Blue frontman Lee Ryan is due to be sentenced over a racially aggravated assault involving a Black British Airways cabin crew member, after failing in a High Court attempt to overturn the case against him.
Ryan, 43, the lead singer of the boyband Blue, was brought before the courts after telling flight attendant Leah Gordon that she was like a “sweet chocolate chip cookie.”
The singer was also accused of holding the cabin crew member’s wrists during the July 2022 incident and was found guilty by magistrates in 2023 of racially aggravated assault.
He separately admitted being drunk on an aircraft, after he had been refused further alcohol during the flight and instructed to return to his seat.
Ryan was originally handed a suspended sentence, but that punishment was put aside while he pursued an effort to challenge his conviction, first taking the matter to Isleworth Crown Court in 2024.
Although a judge dismissed that appeal, Ryan continued his legal fight by applying to the High Court to challenge the crown court’s refusal to “state a case” and permit an appeal before High Court judges.
He will now return for sentencing after Lord Justice Holgate and Mr Justice Johnson rejected his claim and referred the matter back to the Crown Court.
In a joint ruling issued today, the judges described Ryan as “drunk” during a flight from Glasgow to London on July 31, 2022.
‘During the flight, he spoke to a member of the aircraft’s cabin staff, Ms Gordon, who is a black woman,’ they said.
Boyband frontman Lee Ryan’s appeal to overturn his conviction of racially aggravated assault against a British Airways stewardess has been dismissed by the High Court and he is now due to be sentenced
‘He said she was pretty and like a ‘sweet chocolate chip cookie’. Ms Gordon told him to return to his seat.
‘It is common ground that he reached out his hands and physically touched her.
‘Ms Gordon said that he grabbed both her wrists, leaned in as if to kiss her, and said: “I’ll have your chocolate babies”.’
Previously, Ms Gordon told the court that Ryan initially called her ‘beautiful’ and put his sunglasses on her face.
She said: ‘He was making comments about my complexion, you’re my chocolate darling, my chocolate cookie, and I’m going to have your chocolate children.’
She went on: ‘It felt like he was saying I was beautiful for a black person because of the way he was describing my colour.’
Ms Gordon said Ryan later approached her from behind, saying: ‘Before I get off this plane, I need a kiss from you.’
After telling him to ‘stay away’, she said he grabbed both her wrists before passengers intervened.
She said: ‘He was towering over me, like he was leaning in to give me a kiss.’
Ms Gordon told the court: ‘He said to me, “I want your chocolate children.”
She added: ‘I was intimidated, I felt a bit embarrassed, like I wasn’t doing my duty properly.
‘To get comments about my colour, whether intentional or not, it was just unacceptable and so derogatory.
‘I just felt like it wasn’t fair and I shouldn’t have to put up with it. ‘I don’t go to work to be assaulted or harassed.’
Back on land, Ryan was arrested and quizzed, telling police that he had been a ‘d*ckhead’ and saying, ‘I wish I could actually send the girl a bunch of flowers…’ and ‘my best friends are black and Asian’.
In tears, the pop star previously told the court in January 2023: ‘I’m sorry. My band member is black, I’m not racist, I’ve had black girlfriends, mixed-race girlfriends.
‘It was banter, just drunk banter, I suppose; there was no malice or intention to upset anyone.’
He added: ‘I didn’t mean to cause any distress to anyone or be racist, it was just a poor choice of words, I suppose.’
He later pleaded guilty to being drunk on an aircraft and was convicted of racially aggravated assault and threatening a member of the aircraft crew.
At an appeal at Isleworth Crown Court in November 2024, he gave evidence, denying grabbing hold of the victim’s wrists.
‘He admitted touching her wrists with an open palm and said that was by way of an apology when he realised that his comments were unwelcome,’ said the judges.
‘This was different from the account that he gave in interview, where he had admitted grabbing her wrists.’
The star was seen gathering his belongings as police escorted him off the plane
The singer was ‘slurring his words and staggering around’ on the British Airways flight from Glasgow to London City Airport on July 31, 2022
The court allowed his appeal against the conviction for threatening the woman, but his challenge to the assault conviction was rejected.
Ryan’s lawyers then asked the court to ‘state a case,’ a legal requirement for an appeal against a magistrates’ conviction to the High Court.
But the crown court refused to do so, describing his bid for a further appeal as ‘frivolous.’
However, Ryan then pushed on, applying to the High Court for a judicial review of the Crown Court’s decision not to state a case.
Rejecting his bid today, Lord Justice Holgate and Mr Justice Johnson said the crown court had been right to describe his challenge as ‘frivolous.’
Ryan had complained that adverse inferences were drawn against him, because his account about whether he took the woman’s wrists in his hands had changed between police interview and court.
He said it was wrong to say his story had changed because his accounts in interview and in court had been ‘consistent’ with each other.
He also claimed adverse inferences could not be drawn because he had been interviewed while under arrest for sexual assault and public order offences – not the assault charge he faced at trial.
The judges said: ‘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 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.
‘It follows that the court was right to regard the application to state a case as frivolous. There is no error in its decision to decline to state a case.
‘The claim is dismissed. Mr Ryan will therefore now be sentenced by the crown court.’
