I do not see why Ryanair should bear the costs for something which was not their fault... Obviously, as the Ryanair spokesperson pointed out, you do not reverse at an airport without assistance, so I would rather blame the person of the handling agent and not Ryanair.

Getting a plane out of London during the night is not as easy as well as night curfews might exist. Certainly, Ryanair tried to back out from paying compensation whenever they can, however, this situation is completely different and while I do see a chance for the passengers to take the handling agent and its insurance to court, I doubt that Ryanair will pay any compensation, if the story happened like stated in the article and response by FR.