Teen girl jailed over homophobic killing

A FORMER public schoolgirl who kicked and stamped on a gay civil servant in a deadly homophobic attack has been jailed for seven years for manslaughter.

Ruby Thomas, 19, hurled homophobic obscene abuse at on Ian Baynham during a drink-fuelled assault in London’s Trafalgar Square in September 2009.

The 62-year-old died 18 days later in hospital. Police found his blood smeared on Thomas’s handbag and the ballet pumps she was wearing as she kicked him.

The Old Bailey heard she screamed “f****** faggots” and smiled as she “put the boot into” Mr Baynham after he was knocked to the ground by another teenager, Joel Alexander.

Thomas’s ex-boyfriend Declan Seavers told the court she was “not the type of girl” to have done it.

But jurors did not agree and convicted that the teenager, of Anerley, southeast London, of manslaughter, along with Alexander, 20, of Thornton Heath, south east London, at the end of their trial last month.

Alexander was jailed for six years while 18-year-old Rachael Burke, of Upper Norwood, south east London, was found guilty at an earlier trial of affray and given a two-year sentence.

Judge Richard Hawkins increased Thomas’s sentence from six years to seven years because of the homophobic nature of the attack.

He said: “This was a case of mindless drink-fuelled violence committed in public.”

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