Blue singer Lee Ryan faces sentencing after boarding a flight drunk – but a claim he assaulted a police officer has been dropped.
The boyband member, 40, successfully withdrew his guilty plea to the charge after last month claiming he received “poor advice from his solicitor”.
Appearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday dressed in a blue suit and patterned tie, Ryan was told the Crown Prosecution Service had dropped the charge of assault by biting.
He was found guilty at Ealing Magistrates’ Court in January of racially aggravated common assault by beating and behaving in an abusive way towards the cabin crew member, having earlier admitted being drunk on an aircraft.
The court heard how he boarded a British Airways flight from Glasgow to London City Airport on 31 July last year after drinking a bottle of port.
After being refused more alcohol on the plane and told to return to his seat, Ryan called attendant Leah Gordon “my chocolate cookie”, said she could have their “chocolate children” and grabbed her wrists.
Ryan will be sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court on a date to be confirmed.
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“The drunkenness is as serious as the charges he has been found guilty of,” said district judge Tan Ikram on Wednesday.
“The aircraft member formed the view that your client was drunk.”
The judge said this provided the backdrop for the offences, with all three charges “intertwined”.