Two Irishmen from South London have been jailed for twelve and three months each for the part they played in a so called air-rage incident on a flight from London to Montego Bay in Jamaica in January of last year. The captain of the aircraft had to divert to Virginia in the United States because he believed that the group of holidaymakers the two men belonged to were endangering the plane and the 326 passengers on board.
A 36-year-old man was given a one-year jail sentence after being found guilty of endangering an aircraft on a flight from London to Jamaica. Six months of the sentence was suspended. Patrick Connors, from the Irish travelling community in Lewisham in South London, was also found guilty of causing affray aboard on an aircraft. Another man, 40-year-old Francis Coyle, was jailed for 6 months for causing affray on an aircraft, although half of that sentence was also suspended.
The two were part of a group of 12 people who embarked upon a holiday of lifetime to Montego Bay, in Jamaica in January of last year. After what was described as a “bar room brawl at 36,000 feet”, the Boeing 767 with 326 passengers on board was diverted to Norfolk in Virginia. It was boarded by 10 FBI agents, who escorted the group off the aircraft.
At Hove Crown Court near Brighton, Judge Davies Izzard said that there is a clear obligation on every person to behave in a manner considerate to other people around. He said that the group had spectacularly ignored that obligation from the moment they got on the aircraft. He said that it was bad enough to behave in such a manner in bars or on the street, but in the crammed confines of a crowded aircraft it was worse.
The Judge said that the group could not have been unaware of the complaints about the noise, as they had been refused alcohol repeatedly. Many relatives and friends of the two men who were at this mornings sentencing and some of the women wept openly outside the court. One friend, who asked not to be named, said that he believed the sentences were passed simply because they were members of the Irish travelling community in London.
