Grime artist Ghetts was sentenced to 12 years in prison at London’s Old Bailey on Tuesday after pleading guilty to killing a 20-year-old Nepali university student in a hit-and-run in north-east London, after driving at more than double the speed limit while one and a half times over the legal drink-drive limit and then fleeing the scene without calling emergency services.
Judge Mark Lucraft KC, presiding at the Old Bailey, told Clarke-Samuel that had he not entered guilty pleas in December, the sentence would have stood at 16 years. The 12-year term reflected a reduction for those pleas and was accompanied by a 17-year driving disqualification and an order to pay £1,600 in prosecution costs. Clarke-Samuel will be eligible for release on licence after serving two-thirds of his sentence.
The collision occurred on the evening of October 18, 2025, as Yubin Tamang, a Nepali national studying business management at the University of Roehampton, was crossing Redbridge Lane East in Ilford. Clarke-Samuel’s BMW M5 struck him at 74mph in a 30mph zone after the rapper had run six red lights, mounted a kerb, and collided with both a Mercedes and a motorcyclist in the preceding miles. Prosecutor Philip McGhee told the court: “Mr Tamang was catapulted into the air before crashing down on the roadway. He sustained catastrophic injuries.” Clarke-Samuel did not stop. Tamang died in hospital two days later from his injuries.
After driving the eight miles to his home in Woodford, Clarke-Samuel consumed six or seven shots of Ciroc vodka and ate a cannabis cookie before going to sleep. When police arrived and arrested him in the early hours of October 19, they smelled alcohol on his breath. His BMW, parked near the house, had a smashed windscreen, damage to the bonnet and front bumper, and a missing wing mirror cover. It was the wing mirror that led investigators to Clarke-Samuel’s door: officers found the casing at the scene and traced its serial number directly to his vehicle. CCTV footage capturing his journey across central London was played in court, with Judge Lucraft describing it as depicting a “quite appalling litany of incidents” that were “simply shocking.”
An Uber driver who came across Tamang in the road after the collision, initially believing he had spotted a bundle of clothes, called 999 on realising the young man was seriously injured. No call had been made by Clarke-Samuel, despite the severity of what his vehicle had done.
Clarke-Samuel’s defence counsel, Benjamin Aina KC, offered a partial contextual explanation for the erratic driving, telling the court that his client had been robbed at gunpoint at a recording studio in 2017 and had driven the way he did believing he was being followed on the night of the crash. McGhee addressed that claim directly: a careful review of all available CCTV footage found no evidence that Clarke-Samuel was being followed or pursued at any stage of his journey.
Read Also: Britons Trapped In Middle East Amid Air Travel Disruptions
The court also heard that Clarke-Samuel had 12 previous convictions for 27 offences, including robbery, aggravated vehicle taking, and multiple prior driving offences, a history that provided no mitigation and placed the current conduct in a wider pattern of disregard for road law.
Aina read extracts from a letter Clarke-Samuel had written to the Tamang family. “I write from a place of extreme regret, shame and remorse,” the letter said.
“I am fully aware that there are no number of apologies that I can say which will soothe the pain that the family and friends of Mr Tamang must feel. This may be the only chance that I get to apologise. It was truly an unintentional act on my part and I am so sincerely sorry for the suffering and emotional distress that I have caused.”
Tamang’s family, in a statement read to the court, described their loss in terms that conveyed absolute finality.
“We speak today with hearts broken beyond repair. Our only child, a precious soul, has been taken from us far too soon. Justin Clarke-Samuel has stolen our son’s future and ours with it. We can never forgive him for what he has done.” His mother, Sharmila Tamang, wept as she told the court through a translator that her son had come to the United Kingdom specifically because he believed a British degree carried global recognition.
“He had dreams, ambition, plans for his future,” said his roommate Sushant Khadka in a separate statement. The loss, Khadka said, had permanently altered the lives of everyone around Tamang.
Read Also: British Couple Sentenced To Ten Years In Iran
The Crown Prosecution Service’s Shani Taggart said Clarke-Samuel had known he was unfit to drive before he got behind the wheel. “Justin Clarke-Samuel knew he was in no fit state to drive and there was clear evidence of his excessive speed and disregard for road users as he drove incredibly dangerously across our city,” she said. “Our thoughts remain with Yubin Tamang’s family today as they grieve the loss of their only child.”
Away from music, Clarke-Samuel had established a parallel career in television, playing the antagonist Krazy, a gang leader, in Netflix’s superhero drama Supacell, about five Black south Londoners who develop unexpected powers.
The show accumulated hundreds of millions of viewing hours following its 2024 launch, and a second series had been in production at the time of the October crash. As a musician, Clarke-Samuel received two Mercury Prize nominations, in 2021 for his album Conflict of Interest and in 2024 for On Purpose, With Purpose, and won Best Male Act at the 2021 MOBO Awards and the MOBO Pioneer Award in 2024 for his contribution to British music.
Clarke-Samuel was taken into custody in court. No appeal against the sentence had been announced as of Tuesday afternoon.