Passenger who squeezed flight attendant’s butt & called him “gay boy” gets sent to prison
The attacker had 105 prior offenses. No kidding.
An unruly passenger was just sentenced to six months in prison for the sexual assault of a male flight attendant.
The passenger, Gavin Capps, was flying with EasyJet from Manchester, U.K., to Iceland for work this past January, when he attacked the flight attendant.
Related: 4 firemen arrested for attempted sexual assault of a male teenaged volunteer
Capps had three beers on the flight and went to the front of the plane to get more, but he was sent back and told to wait for the in-flight service. When the duty-free trolley came down the aisle, Capps took 400 cigarettes from it and hid them under his seat.
Flight attendants warned him to stop causing trouble, but then he attacked.
A flight attendant who was serving another passenger said that he felt Capps “take hold of his left buttock and squeeze with a lot of force. He could feel his fingers between buttocks,” prosecutor David Calder told the court.
“He started shouting saying, ‘You are gay saying that I touched your bum,'” Calder said.
Calder said that Capps said, “You are not British if you think that is sexual assault.”
Capps went to the front of the cabin and started taking pictures, telling people “the gay boy is getting me arrested for sexual harassment.”
The flight crew called the police and he was eventually arrested when he went back to Manchester in March.
The victim told the court he was “humiliated and embarrassed” by Capps’s actions, saying it was particularly embarrassing because other people and children were watching.
The court sentenced Capps to six months in prison on one charge of sexual assault and one charge of threatening words or behavior.
Capps’s lawyer said that her client lost his job and his home since the attack, but “I fully understand why the victim is so angry, the defendant has struggled to accept that he behaved in this way.”
She said that Capps has since gotten married and gotten a new job since the attack and that he’s looking after his adult son, but that wasn’t enough to move the judge.
“You drank too much and behaved appallingly,”
said Judge Bernadette Baxter.
“You have done exactly the same many times before,” she added, referring to Capps’s 105 prior offenses. “This time you were on an aircraft. In this circumstance the situation becomes a lot more serious.”
“You verbally abused [the flight attendant] in a homophobic way then sexually assaulted him by grabbing his bottom,” she added.
Capps will have to register as a sex offender for seven years.
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JOHN BELLAMY COMMENTS: A few years ago, someone I thought I knew quite well announced he had just served 6 months in prison for Air Rage. I was astounded for while I knew he was fucked up because of too many drugs over the years, I didn't think he was the sort to cause a problem.
In mid flight he threw a tantrum and tried to open the Emergency Exit and had to be restrained by the cabin crew, arrested on landing, taken into costody and remained in jail for a week before coming to trial and straight into jail after that.
He claimed he could not remember a thing that happened but that is absolutely no excuse at all, the point was, he had taken something, some illegal drug to ease his nerves of flying and regardless the drug had a bad affect, who else is responsible - who else screamed in the middle of the plane frightening the crap out of everyone and who actually tried with great force to open the Emergency Exit which took 3 cabin Crew to pull him off and restrain him.
No one else was responsible - No one else - yet even with me he still tried to make excuses and blame the airline for taking away 6 months of his life - for he served the whole 6 months and nothing off for what is considered ' Good Behaviour ' - as he never accepted responsibility and never thought to apologise to anyone and as I stated to him... I had absolutely no sympathy for him at all and ALL my sympathy and concern would be for the other passengers and MOST CERTAINLY - NOT WITH HIM.
I gave him a 45 minute lecture / talk about what t must have been like for someone else fearing for their lives and HE STILL would not accept any responsibility, and it was about this time in the conversatiuon that - to be honest - our friendship died a death. I warned him that if he doesn't see the error of his ways - and if he cannot accept any responsibility at all, and if he saw no reason to feel bad about what he had done, then he was a shitty person I wanted nothing more to do with and the stunned look on his face, the absolute gobsmacked expression that I would / could / did speak to him in such a manner - and I threw him out of my house and told him that unless he can grow up and be mature enough to see where he was wrong, then I didn't want to see him again as I was appalled at his lack of consideration for others.
FGriends teach each other things. We all learn the basics of life from experience and one of the biggest losses to the human psyche over the leat few decades is 'I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE ' and this concept annoys the crap out of me. We are ALL responsible for our actions and no one else. Period.
He eventually apologised some time later and after being in DeTox for a further 3 months after the prison sentense, he did claim to understand and 'get the point' and we have remained distant friends ever since.
Bad behaviour must never be rewarded such as how Trump is rewarding bigots and bullies in the USA.
It is not the way forward.
John Bellamy --------------------------------- BLOG HOME PAGE
