Ross Hamilton jailed after stabbing Ian Wright’s boxing coach friend to death

A man who murdered a friend of ex-footballer and TV pundit Ian Wright has been jailed for life.

Ross Hamilton, 34, had been “spoiling for a fight” and armed himself with a broken bottle before he plunged it into the neck of celebrity boxing coach Reece Newcombe, 31, a court was told.

As Mr Newcombe held his neck, he said: “I’m dead – he’s done me”, before he collapsed.

Hamilton, from Isleworth, west London, had “relished the opportunity for a fight” and threatened to “ju-jitsu the f*** out of people” in the street earlier, the Old Bailey heard.

He was jailed for life with a minimum term of 19 years on Friday.

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

“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 Anthony Leonard KC said.

‘Karate kicks on dance floor’

In court, prosecutor Louis Mably KC said that before the stabbing in the early hours of 26 November 2022, Hamilton seemed to be goading people in Richmond’s Viva nightclub, in southwest London, “doing karate kicks on the dance floor and putting his arm around people and behaving aggressively towards them”.

Hamilton, described as a bald man, 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.”

The court also heard Mr Newcombe had gone to the same club where he became intoxicated and had a “good time”.

The pair had earlier been watching England play the USA in a World Cup game being screened in a fanzone in Richmond Park, although had not interacted.

‘Tragic decision’

Hamilton’s behaviour led to him assaulting another man outside the club, police said. He stayed there for another 30 minutes, aggressively taunting security staff and others waiting for taxis outside the venue.

Shortly before 4am, Mr Newcombe intervened and made the “tragic decision” to engage with Hamilton, who had already armed himself with a piece of broken glass, jurors heard.

Mr Malby said the altercation on Richmond Bridge was fuelled by “intoxicated aggression” and Hamilton’s decision to arm himself “changed everything”.

After the stabbing, Hamilton left the scene in a vehicle but handed himself in to police two days later, the court was told.

The Metropolitan Police said he tried to “square up to a number of people in the run-up to the murder” and “choosing to hide a broken piece of glass” was an “indication of the level of pre-meditation in his actions”.

“Reece was simply out having a good night with friends,” Detective Inspector Kevin Martin of the Met’s specialist crime command said. “He had recently become a father and had so much to look forward to.

“Hamilton was a stranger to him, yet his senseless violence took Reece’s life.”

Previous convictions

It also heard Hamilton had a violent streak which first led to a conviction in 2014 for punching a taxi driver on the side of the head in an argument over a fare.

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

And 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.

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Hamilton, who is unemployed, had denied murdering Mr Newcombe, claiming he acted in self defence.

The court was told Hamilton had a “difficult and unsettled childhood” and had shown 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.