Olympics 'Queen' stuntman Gary Connery jailed for GBH

Gary Connery, 53, shoved his then girlfriend down the stairs at the home they shared in Henley on October 24, 2020.

It followed an argument over who would ‘turn off the lights and shut the gate’. The woman suffered a ‘shattered’ shoulder and a cut above her eye.

The professional stunt man dressed in a shimmering pink frock and wig when he acted as the monarch’s stand-in during an infamous jump from a helicopter during the opening ceremony to the Olympic Games in 2012.

Jailing him for 18 months at Oxford Crown Court this afternoon for causing grievous bodily harm, Judge Nigel Daly said: “It is clear that you had an argument late at night. You’d both been drinking and it is clear that you lost your temper.

“However she was behaving she did not deserve to be thrown downstairs. Throwing somebody down the stairs, as I am quite satisfied you did, can result in extremely serious injuries. In this case it resulted in injuries which were serious.”

He added: “I have read in some detail the [probation service] pre-sentence report it is abundantly clear from that pre-sentence report that you show absolutely no remorse for what happened and you do not seem to accept any fault.”

Gary Connery Picture: TVP

Connery, who stood in the dock wearing a white shirt, a pink, orange and yellow-striped tie, blinked 13 times as he heard the sentence pronounced - before turning to look at the public gallery.

Judge Daly imposed a restraining order preventing him from contacting his victim indefinitely.

In a victim personal statement read to the court by prosecutor Jonathan Stone this afternoon, Connery’s victim said: “I just want Gary to take responsibility for what he’s done and for what he’s put us through as a family.”

She added that the impact of the assault on her life had been ‘enormous’. Together with her daughter, she moved back to live with her parents. Her septuagenarian father had had to drive her daughter to and from school, some 20 miles away.

Connery’s ex said she had struggled to hold down work as she could not give the jobs her ‘full focus’.

The victim had undergone surgery on the fracture to her upper humerus – part of the shoulder – and had been told she may need further operations in the future, she said. The cut above her eye healed after three months but it had taken a year for her to recover from the broken bone.

Connery, of Greys Road, Henley, was cleared of wounding with intent last month but found guilty by of causing grievous bodily harm. He had no previous convictions.

During the five-day trial at Reading Crown Court, jurors heard that the couple had argued on the night of October 24, 2020, over who was going to turn off the lights and shut the gate.

She told paramedics called to the house that evening that she was pushed down the stairs, repeating the allegation to detectives when she made her police statement two days later.

The woman made another statement on November 9, after she returned to the house and claimed to have had a ‘flashback’ of Connery ‘smashing’ her head against the banister before she was pushed downstairs.

This afternoon, Judge Daly said the fact that the jury had acquitted Connery of the more serious charge of wounding with intent meant he would sentence the defendant on the basis he had pushed her downstairs but did not strike her head.

Mr Stone, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said it was an aggravating feature of the assault that ‘all parties’ had been drinking. The offence was one of violence ‘in a domestic context’, he added.

Mitigating, Sarah O’Kane urged the judge to impose a suspended sentence. She reminded the judge that several witnesses who gave evidence during the trial spoke ‘highly’ of her client. He was ‘somebody people could turn to and speak to and who would offer advice and guidance’.

On the assault, the barrister said: “This was an impulsive, spontaneous or perhaps more appropriately on the guidelines a short-lived incident on the stairs.”

Ms O’Kane claimed that the victim had been in contact with Connery following his conviction. It included a recorded conversation between the former couple, which the lawyer said ‘raised certain questions’ about the necessity of the restraining order requested by the prosecution as well as her ‘credibility and her truthfulness’.

The extensive publicity in the national press following the stuntman’s conviction had had an impact on his work. “The phone isn’t ringing in the way it once was,” she said.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

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