Blue singer Lee Ryan loses High Court challenge over racially aggravated assault against black flight attendant

Blue star Lee Ryan has lost a High Court challenge over his conviction for a racially aggravated assault and behaving in an abusive way towards a cabin crew member.

The boy band frontman, 43, was ‘slurring his words and staggering around’ after drinking a whole bottle of port before a British Airways flight from Glasgow to London City Airport in July 2022.

After being refused more alcohol on the plane and told to return to his seat, Ryan made comments about flight attendant Leah Gordon’s looks, calling her a ‘chocolate cookie’ before grabbing her wrists.

Ryan was handed a 12-month suspended prison sentence at Isleworth Crown Court in September 2023.

The singer brought a bid to appeal against his convictions at the Crown Court, which was partially dismissed.

However, a Crown Court judge later refused to send the case to the High Court, finding the application was frivolous.

After this, Ryan brought a separate legal challenge to the High Court over this decision, but in a ruling on Tuesday two judges dismissed his bid.

Lord Justice Holgate and Mr Justice Johnson said Ryan had been allowed to have his appeal against his convictions heard in November 2023, with his sentence ‘rescinded’ at this time.

The judge and two magistrates said there had been an inconsistency in Ryan’s evidence about whether he had grabbed or only touched Ms Gordon’s wrists, with the singer saying the police had misled him.

Lawyers for Ryan said the Crown Court judge who refused to send the case to the High Court wrongly drew an adverse inference from Ryan’s police interview.

Dismissing the legal challenge, however, Lord Justice Holgate and Mr Justice Johnson said: ‘The central task for the Crown Court was to assess the reliability and credibility of the competing accounts given by Ms Gordon and Mr Ryan.

‘In doing so, it was entitled to rely on the inconsistency between Mr Ryan’s account in interview, which coincided with Ms Gordon’s allegation that he had grabbed her wrists, and the account he gave in evidence.

‘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.

‘That was sufficient for the court to dismiss the appeal.’

The judges concluded there was ‘no error’ in the Crown Court judge’s decision not to send the case to the High Court, adding Ryan will now return to court for sentencing.