TUCKER:THUG WHO MURDERED PETER WOODHAMS TO SERVE AT LEAST 25 YEARS
Central News, Press Room, Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, LONDON, EC4.
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4 May 2007
with pix of fiancee/mother (karen green)/dad (peter woodhams)
father…1
A teenage killer was jailed for a minimum of 25 years today (Fri) for shooting a young father who had the courage to stand up to a gang of hoodies.
Peter Woodhams, 22, was slashed in the neck by the teenagers terrorising his neighbourhood and they ridiculed him in the street when no one was arrested.
Mr Woodhams believed labourer Bradley Tucker, 18, had knifed him and was shot in the heart by the teenager when he got out of his car to confront him.
The satellite engineer, who was working seven days week to provide for his family, died in the arms of his fiancee Jane Bowden in front of their three-year-old son Sam.
Ms Bowden, 24, claims the family were ignored by the police after her husband was stabbed and they did not even take a statement from her.
The grieving wife was in court today with the victim’s father, Peter Woodhams snr, to see Tucker jailed for life.
The Recorder of London, judge Peter Beaumont QC ordered he should not be released until he has served a minimum of 25 years.
The judge told Tucker: ‘The sentence that I am required to pass on you for the offence for which you are convicted is detention for life.
‘That is the sentence required by law and that is the sentence I pass.
‘There are in my judgement no mitigating matters. You were not provoked in any legal or real sense to do what you did.
‘You perceived disrespect. You feared the loss of face in a challenge that you perceived from the man you killed, a challenge to the standing that you felt you had in the eyes of those around you.’
The judge said he had reduced the starting point of the minimum term from the usual 30 years to 20 years to take into account the fact Tucker turned 18, two and a half months before the murder.
Asked if he understood the sentence Tucker replied simply: ‘Yes.’
Ms Bowden was in tears as she left the court.
Tucker had left school at 13 with no qualifications and was thrown out of the family home when he was convicted of dangerous driving at the age of 16.
His father Charlie Shaw tried to find him work as a painter and decorator but Tucker spent most of his time smoking powerful skunk week with friends in Custom House, east London, and hanging around a parade of shops near Mr Woodhams’ home.
On January 21 last year Mr Woodhams was driving past the shops on Freemasons Road when a gang of hoodies pelted his car with stones.
When he stopped one of youths grabbed hold of him while a boy answering the description of mixed-race Tucker shouted: ‘Hold him, hold him. I’m going to do him.’
He pulled out a knife and slashed Mr Woodhams’s face before stabbing him in the neck, narrowly missing his jugular vein.
Ms Bowden said she called the police every day for five weeks afterwards but she was not taken seriously.
The family had to stop using the Freemasons Road shops because youngsters would laugh at them and make a cutting gesture across the neck when they saw Mr Woodhams.
He was driving home on August 21 last year and spotted Tucker hanging around near his home smoking cannabis with other youths.
Mr Woodhams chased the youths away and went home as Tucker shouted: ‘F***ing tosser, if he wants it he can have it, if he comes back round he will get it, I will have him.’
Tucker armed himself with a pistol, put his hood up and sprinted down Leslie Road towards Mr Woodhams, who had left his house to confront him.
The teenager fired as many as eight times, pausing for three or four seconds between shots.
The fatal bullet penetrated Mr Woodhams’ chest, piercing the heart and both lungs and causing massive blood loss.
Another struck him in the palm of the left hand and tore through the back of his right hand while a third bullet grazed his chin.
He collapsed outside his front door in full view of his son Sam.
Jane Bowden frantically hammered on neighbours’ doors to alert them then called the emergency services but was panicking too much to complete the emergency call.
She cradled Mr Woodhams as he lay dying from massive blood loss on a patch of grass outside his house.
Tucker ran away from the scene and he ‘went to ground’ but later gave himself up to police after a massive media campaign to find the killer.
The 18-year-old was captured on CCTV wearing a distinctive high-visibility jacket he had put on while working at a construction site in Shadwell earlier that day.
Tucker admitted pulling the trigger and pleaded guilty to manslaughter but denied murder claiming he though the gun fired blanks.
He claimed a 14-year-old friend supplied him with the gun but told him: ‘It just makes a bang.’
Tucker was found guilty of murder and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
His barrister Paul Mendele told the court: ‘It was a hot-blooded outburst of temper by a young man who was unable to control it.’
A 17-year-old said to have acted as his look out was earlier cleared of both charges.
The court heard Tucker who has four half-brothers and half-sisters has been in court four times for theft, driving offences and common assault.
Tucker, of [177] Butcher’s Road, Canning Town, east London, and the 17 year-old, also from Canning Town, denied murder.
Mr Woodhams was originally from Croydon, south London.
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