TV producer sues Lydon for assault

John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, the lead singer of 1970's punk rock band the Sex Pistols, is being sued for assault and battery by an American TV producer. Roxane Davis is seeking unspecified damages to compensate her for a long list of traumatic incidents that took place a year ago in Los Angeles when she was working on the Fuse Television Network series Bodog Battle of the Bands, on which Lydon, 50, served as a judge.

According to the complaint, which was filed at the LA Superior Court on Wednesday, Davis, who was hired by the TV company to look after transportation, food and hotel accommodation, claims that Lydon and his assistant, Jon Stevens, abused her with a "tirade of harassing, insulting and intimidating sex-based remarks that were meant to demean and humiliate".

During the several weeks she had to deal with Stevens on the phone, she says he would often refer to her as a "bitch". And Lydon is alleged to have yelled at her in a similar manner when he discovered there was no adjoining door between his and Stevens's accommodation. This row, she claims, ended in violence: the writ states that Lydon "cocked back his fist to strike Ms Davis and punched her in the face".

Explaining the delay in making her complaint, Davis claims that the programme makers, who she is also suing, did not investigate her claims. She says that when she informed her supervisor of what happened, he is said to have told her, "You get paid to be treated like shit, you get paid to take the shit."