Pub landlord jailed for killing customer after hitting him with ironing board

Rostam Notarki also admitted hiding CCTV footage of the incident from the police

Pub landlord Rostam Notarki pictured outside the Old Bailey (Jonathan Brady/PA Wire)

A gastropub landlord has been jailed for seven years for hitting a customer with an ironing board and pushing him in front of an oncoming van.

Rostam Notarki chased 53-year-old Charles Hickox out of the Cardinal Wolsey near Hampton Court Palace following an altercation.

Hickox was described as a wealthy but “scruffy and unkempt” drifter who had entered the pub to buy three bottles of expensive wine. He was known to travel with blue plastic bags containing tennis racquets and two ornamental mice which he would take out in pubs and talk to.

The court heard that, despite ordering three bottles of wine priced at £65, Notarki had switched the wine for a cheaper vintage before ejecting him from the bar of the smart gastropub and hotel.

When the victim realised that the Visa card he used to pay for the bottles was missing he went back with a tennis racquet in each hand to demand it back, having told his companions he might "have to crack some ribs to get it".

The victim pushed the landlord using one of the racquets and then ran off, with Notarki in hot pursuit carrying an ironing board and his son Kian holding an iron bar.

As he was being chased outside the pub, a witness described Mr Hickox as looking "terrified" and "running for his life", the court heard. He was “jabbed” with the ironing board and died when he fell into the path of an oncoming van.

Notarki admitted hiding CCTV footage of the incident from a police search of the pub.

His son Kian, 20, and barman Mehrad Mohmadi, 45, of Radcliffe Mews, Hampton, Middlesex, who helped conceal the hard drive and monitor, were also convicted of perverting the course of justice.

Speaking as he sentenced the men, Judge Mark Lucraft QC said: "The facts of the case are very unusual, probably unique."

He jailed Notarki for seven years for the killing and nine months for perverting the course of justice to run concurrently. Kian Notarki and Mohmadi were each jailed for 12 months.

With additional reporting by PA