Ben Stokes 'Could Have Killed Me’, Jury Told In Affray Trial

Ryan Hale told police he believed Ben Stokes “could have killed him” in an incident outside a local nightclub, Bristol Crown Court heard on Thursday.

Things are getting rough for the England star. Stokes could have killed one of the two men he knocked unconscious during a fight near a nightclub in September last year. Former soldier Ryan Hale, 27, told detectives that he did not understand why the Durham all-rounder did not stop attacking him and his friend Ryan Ali, 28.

The incident had taken place near the Mbargo nightclub in the Clifton Triangle area of Bristol shortly after 2am on September 25 last year – hours after England had played the West Indies in a one-day international in the city.

Stokes was soon arrested on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm following the incident which allegedly left one man in the hospital. He was immediately suspended by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). He later lost his vice-captaincy of the Test team and also the place in the squad for the Ashes.

Stokes had returned to competitive cricket for Canterbury in the domestic one-day and T20 competitions in New Zealand. The allrounder made his international return during the ODI series in New Zealand.

As of now, Stokes and Ali are on trail for affray. Hales was also accused of affray but acquitted on Thursday.

The court heard Hale’s formal police interview on Thursday morning, with Stokes scheduled to give evidence later in the day.

Hale told officers:

“I had a constant headache, which I’m probably going to go and get checked out again.

“It’s the emotions of it all. The fact I’ve been attacked. Watching the video was shocking.

“I’m a dad. He could have killed me. I don’t know why he didn’t stop. You hear about it all the time – he could have.

“Just the way he was acting in the video, he could have beaten the living hell out of me.

“It’s shocking to see someone doing that to someone who didn’t do anything wrong.

“It’s quite shocking to think that I’ve been put in a situation like that.”

Hale further told police he and Ali had been out celebrating his promotion at work and had left Mbargo when the nightclub closed.

He said: “The first thing he did was put his hand on my knob. I’m an ex-soldier, to me its banter.

“It did not offend me at all. He was pinching my arse and I grabbed him and said ‘You’re coming home with me’. Said ‘Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m going home with any other bloke’.

“He probably thought I wasn’t going to be like that. I was like, it’s fine, no problem and just carried on walking.”

“I remember two guys coming from the road and I remember saying ‘I don’t want no trouble’. Don’t remember which order it was in. ‘I don’t want no trouble’,” he added.

“Laid out on the floor. I don’t really remember how it all happened from there.”

Hale said that initially he thought Stokes had targeted him first but the video shows the 27-year old targeting his friend Ali.

“I just remember them crossing the road and there was a commotion. Don’t know why it happened,” he said.

“I am pulling him off because he is going to cane his face in and the gay guys are trying to pull me away.

“I am telling him to stop. He is having a go at Ryan and I am trying to stop any fight, to stop him getting hurt.

“That’s the moment I get smashed to the face.”

Hale also told police that he saw Stokes’s England team-mate, Alex Hales, “stamp” on Ali’s face as he lay on the floor.

“They were kicking him in the face. I saw Hales with a flat foot, stamping on his face. I said ‘Oi, oi, oi’,” he said.

“Hales runs off across the road. I grabbed Stokes, he is a big lad, and (I said) ‘Leave it’.”

Hale said Mr O’Connor and Mr Barry pulled him to help him up.

“I was the innocent bystander getting assaulted brutally for nothing, standing there with open fists being smacking around the place,” Hale said.

“There’s no self-defence and he isn’t defending anyone else.”

The trial continues.