Rapper Ghetts jailed over fatal hit-and-run in London

Award-winning British rapper Ghetts has been jailed for 12 years after a high-speed hit-and-run crash killed a 20-year-old university student in north-east London.

The musician, whose real name is Justin Clarke-Samuel, was sentenced at the Old Bailey after admitting causing the death of Yubin Tamang by dangerous driving.

Tamang, a student from Nepal, died in hospital two days after he was struck by Clarke-Samuel’s BMW on Redbridge Lane East in Ilford on October 18, 2025.

Prosecutors told the court the rapper had been driving at more than 60mph in a 30mph zone when his car hit Tamang as he crossed the road. Clarke-Samuel did not stop after the crash.

Judge Mark Lucraft KC said CCTV footage showed a “quite appalling litany of incidents” before the collision and described the driving as “simply shocking”.

The court heard Clarke-Samuel had been drinking alcohol earlier that evening and was about one and a half times over the legal limit.

Before the fatal crash, he ran six red traffic lights, veered onto the wrong side of the road, mounted kerbs and collided with other vehicles while driving through east London, prosecutors said.

When Tamang was struck, he was thrown into the air and suffered what prosecutors described as “catastrophic injuries.”

After the crash, Clarke-Samuel drove away from the scene.

An Uber driver later called emergency services after initially believing Tamang was “a bundle of clothes in the road”, the court heard.

Police traced a damaged wing mirror casing left at the scene to Clarke-Samuel’s BMW. Officers later found the vehicle near his home in Woodford Green with heavy damage to the windscreen, bonnet and bumper.

In a letter read to the court, Clarke-Samuel said he felt “extreme regret, shame and remorse” over Tamang’s death.

“This may be the only chance that I get to apologise,” he wrote. “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 said their lives had been devastated by the loss of their only child.

“Our only child, a precious soul, has been taken from us far too soon,” they said in a statement.

The judge also disqualified Clarke-Samuel from driving for 17 years.

Prosecutors told the court the rapper had 12 previous convictions for 27 offences, including robbery, vehicle-related crimes and driving offences.