Ashley Blake

Last updated

Ashley Blake
Born1969 (age 54–55)
Lozells, Birmingham, England
NationalityBritish (of Surinamese descent)
Occupations
Organization Sky News
Children1
Awards Honorary doctorate, Staffordshire University
Website www.ashleyblake.tv

Ashley Blake (born 1969 in Lozells, Birmingham, England [1] ) is a British television presenter and newsreader. A well-known personality in the English Midlands, he worked mostly for the BBC, where his credits include reporting and presenting on Midlands Today , the region's edition of Inside Out , and briefly on the TV series Watchdog . In September 2009 he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment after being convicted of wounding without intent. He was released on 8 June 2010, after serving nine months of his sentence, as part of the home curfew system for early release. He is now a Sky News reporter.

Contents

Early life

Blake grew up in the Lozells area of Birmingham in a single-parent household. He is mixed-race, and is the youngest of six children. [2]

Personal life

Blake has one son Calam, together with his former partner Sharon Blatchford. [3] [4] [5]

After his mother died of cancer in 2000, he raised money for a cancer support charity. [6]

Career

Blake has had a career "from driving and renting out cars and trucks to working with young offenders in the care of social services in Birmingham." [7] After spending almost three years as a flight attendant for Britannia Airways, [8] followed by a postgraduate degree in journalism, Blake started working in Liverpool for L!VE TV , before moving to its sister station in Birmingham (UK).

In 2001, he moved to London where he worked as a reporter on Watchdog as well as both BBC London News and ITV's London Tonight . Blake produced various holiday reports and then worked on London Weekend Television's Dream Ticket programme. [9] He had a short period of service as a presenter on National TV for BBC Breakfast , before he returned to his home city to become a presenter and reporter on the BBC's Midlands Today. [10] During his time at Midlands Today, Blake worked as a regular reporter, while also presenting the Friday Evening Late News Bulletin and the weekly edition of Inside Out for the region. Blake also regularly filled in for Nick Owen as presenter of the main edition of Midlands Today, and had occasionally presented the BBC Breakfast editions in addition to presenting the Midlands regional segments of the BBC's annual Children in Need telethon with Shefali Oza and Sarah Falkland. Blake presented his last edition of Midlands Today on 23 January 2009, before being suspended following an incident at the New Oscott restaurant, The Place 2 B, which he co-owned with his partner, Jessica Hayes, from 2003 until February 2009. [11] This incident eventually resulted in him being sacked by the BBC.

In 2007, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Staffordshire University for his contributions to television journalism. [12]

On 20 September 2016 Ashley returned to the TV screen as a presenter on the (Midlands) regional edition of 'Inside Out', with a report on Croome Park and Capability Brown's garden design. [13]

On 26 September 2016 Blake featured in a local newspaper report, in which he declared his conviction was 'spent' and the BBC explained he had been employed 'As a freelancer, he is entitled to pitch ideas and offer his services as a presenter or reporter, and we felt this segment within Inside Out was a good fit for him on this occasion.' [14]

Blake has also appeared in various TV shows and films including Nativity! (2009) and The Snarling (2018). [15]

Criminal convictions

On 26 January 2009, Blake was charged following an incident at his former restaurant [16] in the early hours of 25 January in which a 17-year-old was wounded. [17] He did not present any BBC programmes for the duration of the legal proceedings. [18]

He appeared before Sutton Coldfield Magistrates' Court charged with possessing an offensive weapon, wounding with intent and affray. Blake appeared with a second man, Steven Sproule, aged 38, of Booths Farm Road, Great Barr. Sproule was charged with assault and affray. Magistrates bailed Blake and Sproule to appear at Birmingham Crown Court on 27 April. [19] On 27 April, both men denied the charges brought against them and were granted unconditional bail pending trial. [20]

The trial began at Birmingham Crown Court on 27 July 2009. [21] Blake's co-defendant, Sproule, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Blake denied the charges, and also pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice by throwing the alleged weapon – a 3-foot (1 m) long patio umbrella pole – into a nearby garden centre. [22] The court was told that Blake hit the teenager in the face with the pole. [23] The jury retired on 31 July 2009 before giving their verdict on 3 August 2009. Blake was found guilty of unlawful wounding and perverting the course of justice, but was cleared of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. He was remanded on bail. On 2 September 2009, he was sentenced to two years in prison. [24] In November 2009, his appeal against the sentence was rejected by the Court of Appeal [3] He was released under home curfew in June 2010 after serving nine months of his sentence, [3] at first in HMP Birmingham and later HMP Stafford. [25]

As a result of the conviction, Blake was dismissed by the BBC on 14 August following an internal review. [26]

Previous convictions

As a result of the wounding trial, Blake's previous criminal record was revealed. He had been convicted of theft on six occasions (twice in 1986, three times in 1987 and once in 1993) and handling stolen goods in 1988. In 1988, Blake was found guilty of altering documents following a traffic collision, resulting in him being disqualified from driving, a ban he broke in 1990. [27] In an interview with rival regional news programme, ITV's Central Tonight on the day of his sentencing, Blake revealed that the BBC were unaware of his previous convictions as they were all spent convictions when he joined the corporation.

Drink-driving

After being released from prison, Blake kept out of the media limelight. In March 2011, he admitted a charge of drink driving at Sutton Coldfield Magistrates' Court. [28] When stopped on his BMW motorbike on 10 January, the morning after a night out, he was found to be over the limit and was subsequently banned from driving for one year and ordered to pay £220 in fines and court fees. [28]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham Six</span> Irishmen falsely convicted for the Birmingham pub bombings

The Birmingham Six were six Northern Irishmen who were each sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 following their false convictions for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and quashed by the Court of Appeal on 14 March 1991. The six men were later awarded financial compensation ranging from £840,000 to £1.2 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham pub bombings</span> 1974 IRA attack in England

The Birmingham pub bombings were carried out on 21 November 1974, when bombs exploded in two public houses in Birmingham, England, killing 21 people and injuring 182 others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stuart Hall (presenter)</span> English media personality (born 1929)

James Stuart Hall Jr. is an English former media personality and convicted sex offender. He presented regional news programmes for the BBC in North West England in the 1960s and 1970s, while becoming known nationally for presenting the game show It's a Knockout. Hall's later career mainly involved football reporting on BBC Radio. In June 2013, he was convicted of multiple sexual offences against children, effectively ending his media and broadcasting career.

The Bridgewater Four are four men who were tried and found guilty of killing 13-year-old paperboy Carl Bridgewater, who was shot in the head at close range near Stourbridge, England, in 1978. In February 1997, after almost two decades of imprisonment, their convictions were overturned and the three surviving defendants were released; the fourth defendant had died in prison two years into his sentence. Bridgewater's murder remains unsolved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Lee Travis</span> English radio and television presenter (born 1945)

David Patrick Griffin, known professionally as Dave Lee Travis, is an English former disc jockey, and former television presenter.

The West Midlands Serious Crime Squad was a police unit in the English West Midlands which operated from 1974 to 1989. It was disbanded after an investigation into allegations of incompetence and abuse of power on the part of some of the squad's members. Some of this misconduct resulted in wrongful convictions, including the high-profile case of the Birmingham Six. The sister Regional Crime Squad based at Bilston was responsible for the investigation of the Bridgewater Four.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Midlands Police</span> English territorial police force

West Midlands Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England.

Frederick Wilson Talbot is a British former television presenter. He grew up in north west England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Charles Kopp</span> American convicted murderer

James Charles Kopp is an American who was convicted in 2003 for the 1998 sniper-style murder of Barnett Slepian, an American OB-GYN physician from Amherst, New York who performed abortions. Prior to his capture, Kopp was on the FBI's list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. On June 7, 1999, he had become the 455th fugitive placed on the list by the FBI. He was affiliated with the militant Roman Catholic anti-abortion group known as The Lambs of Christ.

Yasin Hassan Omar is a British Somali convicted terrorist. Omar was arrested and tried for his involvement in the attempted 21 July attacks on London's public transport system. He was found guilty of attempting to detonate a device on the London Underground Victoria line tube train between Warren Street and Oxford Circus tube stations. In August 2005 police gave his age as 24 after his arrest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marlon King</span> Jamaican footballer (born 1980)

Marlon Francis King is a former professional footballer who played as a striker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carson Yeung</span> Hong Kong businessman

Carson Yeung Ka Sing is a Hong Kong businessman who, until February 2014, was the president of English football club Birmingham City F.C., and chairman and an executive director of Birmingham International Holdings, an investment, entertainment and sportswear firm registered in the Cayman Islands, which owns that club. He is also a director of Universal Energy Resources Holdings and Universal Management Consultancy Ltd.

Desune "Des" Fitzgerald Coleman is an English actor, singer and weather presenter. He has appeared in numerous stage musicals, and played the role of Lenny Wallace in BBC's EastEnders. He is currently a weather presenter for Good Morning Britain and ITV News Central.

Tony Wadsworth and Julie Wadsworth are former English radio presenters who presented shows on both BBC WM and BBC Radio Leicester. They were most recently heard on Radio Leicester, and for a time were known as the "Richard and Judy" of local radio. In 2017, they were both sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted on several counts of historic child sexual abuse that occurred during the 1990s.

Andrew Robert Muirhead is an Australian former radio and television presenter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He was the presenter of ABC Radio Hobart's breakfast program in Tasmania and also the presenter of the Collectors television program from 2005 to 2010. In 2012, he pleaded guilty to accessing child pornography and served four months of a five-month jail sentence.

Events from 2003 in England

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Smith (criminal)</span> Spree killer jailed for life in 2001 for the murders of three women

Philip John Smith is an English spree killer serving a life sentence for the murders of three women in Birmingham in November 2000. A former fairground worker employed at the Rainbow pub in Digbeth, Smith killed his victims over a four-day period. All three victims were mutilated almost beyond recognition, but Smith was quickly identified as the killer on the strength of overwhelming evidence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pavlo Lapshyn</span> Ukrainian convicted murderer

Pavlo Serhiyovych Lapshyn is a Ukrainian white supremacist terrorist who committed crimes in 2013 against Muslims in the United Kingdom. Lapshyn was given a life sentence, and will serve a minimum of 40 years, for a murder in Birmingham and three attempted bombings of mosques in the West Midlands. He confessed to police that his motivation was to kill and harm non-whites.

The Birmingham bathing cult was a cult based in Birmingham, England that committed serious sexual offences against children for over 20 years. Its leader Michael Oluronbi gave children "holy baths" as cover for the abuse and was jailed for 34 years.

Alun Kyte, known as the Midlands Ripper, is an English double murderer, serial rapist, child rapist, paedophile and suspected serial killer. He was convicted in 2000 of the murders of two sex workers, 20-year-old Samo Paull and 30-year-old Tracey Turner, whom he killed in December 1993 and March 1994 respectively. After his conviction, investigators announced their suspicions that Kyte could have been behind a number of other unsolved murders of sex workers across Britain in the 1980s and 1990s. He was apprehended due to the ground-breaking investigations of a wider police inquiry named Operation Enigma, which was launched in 1996 in response to the murders of Paull, Turner and of a large number of other sex workers. Kyte was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years imprisonment for the murders of Paull and Turner.

References

  1. ↑ "What's happened to my streets?". BBC Birmingham. Retrieved 5 August 2009.
  2. ↑ "Birmingham Post – News – West Midlands News – Ashley Blake: I've lost everything – I'm ruined". birminghampost.net. Archived from the original on 8 August 2009.
  3. 1 2 3 "Ashley Blake released from prison: Victim's surprise at early release". Birmingham Mail . Archived from the original on 26 September 2012. Retrieved 10 June 2010.
  4. ↑ Messent, Maureen (3 September 2009). "Ashley Blake reveals his life story: Day One". BirminghamLive. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
  5. ↑ Live, Coventry (4 September 2009). "BBC Midlands Today presenter Ashley Blake goes full circle". CoventryLive. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
  6. ↑ "Summer Ball Brings in Money For Cancer Support". Macmillan. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  7. ↑ "Inside Out – West Midlands: Presenter profile". BBC. Archived from the original on 4 February 2008. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  8. ↑ "Ashley Blake". BBC. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  9. ↑ "Birmingham and Black Country Black Hall of Fame – TV entertainment", BBC Birmingham.
  10. ↑ "Ashley Blake biography and images". TV Newsroom. Archived from the original on 29 November 2007. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  11. ↑ "BBC's Ashley Blake quits New Oscott restaurant at centre of fracas charges". Birmingham Post. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  12. ↑ "Ashley Blake". Staffordshire University. Archived from the original on 16 June 2011. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  13. ↑ "BBC One – Inside Out West Midlands, 19/09/2016".
  14. ↑ "Ashley Blake hits out at 'haters' after BBC return". 25 September 2016.
  15. ↑ Raybould, Pablo (2018), The Snarling, Laurence Saunders, Chris Simmons, Ben Manning, retrieved 14 August 2018
  16. ↑ "BBC's Ashley Blake on wounding charge after restaurant incident". Birmingham Mail. Archived from the original on 1 October 2012. Retrieved 5 August 2009.
  17. ↑ "Ashley Blake quits New Oscott restaurant". Birmingham Post. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  18. ↑ Britten, Nick (26 January 2009). "BBC presenter charged over pub fight". The Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 4 February 2009. Retrieved 5 August 2009.
  19. ↑ "TV newsreader Ashley Blake appears in court on wounding rap". Birmingham Mail. Archived from the original on 17 April 2009. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  20. ↑ "BBC presenter Ashley Blake denies wounding teen". Birmingham Mail. Archived from the original on 20 August 2009. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  21. ↑ "Jury sworn in for trial of BBC presenter Ashley Blake". Birmingham Post. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  22. ↑ "Witnesses say 'victim' tried to be a peacemaker". Birmingham Post. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  23. ↑ "BBC presenter Ashley Blake hit teenager in face with pole, court told". Birmingham Post. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  24. ↑ "TV presenter jailed for two years". BBC News. 2 September 2009. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
  25. ↑ "Ashley Blake: I began prison life in the Winson Green cell Fred West hanged himself in". Birmingham Mail . 4 September 2011. Retrieved 18 December 2016.
  26. ↑ "BBC man sacked after conviction". BBC News. 13 August 2009. Archived from the original on 16 August 2009. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
  27. ↑ "Ashley Blake fears TV career is over after guilty verdict in wounding trial". Birmingham Post. Retrieved 5 August 2009.
  28. 1 2 McCarthy, Nick (12 March 2011). "Ashley Blake in drink-driving charge". Birmingham Mail. Archived from the original on 1 October 2012. Retrieved 19 March 2011.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.