Jack Naylor is accused of losing his temper inflicting fatal injuries on Thomas Gomm, 44, during a gathering to celebrate his 22nd birthday
Tom Gomm(Image: Facebook)
A man celebrating his 22nd birthday battered to death his mother’s ex boyfriend in a ‘sustained and brutal’ assault, murder trial jurors were told.
Jack Naylor is accused of losing his temper inflicting fatal injuries on Thomas Gomm, 44, during a boozy gathering at the defendant’s mother’s house on Irvine Avenue in Boothstown in Salford at around 7.30pm on December 15 last year.
He died in hospital two days later.
After his alleged assault, Mr Naylor appeared to be ‘wild-eyed and agitated’. The defendant had been invited to the home by his mother Lyndsey Davidson to celebrate his 22nd birthday, which was the following day, prosecutor Mark Ford KC told a jury at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court on Wednesday.
Mr Gomm, from Tyldesley, was ‘vulnerable’ as he was an alcoholic with chronic liver problems and suffered from restricted mobility while his alleged attacker was ‘younger, fitter, faster, stronger’, the prosecutor told the jury.
His former girlfriend Ms Davidson, with whom he was still friends, had invited her son, the defendant, to her home on Irvine Avenue to decorate her Christmas tree and also to celebrate her son’s birthday which fell the following day, on December 16, the jurors were told.
Mr Gomm joined the celebration by taxi from The Railway pub, where he was a regular, where he had watched the Manchester derby on the TV. The defendant, his mother and Mr Gomm had seemed ‘relaxed’ as they drank vodka together at the party, the jurors were told.
“That was about to change,” said Mr Ford.
The defendant’s mother Lyndsey Davidson said that although ‘everybody appeared to be getting on initially’ she noticed some ‘difficulties’ between Mr Gomm and Mr Naylor, the KC told the jury.
She described her son ‘play fighting’ with her and ‘jabbing at her face’ which prompted Mr Gomm to say words to the effect of ‘don’t do that to your mum’, the prosecutor went on.
The defendant was said to have stopped his mother leaving through the front door but she managed to exit via the back door to go to a friend’s house at nearby Leigh Road, the jurors were told.
“At this point according to Lyndsey there had been no violence between Tom and the defendant,” said Mr Ford.
At 7.54pm, the defendant knocked on the friend’s door and his mother hid from her son in one of the bedrooms, closed the door and ‘braced’ it with her foot, the jurors were told.
The KC told the jurors they may wonder why Ms Davidson ‘felt that was necessary’, adding that her son’s ‘presentation’ at the front door had ‘immediately caused anxiety’.
The defendant appeared to be ‘wild-eyed and agitated’ at the door and he had blood on his hands and was demanding money for beer and cigarettes, said the KC. Police were called and the defendant was arrested.
When police officers attended the home on Irvine Avenue, they encountered a ‘disgusting scene’ with Mr Gomm laying unresponsive in a pool of blood against a sofa in the front room, the court was told.
Fast response paramedics and the air ambulance were summoned and Mr Gomm was taken to hospital where he went into cardiac arrest. Despite undergoing emergency surgery, he died in hospital on the evening of December 17, 2024.
A post mortem examination concluded he died of ‘traumatic head injures’. A Home Office pathologist found he had suffered ‘extensive and severe bruising’ to his head and neck, the jurors were told.
Mr Gomm had also suffered fractures to his jaw and ‘blunt force’ injuries to his shoulder, according to the pathologist. The injuries were consistent with having been kicked, stamped or kicked while other injuries may have been ‘defensive’, the jurors were told.
Prosecutor Mr Ford said ‘we may never determine with certainty what prompted the attack’ but he suggested some physical attacks were ‘stupid and callous’ and result from a ‘loss of control and an inability to govern anger’.
The jurors were told that after his arrest the defendant tried to bite one cop and then kicked another and, after he had been handcuffed and escorted into a police van, he told one of them ‘f**k you curly haired half-cast c**t’.
The prosecutor said the defendant’s behaviour on arrest was ‘demonstrative of a young man who cannot control his temper and a person who is incapable of governing his emotions’.
Tom Gomm(Image: Facebook)
The defendant refused to answer questions when he was interviewed by police although he said in a prepared statement Mr Gomm’s injuries were sustained during a previous incident, a ‘fight’ in Tyldesley.
“It seems the defendant was claiming he had not assaulted Mr Gomm and that someone else must have been responsible for the injuries which caused his death…. If so we say that the defendant was lying.”
The KC said Mr Gomm had been involved in a previous incident but this had left him with only a cut to his head. The prosecutor dismissed the defendant’s claim as a ‘ruse’.
The prosecutor suggested to the jurors that they may conclude that alcohol ‘played a large part’ in events on the night of the alleged attack, pointing out that Mr Gomm was an ‘alcoholic’ with associated health problems who looked older than his 44 years, while his mother was also a ‘heavy drinker’.
His health problems meant Mr Gomm was ‘vulnerable’ while his alleged attacker was ‘younger, fitter, faster and stronger’.
Mr Naylor, of Browning Avenue in Atherton, wore a suit and tie in the dock. He denies murder, an alternative charge of manslaughter, two charges of assaulting an emergency worker, namely two police officers, and racially aggravated harassment of one of the police officers.
Proceeding.