Ricky Hayden killer Tommy Roome jailed for 14 years

Tommy Roome was jailed for 14 years for the manslaughter of former celebrity bodyguard Ricky Hayden

A machete-wielding thug had been jailed for 14 years for killing a celebrity minder.

Victim Ricky Hayden, 27, was wearing just a pair of boxer shorts when he rushed outside his home after spotting two youths on a moped he suspected of eyeing up his brother’s scooter.

Mr Hayden’s family and friends clapped and shouted ‘yes’ as the killer, Tommy Roome, received his jail sentence with a further five years to be served on extended licence.

The cheers and jubilation at the sentence continued outside court as Ms Hedges told reporters Roome could ‘rot in hell’.

His father, Paul Hayden, said: ‘We have got to get these knives off the streets. My son died for nothing.’

The victim’s family had earlier vented their anger outside court by waving banners and placards and saying justice had not been done. 

The judge told Roome he showed a ‘compete absence of any compassion’ for killing a well-respected man who ‘unlike you made something of his life’.

He said his actions came ‘within a hair’s breadth of the crime of murder’. 

Ricky Hayden was killed outside his home by a machete-wielding teenager on his moped

His mother Suzanne Hedges said today the family do not feel they have got justice

Ricky Hayden was killed outside his home by a machete-wielding teenager on his moped. His mother Suzanne Hedges (right) said today the family do not feel they have got justice

Earlier outside court, Mr Hayden’s mother Suzanne Hedges said: ‘We are here today to let people know this system is rubbish.

‘They need to get rid of the jury and have people who know what DNA is, not people who fall asleep. We are hard-working people. We got no justice.’

In a victim impact statement read in court, she said the family had been ‘crushed’ by her son’s death.

She said: ‘Ricky was our boy. He was kind, caring and honest with a cheeky streak.’

Ms Hedges last spoke to him on the phone when he called her up just to say ‘I love you’.

Ms Hedges described listening to the ‘sickening’ details of the case in court and the way her son was attacked while he was ‘vulnerable, unarmed, unprepared, confused and wearing nothing but his underwear’.

Ricky's father Paul Hayden also attended the Old Bailey this morning

Ricky's sister April also attended the Old Bailey this morning

Ricky’s father Paul Hayden and his sister April also attended the Old Bailey this morning

The teaching assistant added: ‘I would have given my own life in a heartbeat just to have saved him the pain and fear he must have felt at that moment.’

Sentencing Roome, Judge Philip Katz QC said it was a ‘shocking’ killing witnessed by numerous people.

The judge said: ‘I am sure that your use of a knife was not a sudden or spontaneous reaction to a meaningful threat of violence from the Haydens.

‘I am sure when you stabbed him Ricky was unarmed wearing boxer shorts and bare footed.

‘In the circumstances you knew perfectly well that using such a weapon to stab anyone might easily cause lethal injury.’

Hayden (left) had been a security guard at the wedding of Peter Crouch and Abbey Clancy

Hayden (left) had been a security guard at the wedding of Peter Crouch and Abbey Clancy

Rising tide of knife crime in the capital

Fifteen teenagers have died in knife attacks in London already this year.

Figures released earlier this year showed a 20 per cent increase in the rate of knife attacks in the capital involving injuries to victims last year, up from 3,663 to 4,415 in 2016/17. 

Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said at the time the figures were released that teenagers were carrying knives to boost their ‘status’ and for perceived self-protection.

He said: ‘The crime picture has evolved and so must we in the way we police, recruit and operate.’

Prosecutors said Mr Hayden, his 21-year-old brother Perry and their father, 55, were confronted by Roome and Tarrell Hinds, then 19, who were armed with two large machetes.

Jurors were told the pair had gone to Gibbfield Close that day to look for two other brothers with whom Roome was involved in an ongoing dispute.

Kevin Malamba, also 20, from Southwark, south London, who admitted perverting the course of justice, was sentenced to 30 months in detention. 

Roome, now 20, of Chadwell Heath, east London, was found not guilty of murdering Mr Hayden by a jury at the Old Bailey, but convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Hinds, also 20, of Chigwell, was cleared of involvement in the killing, in Romford, east London, on September 13 2016.

 

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