The boyband singer Lee Ryan has avoided a jail term for drunkenly assaulting a black flight attendant and abusing her by saying he wanted her “chocolate children”.
Ryan, who found fame with the pop group Blue, received a 12-month suspended prison sentence for racially aggravated common assault by beating and behaving in an abusive way towards the cabin crew member.
As he sentenced the singer, Judge Nicholas Wood said the incident “seemed like a lifetime for everybody on that plane”. He ordered Ryan to pay £2,500 in compensation to the British Airways flight attendant Leah Gordon, £750 to her colleague Jade Smith and £510 in costs. Wood agreed to suspend the jail term for the next 18 months.
The judge said that while some of the language used by Ryan was commonplace in the “entertainment industry”, it had “no place on an aircraft, being directed at cabin crew”.
At previous court hearings, Gordon described her distress at the derogatory treatment to which she was subjected, telling the court she felt Ryan was describing her as “beautiful for a black person”.
Ryan was “slurring his words and staggering around” after drinking a whole bottle of port before a BA flight from Glasgow to London City airport on 31 July last year, Isleworth crown court heard. He had earlier pleaded guilty to being drunk on an aircraft, for which he was given a four-month suspended jail term to run concurrently.
After being refused more alcohol and told to return to his seat on the plane, Ryan made comments about Gordon’s looks before grabbing her wrists.
Gordon said Ryan initially called her “beautiful” and put his sunglasses on her face. “He was making comments about my complexion, ‘you’re my chocolate darling, my chocolate cookie, and I’m going to have your chocolate children’. It felt like he was saying I was beautiful for a black person because of the way he was describing my colour,” she told the judge.
Gordon alleged 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. Gordon told the court: “He said to me: ‘I want your chocolate children.’ 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.”
Ryan confessed to drinking in the BA lounge after the flight was delayed, and claimed to have no memory of the incident.
The court heard he asked to be upgraded from economy to business class, but was refused because the plane was full. Smith, another member of the cabin crew, told the court: “He told me he had a problem, that he was being harassed by other passengers, that he was famous and asked did I know who he was … He was angry, saying he was a gold card holder and that he needed to be moved because of this.”
She noticed Ryan was “slurring his words and staggering around” and cut him off from ordering alcohol.
Ryan paced backwards and forwards around the dock before the sentencing hearing began on Thursday, and covered his head with a jacket as he entered the court.
Having seen psychological assessments of Ryan, and heard he has high functioning autistic spectrum disorder, the judge concluded he did not pose an ongoing risk to the public.
