{"id":7324,"date":"2026-07-16T05:27:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T00:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=7324"},"modified":"2026-07-16T05:27:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T00:27:55","slug":"blue-singer-lee-ryan-to-be-sentenced-for-racially-aggravated-assault-on-air-steward-after-losing-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=7324","title":{"rendered":"Blue singer Lee Ryan to be sentenced for racially aggravated assault on air steward after losing appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/blue\">Blue<\/a> singer Lee Ryan is set to be sentenced for a racially aggravated assault on an air steward, after losing an appeal to clear his name.<\/p>\n<p>The boyband member appeared in front of a court, accused of telling a member of the British Airways cabin crew that she was like a \u201csweet chocolate chip cookie\u201d. The incident took place in July 2022, with him admitting that he was drunk on the flight.<\/p>\n<p>The following year saw him convicted of racially aggravated assault. At first, Ryan was given a 12-month suspended sentence in 2023, however, this was later revoked as the singer made a bid to overturn his conviction.<\/p>\n<p>The appeal to clear his name was rejected by the judge, and Ryan later took the case to the High Court \u2013 objecting to the crown court\u2019s refusal to allow an appeal to High Court judges. The move was called \u201cfrivolous\u201d and rejected by Lord Justice Holgate and Mr Justice Johnson, and the case was sent back to the crown court.<\/p>\n<p>The flight in 2022 was on July 31 and saw the singer travel from Glasgow to London. During the journey, the admittedly-drunk Ryan allegedly physically touched the steward after she told him to return to his seat, and also made the inappropriate \u201cchocolate chip cookie\u201d comments.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Blue singer Lee Ryan loses plane assault appeal \u27a1\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/wAR7GfBG6Y\">https:\/\/t.co\/wAR7GfBG6Y<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/458Us4eevu\">pic.twitter.com\/458Us4eevu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 BBC London (@BBCLondonNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BBCLondonNews\/status\/2077068494596665459?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 14, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The steward alleges that \u201che grabbed both her wrists [and] leaned in as if to kiss her\u201d, but at an appeal at Isleworth Crown Court in 2024, Ryan denied the claims of grabbing her wrists (via <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/home-news\/lee-ryan-blue-court-air-steward-b3014638.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Independent<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>He instead argued that he was \u201ctouching her wrists with an open palm and said that was by way of an apology\u201d after realising the comments were inappropriate and unwanted.<\/p>\n<p>This, judges said, was \u201cdifferent from the account that he gave in the interview\u201d with police after his arrest, and they added that it was \u201ccommon ground that he reached out his hands and physically touched her\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Ryan initially said he did grab the steward\u2019s wrists, but later denied the claims and alleged that he had been \u201cmisled\u201d by the police (via <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c3dydpgenj0o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC News<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>The singer\u2019s lawyers have argued that the Crown Court judge who declined to refer the case had drawn an inaccurate inference from his police interview, however two judges argued against this claim \u2013 saying that it was their duty to weigh the picture painted by the steward compared to that from Ryan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was entitled to rely on the inconsistency between Mr Ryan\u2019s account in the interview, which coincided with [the steward\u2019s] allegation that he had grabbed her wrists, and the account he gave in evidence,\u201d they shared (as per <em>BBC News<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe essential reasoning of the court was that it believed [the plaintiff], 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ryan is now set to be sentenced by the crown court.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script>\n  !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n  {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n  n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n  if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n  n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n  t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n  s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n  'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n  fbq('consent', 'revoke');\n  fbq('init', '370979561341328');\n  fbq('track', 'PageView');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blue singer Lee Ryan is set to be sentenced for a racially aggravated assault on an air steward, after losing an appeal to clear his name. The boyband member appeared in front of a court, accused of telling a member of the British Airways cabin crew that she was like a \u201csweet chocolate chip cookie\u201d&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/lee-ryan@2000x1270.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-gossip"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}