A DRUNK plane passenger who was arrested for "rude and abusive" behaviour following a ten-hour flight five years ago has been jailed.
At the city’s crown court, Recorder Philip Grundy handed an immediate four-month jail term to 58-year-old Mohammed Koyes, saying deterrent sentences were needed for such "terrifying" behaviour.
The defendant, from Carleton Road, Carlisle, committed the offence on October 20, 2021, prosecuting barrister Brendan Burke told Carlisle Crown Court.
The prosecutor said: “He was on a Boeing aircraft that was flying out of Bangladesh to Heathrow on that day and he drank five sixths of a litre bottle of gin.”
Fellow passengers saw the defendant “stumbling around” and into other people on the plane. Koyes was also swearing and yelling obscenities at the other passengers.
“He was eventually controlled by the other passengers,” said Mr Burke, adding that the defendant was a man of previous good character.
Christopher Knox, defending, said the defendant’s recollection of what happened that day was not very good – a remark that prompted the judge to comment that this was down to the booze.
Mr Knox suggested that there was another passenger who may have shared the gin and that Koyes was not responsible for the five sixths that had gone from the bottle.
Originally from Bradford, the defendant was now separated from his family and living in Carlisle. “I don’t think he is an experienced drinker and that might be the explanation,” said Mr Knox.
The barrister pointed out that Koyes had never been in trouble before and had not committed any offences since the incident. He had failed, however, to turn up for his interview with a probation officers.
That meant there was no pre-sentence report.
Recorder Philip Grundy told the defendant that he felt it necessary to pass a deterrent sentence, and that his drunken behaviour on that day must have been frightening for the other passengers.
It had been designated as a “dry flight,” so there should have been not alcohol on board at all.
The judge told the defendant: “You appear before me for being drunk on an aircraft. You had consumed, the prosecution say, five sixths of a bottle of gin on that journey, which was a dry flight…
“You clearly brought that drink on board yourself and consumed it. After the first meals were served, you began shouting and swearing and being rude and abusive to aircrew and other passengers.”
Koyes’ behaviour continued to cause alarm and distress to the other passengers, who asked to be moved away from him.
Unsteady on his feet, Koyes had fallen into other passengers as he tried to walk to the toilet. Attempts to calm him failed and he was seen taking swigs of gin from the bottle.
At one point, he stood and tried to reach over a seat towards another passenger. “You had to be restrained; and fortunately the flight did not have to be diverted,” said the judge.
Later, at Heathrow, the defendant was detained and interviewed. He said he was not an alcoholic and he got the gin from a duty-free shop.
The judge added: “Offences of being drunk on an aircraft will always require the appropriate punishment, especially to deter others.”
Time and again, said the Recorder, courts had made it clear that such offenders must expect jail as the experience of having a drunken person "in the confines of a plane" is terrifying and poses a risk to safety.
“You will go to prison immediately for four months,” concluded Recorder Grundy. There was no explanation for why the case took five years to be resolved in court.
