Former jockey Levi Williams has been sentenced to three years in prison for the manslaughter of Richard Wingrove, the 71-year-old who died in hospital 10 days after being punched outside a pub in Newmarket. The case was finished at Peterborough Crown Court, where Judge Sean Enright said only custody could be justified.

The sentence answers the question that had followed the March 2025 fight through every hearing: how a single blow ended with a death and a prison term. Williams had pleaded guilty to manslaughter after punching Wingrove outside the Waggon and Horses in Newmarket, Suffolk, and the court heard that Wingrove later died in Cambridge on March 18 after being placed in an induced coma with a skull fracture and bleeding on the brain.

Prosecutor Jane Oldfield told the court that Wingrove and his son, Jamie Wingrove, had been drinking in pubs on Newmarket's high street on March 8, 2025, before both men were separately ejected from the Waggon and Horses after disorderly and abusive behaviour toward staff. Williams was there with his friend Matthew Wilson, and CCTV shown in court appeared to capture the aftermath: the men trying to block someone from entering, a scuffle in the doorway at 3.30pm, and Williams throwing a punch at Jamie Wingrove before hitting Richard Wingrove as well.

The fatal moment came after that exchange. Oldfield said Williams suddenly punched Richard Wingrove to the head, sending him to the pavement, while the defence said he felt very threatened and thought the men had left before he and Wilson started walking back to work. The judge said Williams could have just trotted away, a stark line that underlined the court's view that he chose violence when he still had a way out.

That gap between Williams's account and the prosecution's version is what gave the sentencing its force. He was arrested drunk, shaken and saying words to the effect of “it was an accident”, and he later told police he had drunk two to three pints of beer and tested positive for cocaine. The court did not accept that those facts lessened the result: a 71-year-old man died 10 days later, and the former rider, whose last winner came at Chelmsford in February 2023, will now serve his sentence behind bars.

For Wingrove's family, the case ends not with a verdict after trial but with a custodial term and a clear judicial finding that the violence had crossed a line that could not be excused. For Williams, the next step is prison, and for the court record the matter is now settled: one punch, one death, and three years to serve.