Haunting final words of dad stabbed in neck by yob with broken bottle

A violent yob who threatened to ‘ju-jitsu the f**k out of’ clubbers before stabbing a celebrity boxing coach to death during a night has been jailed for life.

Ross Hamilton had been ‘spoiling for a fight’ and armed himself with a broken bottle before he plunged it into the neck of Reece Newcombe, 31.

The Old Bailey heard Mr Newcombe, a friend of ex-footballer and TV pundit Ian Wright, held his neck and said ‘I’m dead – he’s done me’ before collapsing in a pool of blood.

Hamilton, 34, from Isleworth, west London, was found guilty of murder and jailed for life with a minimum term of 19 years today.

Judge Anthony Leonard KC said that in a ‘brief moment’ he had ‘caused a family to lose a treasured member and his partner and children to lose his loving support’.

The court heard Mr Newcombe’s partner Alicia Smith, who was in the early stages of pregnancy, had rushed to hospital.

Judge Leonard said: ‘Not only has she had to deal with her own grief but she has had to do that through her pregnancy and the birth of their second daughter who will never know her father.’

The judge said Hamilton had a ‘pattern of violent offending’ with three previous convictions for assaulting girlfriends and a taxi driver.

The fatal attack took place on Richmond Bridge in south-west London in the early hours of November 26, 2022.

Prosecutor Louis Mably KC had said the fight was fuelled by ‘intoxicated aggression’ and Hamilton’s decision to arm himself ‘changed everything’.

Earlier, both Hamilton and Mr Newcombe had been watching England play the USA in a World Cup game being screened in a fanzone in Richmond Park.

Mr Newcombe went on to Viva nightclub in Richmond where he became intoxicated and had a ‘good time’, jurors were told.

Mr Mably said Hamilton, described as a bald man, had also gone on to the club where he began acting in an ‘aggressive and unpredictable manner’.

The prosecutor said: ‘He seemed to be goading people, doing karate kicks on the dance floor and putting his arm around people and behaving aggressively towards them.’

He continued to act aggressively after the club closed and people spilled outside.

Mr Mably said: ‘He began confronting people, and goading them to go and fight him down an alleyway.

‘He said, in his words, “I will ju-jitsu the f*** out of you”. In short, the bald man was spoiling for a fight.’

Shortly before 4am, Mr Newcombe made the ‘tragic decision’ to engage with Hamilton, who had already armed himself with a piece of broken glass.

After he was stabbed in the neck, Mr Newcombe’s friends rushed to help him.

Hamilton left the scene but later handed himself in to police, jurors were told.

Jurors were told that Hamilton had a violent streak which first led to a conviction in 2014 for punching a taxi driver to the side of the head in a row over a fare.

In 2018, he received a caution for hitting a girlfriend in the face, causing her to fall to the ground.

Two years later he was convicted in Spain of hitting another partner in the shoulder with a bottle, kicking her in the stomach and pushing her to the ground.

Unemployed Hamilton had denied murdering Mr Newcombe, claiming he had acted in self-defence.

The court was told Hamilton had a ‘difficult and unsettled childhood’ and had expressed remorse in a letter to the judge before he was sentenced.

Hamilton was also handed four months in prison after being found guilty of assault by beating another man. That sentence will run concurrently with the life term.

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