Jay Blades has been charged with two counts of rape by West Mercia Police. Photo / Getty Images
Jay Blades has been charged with two counts of rape by West Mercia Police. Photo / Getty Images
Jay Blades has been charged with two counts of rape.
The Repair Shop presenter will appear in court next Wednesday over the allegations, police said.
A West Mercia Police spokesperson told the Sun: “Jason Blades, 55, of Claverley in Shropshire, has been charged with two counts of rape.
“Heis due to appear at Telford magistrates’ court on 13 August 2025.”
The presenter, who has received an MBE for services to craft, is awaiting a trial after last year being charged with controlling and coercive behaviour against estranged wife Lisa-Marie Zbozen, which he has denied.
Blades was arrested in May 2024 and charged in September that year.
His actions allegedly caused Lisa “to fear, on at least two occasions, that violence will be used against her” between January 2023 and September 2022.
Zbozen, a fitness instructor, announced on her Instagram page in May last year that their relationship was over.
Blades pleaded not guilty last October and is currently awaiting a pre-trial review on that charge.
The announcement of the charges led the father-of-three to step back from presenting The Repair Shop on the BBC after seven years in the role.
Blades also resigned from his role with the King’s Foundation.
The Repair Shop star Jay Blades and wife Lisa Marie Zbozen in 2023. Photo / via Instagram
He had supported the educational charity, formerly the Prince’s Foundation, as an ambassador, and visited its Dumfries House location in Ayrshire for the BBC special The Repair Shop: A Royal Visit.
The presenter won a daytime Bafta TV award, along with other members of the BBC programme, for a special featuring the King, who was at the time the Prince of Wales.
The programme also won the daytime prize at the National Television Awards.
Blades previously presented the BBC’s Money For Nothing until 2020, appeared on Celebrity MasterChef, Celebrity Bake Off and Comic Relief, and delved into the history of the West Midlands and the East End for two Channel 5 documentaries.
In 2023, he was appointed Buckinghamshire New University’s first chancellor, having studied for a degree in criminology and philosophy from 2001.
He also left that position last year, and a spokesman said at the time: “Jay Blades MBE has resigned from his role as chancellor at Buckinghamshire New University with immediate effect. We thank Jay for his loyal service to the university, and will be making no further comment.”
