Bouncer Ricky Hayden’s killer jailed for 14 years for machete attack

Ricky Hayden with two of his nephews. Picture: April Hayden (Image: April Hayden)

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

Ricky, 27, was wearing just a pair of boxer shorts when he rushed outside his home, in Gibbfield Close, after spotting two youths he thought were eyeing up his brother’s scooter in September last year.

The Kosho bouncer, his 21-year-old brother Perry and their father Paul, 55, were confronted by Roome and Tarrell Hinds, then 19, who were armed with two large machetes.

In the melee Ricky received a deep stab wound to the left thigh, which damaged the major arteries and vein in his leg.

Mother Suzanne Hedges, sister April Hayden and friend Sian Jones join family and friends of Ricky Hayden protested outside the Old Bailey as his killer, Tommy Roome, was being sentenced. Picture: PA (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)

Paul, was also seriously injured, and suffered a severed achilles tendon.

Both men were taken to hospital, where Ricky died the following day.

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

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

Family and friends of Ricky Hayden protest outside the Old Bailey on Friday, September 8. Picture: PA (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)

Hinds, of Manford Cross, Hainault, was cleared of involvement in the killing.

The court heard Roome had 25 previous convictions, including for possession of an offensive weapon.

Michael Turner QC, mitigating, suggested the jury had convicted him of manslaughter on the basis that he “inflicted the fatal injury but without intent and without realising he was causing really serious harm”.

He said: “We accept of course Tommy Roome’s own evidence that he regularly carried a machete but he has never used that weapon and on the jury’s verdict, there must have been an element of self defence.”

The court had heard that Ricky, 27, had worked in security at ITV and acted as a bodyguard for high-profile celebrities including footballer Peter Crouch and model Abbey Clancy.

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

He 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: “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.

“I shall of course be loyal to the verdicts of the jury.”

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

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

Dad Paul said: “We have got to get these knives off the streets. My son died for nothing.”