truro Crown Court in February last year after a jury found him guilty of the killings.
Ross Stone, 28, was jailed for five years after he admitted burning the men’s bodies at his home, Sunny Corner Farm, in Trenance Downs near St Austell.
The bodies of father-of-three Griffiths, 35, from Bracknell, and Flournoy, 31, a father-of-two boxer from the Wirral, were unearthed after Stone confessed to having disposed of them.
Both Stone and Haigh owed the men around £40,000 in drug debts, a trial at Truro Crown Court heard.
The trial last year heard Griffiths and Flournoy were gangland enforcers working for an IRA gang that “ran” Liverpool’s illegal drug trade.
Yesterday, Cornwall Coroner Emma Carlyon, at Truro Coroner’s Court, ruled that both Griffiths and Flournoy were killed unlawfully.
Speaking after the court case last year, Flournoy’s sister-in-law Jane said: “We have been left totally devastated by Brett’s death. He was a loving son, fiance, father and brother.
“His death has left a huge gap in the lives of all our family.
“The worst thing is that as a result of the actions of Ross Stone and Thomas Haigh, we never had a chance to say goodbye and we still expect him to walk though the door.”
The jury took less than three hours to find Haigh guilty of two counts of murder.
