NARRATOR: A community is woken by a terrifying attack.
Something very tragic has happened right on their doorstep.
They're going to be frightened. ls there anyone else in danger?
Everyone was being affected at that time. It was just awful.
Sorry, Rick.
I wish I could have clone a bit more for you.
The crime scene holds the secrets behind the case.
It's really important to look at different motives
around why the attack occurred.
I am at my home trying to protect my family.
I'm going to be scared.
Is it self-defence?
Or did it cross the line to become an attack?
SIREN WAILS
In East London,
police are called to the scene of a disturbance in Chadwell Heath.
For the officers, turning up is very, very full-on.
It was chaotic, a lot of noise.
It's a very close-knit community.
They're all concerned because they've heard noise
and there's blood everywhere.
Neighbours tell police and paramedics
that a man, his son,
and the family dog are seriously injured
after being attacked by masked men with machetes.
The first responders are key.
Firstly, they're going to try and preserve life.
ls there anyone else in danger?
The second part of their role would be preserving the crime scene.
Family members identify the injured men
as Paul Hayden and his eldest son, Ricky.
A deep wound in Ricky's left thigh has severed major arteries.
That night, I was staying with my mum and clad,
and about 1 :20, 1 :30 in the morning,
I gets a phone call from one of my neighbours at Gibbfield.
I woke my mum up, said to my mum that
the neighbour had said Rick had been stabbed.
I went up to Gibbfield.
The road was shut off and there was people everywhere,
but all I cared about was my son.
I see an ambulance at the end of the road,
and the door was open.
Ancl I just see my son lying there on the stretcher.
Erm, I tried to go towards him,
and the paramedics said, "We're working on him.
"You can't see him at the moment." I said, "|'m his mum."
Ancl with that,
the ambulance just basically shut the doors and pulled away.
I thought I was in a bubble in a dream.
I thought, "This isn't real."
SIREN WAILS
En route to hospital, Ricky has a heart attack.
Despite three blood transfusions, he remains critical
and is airlifted to a specialist major trauma unit.
A consultant came out to me and he said,
"The only way we think we can save his life
"is by amputating his leg."
That was a really hard decision for a mum to make,
knowing full well that that's part of his life, his future.
Ricky's injuries were the most serious,
but his clad was also very, very seriously injured.
He was also our key witness.
It was so important we spoke to him as quickly as possible.
This was a really dynamic, fast-moving event.
Fearing the worst, the homicide team are briefed on the case
and CSls are called in.
It's quite a confusing incident to start off with.
It's really important for us to try and ascertain,
at some stage, what the motive is,
because that may lead us to a weapon,
it may lead us to further scenes or further offenders.
Forensic evidence is key.
You know, what were they wearing? Do they still have the weapon?
Blood at a scene is something we're going to work with.
Was suspect blood there?
Neighbours tried really hard to save Ricky's life.
Preservation of life is of paramount importance.
From a crime scene manager's perspective,
that causes me a horrendous nightmare
because I've got so much transfer of evidence -
they may have transferred their fibres onto his clothing,
they may have taken evidence away on the soles of their shoes.
The scene is secured until daylight.
There was two really important items that were found.
One was a mobile phone,
and the second was a sheath from a knife,
from a machete knife.
These two items clearly stand out as alien to the scene.
Whose mobile phone is it?
Is it the victim's or is it one of the offenders'?
There could be a huge amount of intelligence
obtained from a mobile phone, not only just cell site data,
but also, obviously, trace evidence, fingerprints and DNA.
The exhibits are sent for forensic testing,
and police make an application to the phone company
for cell site evidence.
Officers at the scene take witness statements.
Something very tragic has happened right on their doorstep,
so we need to support that community cos they want to help.
It was a very warm evening,
and lots of people's windows were open.
Neighbours heard shouting
and saw the Haydens confronting two masked men in the street.
This was nearly two in the morning.
You know, they didn't have their shoes on,
had woken from their sleep in the safety of their home
to be confronted by people who were armed with machetes.
They immediately chase after one of the offenders,
and he's got a knife.
The Haydens run back to their house for safety,
but Ricky trips and falls to the ground.
Perry notices his brother on the floor,
and Ricky says to Perry, "I think I've been stabbed."
The offenders flee the scene,
and then his sole attention is to try and save Ricky's life
because he can see he's in a very serious condition.
The injury is a 16cm wound into his leg.
He's got defence wounds all across his arms
where he's trying to fight for his life.
That afternoon, Ricky's condition worsens.
He was critical, critical.
And then at about...
I think it was about 4:30, the doctors came out
and they said, "He's got... His brain is swelling.
"We cannot do anything more for him."
At 1 1 :41 that evening, surrounded by his family,
Ricky passes away.
Seeing him die, it shouldn't have been like that.
I should have died before him.
He had his life mapped out for him.
He didn't have a chance to make a future for himself.
It's absolutely imperative
we find out who's clone it as soon as possible.
Initial thoughts...
Have they tried to steal and been confronted by the family?
ls there a link between the family and the suspects?
ls there any reason why this has happened?
In the hours after the fatal stabbing
of 27-year-old Ricky Hayden,
the community holds a vigil at the scene.
If it wasn't for my neighbours,
everyone that helped try and stem the bleed,
I wouldn't have had that 18 hours with him.
Even though he didn't gain consciousness,
it meant so much to us.
The next few clays were awful.
Everyone was being affected at that time - neighbours, family.
It was just awful.
Ricky followed in his dad's footsteps,
working as security for celebrities.
He loved it. He made so many friends.
He did the second job,
which was a doorman for a club in Romford.
It was his second home, to be perfectly honest.
He was well-loved there.
He was just, like, a pleasure to... to be around.
He made everyone laugh. He just brightened up people's clays.
I don't think I've ever spoke to anyone
that don't speak highly of him.
With the community demanding justice,
the team are under pressure to find Ricky's killer.
Having received urgent medical care,
police can now speak to Ricky's dad.
It's really early hours of the morning,
and he sees some people come up
and pay an interest in Perry's moped,
which is parked up on the drive.
Ancl he immediately makes a call that they're going to steal that bike.
So he shouts up to Ricky, "Get downstairs.
"Someone's trying to nick Perry's bike."
Ricky wakes Perry,
and then they all get out of the address.
He describes seeing Ricky being chased
by one of the offenders.
Ricky falls to the floor, and then the offender leaps onto Ricky.
Paul tells us that he comes out of the house with a baseball bat
because he's trying to defend his family,
his property, himself.
He also lets us know he manages to hit one of the offenders
with the baseball bat.
This new information adds complexity to the investigation.
My job, as the SIO, is to get some clear headspace
and think, "What exactly has happened here?
"How's that going to play out in court?"
There's a phrase that your house is, you know, your castle,
so if someone comes to your property and is threatening you,
do you have the right to protect yourself?
As in this case, do you have the right
to take something from your own house
and go outside of your address to protect yourself?
You know, the law can be complicated
because you do have the right to defend yourself.
Are the offenders going to say, well, they were being attacked?
It's a hard one to tell
because motivations in a situation like that
is sometimes quite blurred,
if an individual feels that their property is going to be taken.
I'm at my home trying to protect my family.
I'm going to be scared.
Is it self-defence?
Or did it cross the line to become an attack?
The baseball bat is recovered from the scene
and sent for forensic testing.
I understand there was very little forensic evidence on there.
Yes, there was blood on there, on the handle area.
That turned out to be the father's blood.
At this scene, there was a huge amount of blood,
potentially from three or four different people,
plus animal blood.
We need to take samples that reflect the diversity
and the variation of stains that are in a crime scene.
jo Millington is a renowned specialist
in bloodstain pattern analysis.
If I'm called to a crime scene,
then the first thing I need is absolute space.
I need to digest
all of the information that's present.
Bloodstain science is a visual science.
It's like putting back together a jigsaw.
It's recreating the puzzle of the crime scene.
Ancl it can provide really compelling evidence.
Because we've got blood from multiple people,
that already starts to complicate matters.
Blood doesn't give you a name and address
just from looking at it,
but the pattern and the distribution of the bloodstains
might allow us to... sort of convey different activities
that took place within that scene,
different injuries that were sustained.
Ancl it might be that information that helps us
to differentiate one person's blood from another.
CSls find a blood trail leading into the Haydens' home.
How did the blood get there?
Is it the victim, another victim?
Or maybe the offenders have been injured
and they're searching for something in the house.
Maybe it's one of the offenders'.
You don't really know what's gone on,
so you have to kind of keep a really open mind
as to whose blood it might be within the house.
While the team waits for forensic leads from the lab,
police look for any other reason the family has been targeted.
Keeping an open mind is absolutely critical
at that early stage.
People are going to jump to the conclusion it is a robbery,
an attempted theft of that bike.
Or was there more to it?
Was there something linked to the Hayden family?
I needed to find out.
Unfortunately, people who are victims
may themselves be involved in knife crime.
That was not the case here.
What's always stuck with me is that Ricky was asleep
and he's woken up because his dad's asked for help.
There are things most people would do
if they heard their family member cry out in the middle of the night.
You'd go and help.
Ancl you wouldn't expect to be murdered.
Ricky and his clad were big parts of that community,
they're very well-known,
so this sent shock waves through the community.
This is a traditional East London community,
very family-focused, very close-knit,
always looking out for each other,
and this was very much the case for this awful event.
We established from speaking to the local residents
that they'd seen the suspects
kind of loitering around that road on their moped.
They seemed to look at other people's mopeds on their drives
and they were seen brandishing a machete.
CRAIG PINKNEY: These things are designed for destruction.
Even if a person doesn't intend to hurt or harm someone,
the fact that they're wielding a knife of such structure
most definitely puts someone in a scenario
where it actually can become quite fatal.
Witnesses described two other males turning up
halfway through the incident, and they were both on bikes,
and they leave the scene after the stabbing, also.
We need to find that push-bike, we need to find that moped.
Because they are going to be really forensically rich for us.
Specially trained officers begin a fingertip search
of the entire estate.
Detectives find the suspected robbery
has partially been captured on a low-quality door-bell camera.
The CCTV was critical.
You could see the suspects coming up into the estate
and then, after the... the event, leaving.
You know, that is the real buzz
of being a senior investigating officer.
You have the really grainy image of somebody
and you have to find out who that person is.
Can we catch them after the event when their guard is down?
After the event,
there's two suspect groups that go in different directions,
so that's not going to stop us.
We just increase our CCTV parameters
and put even more time and effort into tracking them.
But the community already has suspicions
about who they are.
These are people who are involved in criminality and violence,
menaces to the people of Chadwell Heath,
selling drugs within their local area,
used to carrying weapons.
POLICE RADIO: 'Right, we've got tactical contact.
'One detained. One runner.'
At the time, moped crime was massive.
It had really hit London and was peaking.
Young offenders, parts of organised crime groups,
were stealing mopeds to commit mobile phone thefts,
snatches of people's expensive jewellery,
the trafficking of drugs.
The motivations for moped robberies -
it's fast, it's exciting, there's a buzz,
and at the end of it, you're going to get some money.
You may get some status. You may get some popularity.
So there's a whole host of reasons here
of why an individual would be motivated
to engage in this type of behaviour.
So, when we looked at this case,
was this linked to one of these high-profile
organised crime groups?
Were they stealing a moped to go and commit other crimes?
12 hours before Ricky was killed,
the team tracks two of the local gang
to a parade of shops near to the crime scene.
They pull a machete out and chase this other person away.
So, this is who we're dealing with -
people who aren't frightened to carry large knives,
who think they've got the... the run of the estate,
and who are just terrorising people, whether they're young children,
older people trying to go in the shop.
So, you're only going to do that if you're involved,
from my experience, in drug dealing, in crime.
Police intelligence finds
the men used the street names Aaron and Joseph,
and were threatening rival drug dealers.
In the context of groups like street gangs,
sometimes, a name may hold a particular status.
That name may be linked to an individual or groups of people
that may have a history in particular criminalities.
These suspects were actively selling drugs
within their local area.
That was something we considered - was Ricky involved in that?
Ancl absolutely no, he was not.
But the incident at the shops
bears similarities to the attack on Ricky.
They'd used both mopeds and mountain bikes.
When you combine the fact that they are armed with machetes,
they are armed with other knives, it led me to believe that,
you know, we are dealing with local criminals, part of a gang.
As the team continues to gather intelligence
on the suspects' true identities,
the results from the blood samples taken at the scene are back.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to find
any of the suspects' blood at that scene.
jO MILLINGTON: In terms of contamination,
that's a real problem.
You know, people are moving around in that scene.
They might be tracking that blood around on their footwear
and they may be changing it so much that it's masking information.
There'll be cases where
the bloodstains are changed so dramatically
that we can't wind it back
to understand what was there originally.
SARAH THIRKELL: When the samples were looked at in the forensic lab
of the blood trail going up the stairs, into the house,
it was found to be animal blood,
and it actually turned out to be the family pet dog's blood.
At the time of the incident,
Roxy had been trying to protect her owners,
and had sadly been slashed right across her chest,
and then had obviously run inside, into refuge.
SUE HEDGES: Sing! Sing! ROXY YOWLS
CHILD LAUGHS
One of our neighbours took Roxy to the vet's -
got her in her car, took her straightaway.
But when the dog came back, I couldn't find her,
and I went upstairs,
and there she was on the floor in Ricky's room,
just laying there, as if she knew Ricky weren't there.
The team double down their efforts to find the bikes
and moped used by the suspects.
jO MILLINGTON: Spatter and other bloodstains
were being produced during the attack.
As soon as that bike is removed,
it takes away information from the crime scene.
Suspecting the bikes and moped have been hidden or dumped locally,
the team appeal to the close-knit community
for any sightings.
A member of the public phoned up
to say she'd found two mountain bikes
dumped at the back of her address near to the scene.
Time to pause and treat that as a new crime scene,
consult with a crime scene manager,
be really hopeful that it's our bike.
This may or may not be linked to the offence,
but you've always got to treat it as if it is the offender's
until proven otherwise.
There is potential to get forensic evidence,
but also there's potential to have a lot of contamination on that bike.
Anyone can walk past and touch a bike.
Swabs are sent for analysis.
On the brake of that bike, there was some DNA,
and the DNA came back as Ricky's.
Finding the victim's blood on a bike is fantastic evidence,
but how has that blood got on there?
From a forensic perspective, it's not possible for us to timeline
when that type of evidence has been put on.
I'd imagine the police would've found that quite frustrating,
and desperate to find further evidence
to be able to nail the offenders.
The team test the machete sheath and mobile phone found at the scene.
The machete sheath found at the scene
didn't provide any further links.
Digital analysis finds the phone is unregistered.
Scientists look for hidden traces of the user.
A couple of areas on the phone - in the ports on the outside,
but more importantly,
battery and SIM card within the phone -
reveal the full DNA profile of a male.
The DNA database came up with a hit...
...a guy called Tommy Roome who had over 25 previous convictions.
Tommy Roome is living in the...
the local area at that time.
He is somebody who would be used to dealing with the police
and be aware of police tactics, be very forensically aware.
By the age of 20, if you, you know, have 25 convictions,
that is... concerning, very concerning.
A mobile phone recovered from the scene
of the fatal stabbing of Ricky Hayden
has returned a DNA profile belonging to a prolific offender...
..20-year-old Tommy Roome.
CRAIG PINKNEY: Roome's previous convictions tells me
that there was some level of adverse childhood experiences.
Part of my work, I look at childhood trauma
and the things that can happen later on in life.
Ancl I think it's important that we look at these particular cases
and look at the historical background
of these individuals
because it helps us to paint a very interesting picture.
Despite his criminal past,
police need further evidence linking him to the crime scene.
When forensics provides a name of an offender,
the police have then got a very difficult situation.
Do they have enough evidence
to potentially charge somebody with an offence?
ls DNA evidence in the mobile phone enough to charge the offender
with the murder of Ricky? No.
There needs to be more than just a phone dropped at the scene.
Someone else could have dropped the phone.
Someone else could have planted that phone at the scene.
Having a DNA profile on a mobile phone
isn't necessarily going to convict someone for murder.
The team begin tracking Roome's movements
around the time of the suspected robbery
using CCTV and cell site data.
As our CCTV picture builds up,
we can see that Tommy Roome is very active on the estate.
He was wrapped around this anti-social behaviour -
suspected drug dealing, violence.
We see him in possession of a machete,
threatening other people before this event.
Police intelligence finds Roome is the man known as Aaron
seen at the shops threatening rival drug dealers.
Violence becomes a norm
when individuals grow up in an environment
where these patterned behaviours happen over and over and over again.
When people seem to be dealing with their everyday problems
in this particular manner, it becomes somewhat normal.
Detectives still need to work out if Roome attacked Ricky.
They focus on the mountain bike he's seen riding at the shops.
A CCTV expert was used.
They were able to identify two bikes,
which were very similar to the bikes that had been abandoned.
Great evidence, but you still need to find out
who was using those bikes at the time.
Have the bikes been stolen and used by somebody else,
or has it been like a pool bike
and been used by lots of different people?
So, finding CCTV evidence is good,
erm, but, again, you still need to find out
who was riding the bike at the time of the offence.
The team needs more information
about who Roome was with on the night of the stabbing.
There was an expectation to find these people.
It was becoming evident that they've been causing trouble,
erm, in the local area,
and the public really wanted us to make early arrests.
We held a community meeting to just show our support,
allow people to air their views,
and provided a number, and also Crimestoppers
so people could call in anonymously.
A member of the public comes forward.
They find a helmet in their garden
that has been dumped, thrown over a wall...
...and initial examination shows flecks of blood on the outside.
This is sent to the forensic lab as a priority.
They found blood on the visor,
and the blood was submitted to the DNA database.
And it came back as the victim Ricky's blood.
But they also found some fingerprints.
Aluminium powder is good for smooth, shiny surfaces.
So, this aluminium powder sticks to the...
the sweat of the fingerprints, basically.
And you can see the ridge detail appearing with the powder.
So, to lift the fingerprints, this is almost like just Sellotape.
It lifts the powder off the surface.
So, basically, you're lifting the fingerprint off the surface.
Then any fingerprints would have been loaded
to the national fingerprint database
to see if it matched anybody on there.
The database returns two matches -
Tommy Roome, and another drug dealer using the street name Ghost.
Police quickly locate and arrest Ghost.
He insists he knows nothing about the stabbing.
But Roome is not at home.
Tommy would have known he was now being looked at by the police.
We were going to his home address,
to his kind of known associates, asking where he was.
The pressure is on the investigation team
to bring him into custody as soon as possible.
It became a manhunt.
Police intelligence is used to track Roome down.
The team continues to build the case.
The CCTV mapping is essential.
Have a look around where that bike helmet was found.
Do we see someone coming into that part of the scene?
Ancl do we see them physically throw that hat away?
CCTV shows the four travel together up Arneways Avenue.
Two men swap vehicles, and the group split.
The pair on the moped travel past where the helmet was dumped
before disappearing.
The men on the mountain bikes head towards the A12,
where the bikes were abandoned, but they stop on the way.
We find a location we believe our suspects have been staying in,
and this is a real key line of inquiry.
A warrant is secured to search the house.
During the house search, there will be a list of items
pertinent to the investigation.
It might be an item of clothing
or a pair of shoes that they've seen on CCTV.
It might be the knife itself.
We find significant items of clothing and footwear
inside that address,
and this gets sent off for a priority forensic examination.
Is this offenders' clothing from the murder of Ricky?
Or is it completely unrelated?
On the estate, specialist officers hone the search for evidence,
looking along the offenders' escape routes.
Having an indication as to what the weapon may well be -
a large machete - this then will direct
the search teams to search for this kind of weapon.
A fingertip search can take a huge amount of time,
but it's very detailed,
and if the evidence is there, they will find it.
We are looking everywhere - in gutters, in drains.
Five clays into that search
and we find a significant item underneath a bin.
Finding a weapon is key to an investigation
because it really is a big piece of the jigsaw.
It can give you the kind of user's DNA,
who held that weapon, who had access to that weapon.
Did it make contact with the victim? Is it victim's blood?
Is it consistent with the injuries to the victim?
Also, you're taking that weapon off the streets.
The 25cm machete and its sheath are sent for forensic testing.
With only Ghost in custody, the hunt for Roome continues.
We were really putting the pressure on him,
and this did result in
him handing himself in to a police station.
CRAIG PINKNEY: If I decide to turn myself in,
then maybe the authorities may be thinking that I'm not guilty,
but that doesn't remove me from the fact that,
prior to handing myself in,
that I haven't tampered with or made sure that
any evidence that may link me to a particular crime has been removed.
Tommy Roome is arrested on suspicion of murder.
When somebody is arrested into custody,
that starts what we call the custody clock.
Erm, ordinarily, that's 24 hours.
So, the investigation team
are really stepping up the investigation.
All the time, you're feeling the pressure.
Can we place Tommy at the crime scene?
ls there key evidence that suggests that he was there?
During questioning,
both Roome and Ghost refuse to comment.
Teams search their homes.
The problem with prolific offenders
is they understand the police systems,
they understand forensic evidence,
or partially understand forensic evidence,
so they will quite often discard items of clothing,
and maybe even give it to an associate
or someone else in the gang to get rid of.
Scientists examine the bloodstained clothing
recovered from the address the suspects visited
after the stabbing.
The shoes had some bloodstaining on the soles of the shoes -
Ricky's blood and also his father's blood.
The problem with having DNA on the sole
rather than the shoe uppers might cause issues at court
because the offender could say,
"Well, yeah, but I just walked past the scene
"and that's how I got blood on the underside of my shoes."
These jogging bottoms had some blood on the back pocket,
and they were able to identify who this blood came from.
The blood came back to Ricky,
but also, there was some DNA from Tommy Roome on there.
So, clearly, they are his jogging bottoms
with the victim's blood on.
The team needs the recovered machete
to conclusively link Roome to the crime scene.
The pathologist is able to confirm that
that weapon is indeed the weapon
that may well have caused the injuries to our victim.
Bloodstaining came back to Ricky's blood
and also his father's.
Further trace evidence is found on the machete's sheath.
And again, this came back as Tommy's DNA.
It's quite a thrill when you find a weapon.
You know, our sole purpose is to bring people to justice,
so finding potential evidence
that will be able to lock somebody up
for someone's murder is great.
So, Tommy's got to answer questions for that.
You know, he's going to be backed into a corner.
This gives real strength to the investigation team.
Now able to prove Roome was at the crime scene,
and was armed, he's charged with murder.
Forensics from the helmet point to Roome's associate Ghost
as the second knife man,
but the team need more to charge him.
It's not possible for us to timeline
when that type of evidence has been put on.
We have to prove beyond reasonable doubt
that an offender is guilty,
and CPS have to, you know, effectively be happy
that we have enough evidence to take an offender to court
to have a reasonable chance of success of conviction.
The team requests Ghost's cell site data.
A month later, Ricky's family lay him to rest.
SUE HEDGES: The love that everybody showed, you know, for us,
it was just amazing, absolutely amazing.
The sight was just overpowering.
The police had to stop the roads
cos there was such a big community arriving.
There was people, like, at the sides of the roads, you know,
bowing their heads and... The old-fashioned way
that my clad said they used to do years ago.
It was... It was bittersweet, sad,
but we did him proud, we think.
The following month, the results of the cell site enquiries are in.
The mobile phone data was extracted and it was able to identify that
the two suspects were in regular contact
around the time of the murder.
Intelligence suggests they were on the estate,
looking for the brothers they were seen threatening with a machete
at the shops just hours before Ricky was killed.
just basically drug dealers
trying to find another set of drug dealers.
The boys they came to look for didn't come out,
so they went round the estate,
spotted my younger boy's moped on the drive,
and thought they'd steal it.
That's basically what caused all this,
the heartbreak and everything.
Ghost is also charged with murder.
One of the men on the mountain bikes
at the crime scene is charged with perverting the course of justice
for hiding evidence.
Forensic evidence is really strong.
I'm thinking about, "What does this look like to a jury?"
In a court of law, it's really important
to be able to prove that they intended to do this,
because it could be a manslaughter charge.
Or, actually, they may not even be found guilty
of murder or manslaughter - it was just an accident.
The forensic evidence can put the offenders at the scene.
What it can't tell us is
what's going on in their minds at the time.
Six months after charging two men with the murder of Ricky Hayden,
the trial begins.
Going into that courtroom,
sitting in the position where the parents sit,
right next to the actual clock,
was awful because, there,
there's two boys that were being put on trial,
and I couldn't even look at 'em.
So, yes, it was very traumatic.
The defendants deny stabbing Ricky
or trying to steal the Haydens' moped,
but faced with the forensic evidence and witness testimonies,
they admit being at the crime scene.
Tommy Roome uses self-defence
as his main reason for what happened.
The defence focuses on the fact
that Ricky's dad armed himself with a baseball bat.
It complicates the investigation
because, when it gets played out in court,
it can be seen as another weapon,
it can be seen that Paul was the aggressor.
The prosecution counter that
the defendants came armed with a machete.
Paul was being attacked by a bladed weapon.
He had defence wounds all across his arms,
was literally fighting for his own life.
Erm, and whilst this is going on,
he can hear his son Ricky calling out,
saying he's been stabbed.
CRAIG PINKNEY: In my research,
there's normally three reasons of why people carry knives.
There's the first category -
young people carrying knives because it's fashionable.
Everyone seems to carry knives.
Which links to the second point about fear, perceived fear -
they don't want to become a victim.
Ancl then there's the third category -
young people that carry knives
because they have the intention to hurt and harm people.
You're finding the truth, aren't you?
So, it's warts and all.
The jury had a really big decision to make.
After 31 days, the jury considers their verdict.
Roome and Ghost are found not guilty of Ricky's murder
or the attempted murder of his father, Paul.
The difficulties with the jury,
they were trying to find out the extent of Roome's intent
in terms of utilising that weapon. And I would assume
that they all came to the conclusion that,
even though he was at the incident,
whilst he was present in that time,
that maybe - just maybe - when he pulled out that weapon
or was yielding that weapon,
he didn't mean to take that person's life.
Personally, that was... I remember being gutted at the time.
We all were.
Ricky is never going to come back home
to see his mum and his clad and his brother,
but we did get somebody convicted for killing him.
Due to the irrefutable forensic evidence against Roome,
he's found guilty of killing Ricky and convicted of manslaughter.
His mountain bike-riding associate
is found guilty of perverting the course of justice
for destroying evidence.
He's sentenced to 30 months in a juvenile detention centre.
judge Philip Katz QC sentenced Roome to 14 years in prison
and five years on licence once he is released...
...saying he had been within a hair's breadth
of the crime of murder.
Closure on the case is bittersweet because, erm,
we've managed to support the family and the community
in getting the right, er, person convicted of killing Ricky.
SUE HEDGES: Thank you to everyone for all your kind support.
Me and my family's hearts are broken.
They will never mend.
But one thing I am sure of- my son's memory will live forever,
and I will make sure of that.
CRAIG PINKNEY: Looking at it from the lens of the victim's family,
it's always going to be disheartening.
To hear that manslaughter was the decision
sometimes feels like an injustice for those families.
SUE HEDGES: He'll be 34 when he comes out.
He's got the rest of his life to walk the streets.
My son never got that chance. That's what upsets me.
Sorry, Rick.
I wish I could have clone a bit more for you.
I love you, boy.
After the trial, Sue gave up working in her local infant school.
I really did like my job.
It was lovely. It was really, really lovely.
But, obviously, the clay that I lost Ricky,
I could not go back to doing my job, so I was, in a way, left in limbo.
Ancl I couldn't see any way out for me.
Ancl then I did a lot of campaigning. Erm, my mum was with me as well.
We did campaigning marches. We did awareness.
We was at Downing Street, City Hall.
That was, like, the side that kept us going -
fighting for Ricky's name.
Sue is now on a mission
to save the lives of knife crime victims.
A bleed kit is... It's like a first-aid kit,
but it's a specialised - catastrophic bleed.
We are setting out training in these boroughs at the moment.
I'm working with the councils.
But it's a tiny little kit and, to me,
to save a life, it's... it's so worthwhile.
One of the kits has already saved a young man's life.
I'm doing something, you know?
My son's gone, but he didn't die in vain.
His name is going to be out there,
and it will be out there until the clay I go, you know?
So, that, to me, is... is my new lease of life.
It always used to be a lot of banter,
a lot of laughing, a lot of silliness.
He was a people's man.
I am proud, a proud mum...
...but I'm just angry
that he never got to live the life he chose.