Ex-Roller Les 'knocked out' in pub fight

Published on Thursday 8 January 2009 08:50

A FATHER and son beat former Bay City Rollers singer Les Mc-Keown unconscious and racially abused his Japanese wife as they dragged her outside a pub by her hair, a court heard.

Ian Young, 59, and son Darren, 22, attacked Mr McKeown, 58, in an unprovoked pub brawl in Clapton, east London in March 2007, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard yesterday. McKeown ended up in hospital after the incident.

Prosecutor Travers Sinanan said: "To put it bluntly, this was a pub fight. Mr McKeown and his wife Keiko were involved in a physical altercation with the Youngs."

The Youngs handed themselves over to police and Ian Young told detectives: "He tried to hit me with a spanner."

The spanner was found outside the pub and the landlord handed it into the police, but Mr McKeown denied "tooling himself up" in a rage with a 10-inch spanner after being humiliated by the Youngs in front of the pub and making fun of a regular.

Ian and Darren Young, both of Monteagle Way, Clapton, deny causing grievous bodily harm with intent, a lesser alternative of actual bodily harm and racially aggravated actual bodily harm.

The trial continues.