Background
Lee Ryan was convicted in magistrates’ court of racially aggravated assault by beating and threatening a member of aircraft crew. The offences arose from his conduct toward a black female flight attendant, Ms. Gordon, on a British Airways flight on 31 July 2022. While intoxicated, Ryan made sexually inappropriate comments—calling Ms. Gordon a “sweet chocolate chip cookie” and saying “I’ll have your chocolate babies”—and physically grabbed her wrists.
Ryan was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and racially aggravated public order offences. At a police interview, with solicitor present, he admitted grabbing Ms. Gordon’s wrists but claimed he was being tactile and trying to have fun. At trial, however, Ryan gave an inconsistent account: he denied grabbing her wrists entirely, claiming he only touched her with an open palm as an apology. He also denied the comments were racially motivated, saying he was merely being playful and flirtatious.
The Crown Court dismissed his conviction appeal. Ryan then applied to have the Crown Court state a case for the High Court’s opinion, arguing the court wrongly drew an adverse inference under section 34 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The Crown Court refused, finding the application frivolous. Ryan sought judicial review of that refusal.
The Court’s Holding
The High Court dismissed the claim. The judges held that while permission had been granted to argue a new ground—that section 34 could not apply because Ryan was interviewed for different offences than those for which he was ultimately charged—this new ground could not properly be used to challenge the Crown Court’s refusal to state a case, as it formed no part of the original application to that court.
More significantly, the court held that section 34 of the 1994 Act was not engaged by the Crown Court’s decision at all. The court had relied on the inconsistency between Ryan’s admission in interview (that he grabbed Ms. Gordon’s wrists) and his denial at trial as part of assessing credibility and reliability—a common law power entirely separate from section 34 statutory inferences. The court stated: “It was open to the Crown Court to draw the inference from the claimant’s changed account that he had made up the version he gave at his trial. Accordingly, [counsel] is wrong to suggest that the drawing of that inference indicates that the Crown Court was applying section 34 of the 1994 Act. It had no need to do so.”
Even assuming arguendo that section 34 had been invoked, the court concluded it was immaterial to the outcome. The Crown Court’s core reasoning—that it believed Ms. Gordon, who was sober and consistent, over Ryan, who was drunk and gave contradictory accounts—was sufficient to dismiss the appeal. The court therefore declared the point of law Ryan sought to raise was “academic” and incapable of affecting the conviction’s validity.
Key Takeaways
- Courts may rely on inconsistencies between a defendant’s police interview account and trial evidence as part of ordinary credibility assessment, without invoking section 34 statutory inferences.
- A defendant cannot challenge a Crown Court’s refusal to state a case on grounds that formed no part of the original application to that court.
- Procedural defects in how an inference question arises will not be examined if the underlying conviction is sound on independent reasoning.
- Changing one’s account fundamentally between police interview and trial—particularly admitting conduct then denying it—severely undermines credibility even absent statutory inference mechanisms.
Why It Matters
This judgment clarifies a critical distinction in criminal procedure: courts have long possessed the common law power to assess a defendant’s credibility by reference to inconsistencies between what he said in police interview and what he says in evidence. This power exists wholly independently of section 34 of the 1994 Act, which addresses the narrower issue of adverse inferences from silence or failure to mention a fact. The court’s decision reaffirms that a defendant cannot escape credibility damage simply by arguing that the statutory requirements for a section 34 inference were not satisfied.
For defendants and practitioners, the judgment underscores a practical reality: telling police one version of events and the court another—particularly by admitting conduct in interview then denying it at trial—will be used against a defendant as evidence of fabrication and lack of credibility. This is not a technical statutory inference but a straightforward assessment that a person who changes their story has made it up. The judgment also demonstrates the High Court’s reluctance to entertain academic points on judicial review where the underlying conviction rests on sound reasoning unaffected by the disputed legal point.