A judge said former jockey Levi Williams “could have just trotted away” as he jailed him for the manslaughter of a pensioner he punched outside a pub, causing him to fall and strike his head on the ground.
Williams, 27, was sentenced to three years in prison for the manslaughter of Richard Wingrove, 71, who died in hospital 10 days after Williams punched him in Newmarket, Suffolk.
Prosecutor Jane Oldfield told Peterborough Crown Court that Mr Wingrove, who walked with a stick, and his son Jamie Wingrove, had been drinking in pubs in the town’s high street on March 8, 2025.
She said that both Wingrove men were “separately ejected from the Waggon and Horses after disorderly and abusive behaviour towards staff”.
The barrister said Williams was at the pub with his friend Matthew Wilson, and both jockeys had been present while the Wingroves “were involved with altercations with the pub staff”.
She said that at 3.30pm a “physical altercation took place between Jamie Wingrove and the publican in the doorway” of the Waggon and Horses.
CCTV footage showed in court appeared to show the jockeys trying to block the man from coming in.
When the two jockeys later left the pub, Ms Oldfield said there was a “verbal exchange between the defendant and the Wingroves”.
“The defendant can be seen throwing a punch at Jamie Wingrove then at Richard Wingrove,” she said.
She said that the older man fell to the floor but got back up and “rejoined the fray”.
The altercation continued, and Ms Oldfield said that Williams “suddenly punched Richard Wingrove to the head causing him to fall and hit his head on the pavement”.
Mr Wingrove died in hospital in Cambridge on March 18, having initially been placed in an induced coma after a skull fracture and bleeding on the brain.
Ms Oldfield said that when he was arrested, Williams, now of Trefonen, Oswestry, Shropshire, “was described as drunk, shaken and saying words to the effect of ‘it was an accident'”.
She added: “He tested positive for cocaine.”
Williams – who rode his last winner at Chelmsford in February 2023 – said in interview that he had had two to three pints of beer and that two men who were not known to him had been arguing with pub staff who refused to serve them.
“Once they believed the men had left, the defendant and his friend left to go back to work,” the prosecutor said, summarising his interview, but that they encountered the men outside the pub.
She said the defendant said “punches were being thrown both ways and he felt very threatened”.
The judge, Sean Enright, told Williams he was “not the aggressor at the start”.
“The initial blows you struck could be classed as self-defence,” he said.
“The last punch can’t be so justified.
“You and your friend could have just trotted away.”
Williams was originally charged with murder following his arrest in March 2025. Appearing at Peterborough Crown Court on April 10, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter which prosecutors accepted.
Jailing him for three years at the same court on Thursday, Judge Enright said: “This is a case where only custody can be justified.
“You were in drink, you had taken cocaine, you hit a vulnerable man to the head.”
There was sobbing in the public gallery as Williams was led to the cells.
Mr Wingrove’s daughter, Louisa Reah, had said in her victim impact statement that her father had “poor eyesight and relied on a walking stick”.
She said that at the time of the incident her younger daughter was pregnant, and the child “would have been my father’s first great grandchild”.
William England, mitigating, said Williams had “never been involved in any violence of any sort in the past”.
Detective Constable Hannah Barrett, speaking outside court after the hearing, said Richard Wingrove had been “celebrating his birthday” when he lost his life in a “completely avoidable act of violence”.
She said his death had caused “devastation for so many people”.
