Manx cyclist Jonny Bellis has been suspended from his role with Drops cycling team after being convicted of assaulting his girlfriend.

Bellis was convicted at Cheltenham magistrates’ court earlier this week after the 30-year-old admitted hitting her at the flat they shared.

After competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he suffered severe head injuries following a scooter crash in Italy in 2009 and retired from cycling in 2015.

Bellis is currently employed as sporting director for Drops Cycling.

Prosecutor Peter Ashby told the court that those head injuries triggered aggression when Bellis drank alcohol. The couple had been drinking with friends in Cheltenham before returning home where Bellis’s mood is said to have darkened and his former girlfriend asked him not to continue drinking.

The court heard that although he agreed he told her: ’I’m going to explode.’

The victim then tried to ring 999 before Bellis snatched her phone away and blocked the door to the flat preventing her from leaving.

Mr Ashby told the court: ’He hit her two or three times. There was a small cut to her upper lip and pain all over her face and head.’

He added that a neighbour came to the flat having heard the noise and saw the victim was distressed and that Bellis was apologising to her. The court was also shown photographs of the victim’s cut lip and bruised arm and ear.

Regarding the assault, Mr Ashby said: ’He knows she wasn’t a liar so what she said was probably true. He didn’t remember hitting her face but agreed he must have done.’

District Judge Bopa Rai fined Bellis £635 and ordered him to pay the victim £100 compensation. She also imposed a five-year restraining order on him and said he must make no contact with the victim.

The judge also noted that she would have given him a community service order, however Bellis is expected to return to living in the Isle of Man, meaning he would be outside UK jurisdiction.

Bob Varney, team director of Drops Cycling, said: ’We have suspended Jonny Bellis pending an investigation.

’There will be no further comment until that investigation has been completed.’