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Richard Higgs

Age: 20

Sex: male

Date: 6 Jan 1993

Place: Sheldon Court, Thorncroft Street, South Lambeth, London

Richard Higgs was shot at a flat in South Lambeth on New Year’s Day 1993.

He was taken to hospital where he was described as being a human vegetable due to his injuries and died five days later.

A 22-year-old Jamaican man was tried for his murder but acquitted.

Richard Higgs had gone to a flat in Sheldon Court, Thorncroft Street, to carry out some business. It was thought that when he had got there that a man had been waiting for him at the top of some stairs and had shot Richard Higgs. It was thought that as Richard Higgs approached the stairs that he had seen the gunman and had then attempted to turn and run away but was shot in the head as he tried to do so.

Before Richard Higgs was shot, a man in a yellow click suit (tracksuit), was seen waiting on the stairs and after he was shot the man in the yellow tracksuit was seen to run away past Richard Higgs's body.

A former girlfriend of the man that was tried for Richard Higgs's murder said that she had been at a friend’s flat in Sheldon Court on New Year’s Day and had seen the man there in a similar yellow tracksuit and that she had also seen him with a pistol in his waistband.

However, at the trial it was heard that the former girlfriend of the man tried had since been convicted for drug dealing and sentenced to nine months imprisonment and that she had made a deal to give evidence against the man tried for Richard Higgs's murder in exchange for not being deported to Jamaica at the end of her prison sentence. The defence also said that the woman had lied about the man that was on trial out of spite as they had earlier had a row.

The man tried for Richard Higgs's murder had flown to Kingston, Jamaica on 5 January 1993 but had later returned to Britain on 14 May 1993 voluntarily.

At the trial he said that he had been at a flat in Bridge View, Hammersmith at the time of the murder and said that he had only left once the whole day and that that was only to call his girlfriend in Jamaica. He said that he had been given use of the flat whilst he was in the United Kingdom and that he had been alone there all day. He also denied having a yellow tracksuit or a gun, saying, ''I've never had a suit like that, or a gun'.

The court heard that the man tried had been friends with Richard Higgs.

At the trial it was heard that there was no known motive for Richard Higgs's murder, but it was thought that Richard Higgs had been involved in drug dealing.

The jury deliberated for ten minutes before returning a not guilty verdict on the man.


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