Following a failed appeal over charges of racially aggravated assault, singer Lee Ryan of 2000s boy-band Blue will be required to return to court for sentencing. The incident where Ryan is alleged to have harassed an air steward occurred in 2022.
Ryan, aged 43, who is a founding member and has been the de-facto lead singer of Blue since 2000, had reportedly drunk a bottle of port before boarding the British Airways flight from Glasgow to London City Airport on 31 July 2022. The court heard his speech was slurred and he was staggering, and when he requested more alcohol aboard the plane, the air steward refused the request and asked him to sit down. He is alleged to have described the victim, a black woman, as like a “sweet chocolate chip cookie”, and physically restrained her by grabbing her wrists.
In January 2023, Ryan was found guilty of racially-aggravated common assault and behaving in an abusive way towards a member of cabin crew in a trial held at Ealing Magistrates’ Court. A further charge from the incident of assaulting a police officer by biting was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Services (CPS) in July 2023 after a plea that Ryan had followed “poor advice from his solicitor”. After receiving a 12-month suspended sentence in 2023, Ryan pursued an appeal at Isleworth Crown Court in 2024, which allowed an appeal on accusations of threatening a member of aircraft crew, but a refusal to contest the assault charges.
Dissatisfied, Ryan’s legal team challenged the Crown Court’s decision and attempted to push the case through to the High Court, but this was rejected and called “frivolous”. They then opened a new appeal at the High Court to contest this refusal, which was dismissed on Tuesday July 14 by Lord Justice Holgate and Mr Justice Johnson, citing inconsistencies between Ryan’s recounting of the incident on separate hearings. The Independent have referenced a quote from the High Court judges which reads “It was a case where the defendant had given one account at interview – an admission that he had grabbed Ms Gordon’s wrists, albeit without menace – but then gave an inconsistent account at trial – a denial that he had grabbed her wrists. His explanation for the inconsistency was rejected by the court.”
The BBC also published comments from the two justices referring to the judgment over clashing remarks from both Ryan and the victim – they read “The essential reasoning of the court was that it believed Ms Gordon, who had been sober at the time and who was a consistent and compelling witness, and they disbelieved Mr Ryan who had been drunk at the time and had been inconsistent.”
As the High Court have reinforced the decisions of the Crown Court, Lee Ryan will now await a further trial for sentencing.
