A YORK man is today serving two life sentences for murder after he admitted carrying out a prison “execution”.

James George Brabbs, 33, was jailed for life in 2013 at Teesside Crown Court for killing van driver Mohammed Saleem Khan in Easingwold.

Now he has been sentenced with two other inmates for murdering fellow prisoner Taras Nykolyn, 49, with home-made weapons in the exercise yard at HMP Woodhill, Milton Keynes on June 5, 2018.

Jailing the trio for life at the Old Bailey, Mrs Justice Whipple said the “ferocity and speed of violence was shocking”.

“This was a planned execution by the defendants in cold blood,” she said.

Brabbs, formerly of Carnot Street, off Leeman Road, York, and now of HMP Belmarsh, pleaded guilty to murdering Nykolyn on the third day of his trial with ringleader Stephen Boorman, 34.

Brabbs was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 10 years. Combined with the minimum term of his previous murder, he will have to serve 39 years and eight months before he can apply for parole.

Boorman, who denied murder but was convicted by the jury, was jailed for life with a minimum of 35 years.

He told the judge: “On behalf of my friend I would like to say thank you for not giving him a whole life term - 10 years for murder.”

Jibreel Raheem, 27, admitted murder and was jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years and nine months

Amjad Malik QC, opening the prosecution, had told jurors how the men had been allowed into the exercise yard together on the afternoon of June 5, 2018.

Boorman launched the attack by punching Mr Nykolyn in the face, knocking him to the ground unconscious.

The men then used home-made “shanks” to slash his body, and repeatedly kicked and stamped on him before tying a ligature round his neck and trying to behead him.

Mr Malik had said the men carefully planned the attack and armed themselves with the blades and a torn bedsheet.

They had smuggled one of the weapons out in a rolled-up jumper, which was not searched by prison guards, and the other was stashed between two pairs of underwear.

The attack, in front of the prison guards, was captured on graphic CCTV and handheld cameras.

The defendants were arrested after handing over the weapons, made from a miswak stick and a pencil with razor blades attached to the ends.

Miswak are herbal chewing sticks used for cleaning your teeth.

In 2013, Teesside Crown Court heard how Mr Khan gave Brabbs a lift to the New Inn pub in Long Street, Easingwold, on September 22, 2012.

Brabbs had tried to rob him at knifepoint, wrongly believing he had money and cannabis.

When Mr Khan resisted, Brabbs stabbed him in the throat and fled, leaving him to bleed to death.