Liam Gallagher’s son and Ringo Starr’s grandson to stand trial next year on assault charges

Gene and Sonny have pleaded not guilty (Picture: SWNS AND REX )

Liam Gallagher’s son and Ringo Starr’s grandson will stand trial to face assault and affray charges next year.

Gene Gallagher and Sonny Starkey, both 20, are accused of assaulting shop staff at a Tesco Express in Hampstead in May 2019.

Gallagher and Starkey, as well as model Noah Ponte, also 20, have all pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.

They were told on Friday that their trial will be held at Wood Green crown court on March 28, 2022. 

Gallagher, the youngest son of Oasis’s Liam and All Saints star Nicole Appleton, is accused of a racially aggravated assault on Tesco shopkeeper Hiran Rajput.

Starkey, the grandson of The Beatles drummer Ringo, is accused of two counts of assault by beating on Mr Rajput and his co-worker Shvium Patel, while Ponte is accused of stealing a can of alcohol and attacking Mr Patel after racially abusing him.

Noah Ponte will also stand trial (Picture: Paul Davey / SWNS)

The three defendants have also denied an allegation of affray.

The trial is expected to last for up to eight days in front of a crown court jury.

The three men will remain on bail until their trial.

At a hearing in March 2020, prosecutor Alexander Agbamu told Wood Green Crown Court: ‘This is a very factually straightforward case where much of the incident has been captured by CCTV. 

‘Nothing that hasn’t been captured on cameras can be given in evidence by witnesses.’

Gallagher and Starkey are accused of ‘windmilling’ down the aisle at a shopkeeper who was trying to stop them leaving the store, during the incident on May 17, 2019. 

Gene is the son of Liam Gallagher and Nicole Appleton (Picture: Dave Benett/Getty Images for Warner Music Group)

Gallagher’s racially aggravated assault charge alleges that he ‘assaulted by beating Hiran Rajput and at the time of doing so, or immediately before doing so, or after doing so, demonstrated towards Hiran Rajput hostility based on his membership or presumed membership of a particular racial group, namely Indian and was wholly or partly motivated to do so by hostility towards members of a particular racial group, namely Indian, based on his membership of such racial group’.

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Ponte is accused of racially abusing Mr Patel after he was told he couldn’t buy a can of beer at midnight, as it was after 11pm, and tried to leave the shop without paying. 

He is accused of telling the men: ‘You bloody Indians. Go back to where you came from. You’re not wanted here.’

Ponte is a model who is signed with IMG Models. 

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