Woman who kicked gay man to death is jailed for seven years

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

Ruby Thomas, 19, hurled obscene abuse at 62-year-old Ian Baynham during the drink-fuelled assault in London’s Trafalgar Square in September 2009.

The Old Bailey hears she was said to have been “off her face”, acting in a “lairy, mouthy” way, and flirting with random men.

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Thomas, a former pupil at £12,000-a-year Sydenham High School for Girls, screamed “f****** faggots” at the victim and his friend Philip Brown. When Mr Baynham confronted her, there was a scuffle during which she hit him with her handbag and he grabbed it. Another teenager, Joel Alexander, a student, then ran up and knocked him to the ground, causing a severe brain injury as his head struck the pavement.

Police found his blood smeared on Thomas’s handbag and the ballet pumps she was wearing as she kicked him while he was lying on the ground. He died 18 days later in hospital.

Thomas’s ex-boyfriend Declan Seavers told the court the teenager, of Anerley, south east London, was “not the type of girl” to have done it but jurors did not agree and convicted her 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 given a two-year sentence after being found guilty of affray at an earlier trial.

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Judge Richard Hawkins increased Thomas’s sentence from six years to seven years because of the homophobic nature of the attack, saying “This was a case of mindless drink-fuelled violence committed in public.”

Thomas, who had a previous record for violence against a bus driver, turned and looked up towards supporters in the public gallery as she was led away.

Earlier, Christopher Sallon QC, for Thomas, had claimed that there was little “reliable evidence” to suggest she was “hostile towards Mr Baynham based on his sexual orientation”.

Her crime was not a “gay-bashing attack” but simply involved a “passing remark made by a drunken girl”, Mr Sallon added.

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He described Thomas’s difficult background, with a father who had been violent towards her mother and had been convicted of manslaughter.

Mr Sallon said she had turned to drink while still a young girl to cope with her problems but had now engaged in a 12-step recovery programme.

Kerim Fuad QC, for Alexander, said his offence had been “wholly out of character”