A former public schoolgirl who hurled homophobic abuse at a gay civil servant before kicking and stamping on him during a deadly attack was facing jail today.
Ruby Thomas, 18, was found
guilty of the manslaughter of 62-year-old Ian Baynham, who died 18 days after the drink-fuelled assault in London's Trafalgar Square.
Police later found his blood smeared on her handbag and the ballet pumps she was wearing as she kicked him.
The court heard she 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 told the Old Bailey that the blonde 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.
A third defendant, 18-year-old Rachael Burke, of Upper Norwood, south east London, was found guilty of affray at an earlier trial.
Thomas, a former pupil at £12,000-a-year Sydenham High School for Girls, had a previous record for violence.
She was just 15 when she assaulted a bus driver in Northumberland Avenue in December 2007, a short walk from where the attack on Mr Baynham took place.
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Thomas looked distraught as the verdicts were returned and put her head in her hands. Both defendants will be sentenced in the new year.
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When Mr Baynham and Mr Brown appeared, Thomas began making homophobic comments.
Mr Baynham was heard to say to her 'No, I don't want to sleep with you' and a comment that began 'I may be gay but...'.
A scuffle broke out and Alexander, who had been with Thomas's group, ran up and punched the victim to the ground.
Mr Brown said his friend 'fell like a corpse', hitting his head on the pavement with a 'crunching noise'.
Alexander, a sports science student at the University of East London, later explained that he felt he 'had to act' because 'a grown man shouldn't hit a girl'.
His punch knocked Mr Baynham out, leaving him lying on the pavement making a snoring noise and
with blood pouring from his ear, nose and mouth.
Jamie Devlin, another teenager who was there, saw Thomas stamp on his stomach and kick him in the head while calling him a 'dickhead' and saying 'f you'.
A further witness, Jill Shukla, and her husband tried to shield their teenage daughter and her friends from the scenes of violence as they walked by after a night out at the Palladium to celebrate her 16th birthday.
She said: 'I saw the girl stamping on him repeatedly with force, probably four or five times. She was smiling.'
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But Christopher Sallon QC, defending Thomas, said she admitted kicking and stamping Mr Baynham.
Mr Sallon claimed that while her behaviour was 'horrific and shocking and reprehensible', it could not be proved that she was responsible for his death.
Jurors in a trial earlier this year were unable to reach verdicts on Thomas and Alexander although they did convict Burke, a design student, of affray.
The two killers were found guilty of manslaughter today by unanimous verdicts at a re-trial.
Thomas had carried out a previous drunken attack when she was 15, on an Asian bus driver, near the spot where she attacked Mr Baynham.
She punched, kicked and spat at Aasim Shah as he took his break in Northumberland Avenue in December 2007, later pleading guilty to common assault as well as possession of a bladed article, and was given a nine-month referral order.
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