‘Spiritual chief’ groped teen on flight and mentioned ‘Oh God, I’d shift you if I used to be youthful’
Spiritualist and farmer Patrick Noone has walked free after being hit with a suspended prison term for harassing the 16-year-old girl on an Aer Lingus transatlantic flight in 2023
The farmer said he was devastated by his actions
A famous ‘spiritual healer’ has narrowly avoided a jail term after he sexually assaulted a teen on a flight.
Spiritualist and farmer Patrick Noone has walked free after being hit with a suspended prison term for harassing the 16-year-old girl on an Aer Lingus transatlantic flight in 2023. A court heard how he moved seats to sit close to the unnamed girl as they travelled in the same row of seats on the flight going from Shannon Airport to Boston in the US. The court heard how on the flight, Noone groped the teenager without her consent and kissed her arm after telling her: “Oh God, I would shift you if I was 20 years younger.”
He told the terrified girl how he was on the flight, travelling to New Hampshire “to heal a house” and had sunk a number of whiskeys before boarding.
The flight diverted back after the girl complained to cabin crew(Image: AFP/Getty Images)
The court also heard how the sexual assault incident has resulted in the end of Noone’s marriage and in the probation report, Noone said he is “living every day with the consequences of his actions on that flight.”
In her victim impact statement, the teenager recalled the sexual assaults and said that “in between brief naps, he would touch me inappropriately”.
She said: “He said repugnant things to me as a 16-year-old, including things like, ‘If I were 20 years younger I would shift you’ and ‘I hope I didn’t make you wet’.”
It was further claimed in court how Noone told the teenager she was a beautiful girl and she did not know how beautiful she was.
Noone told her she had “the features of a real woman” and he moved his hand up and down her arm and kissed her hand, before moving his hand to her thigh and then stuffed his hand down the back of the seat, grabbing her buttocks.
The teenager said she gave Noone “gummy bears as a deliberate distraction so I could stop him from touching me” before alerting cabin crew, who told the captain, who then made the decision to turn the plane around.
Noone was then arrested at Shannon Airport, with the cost of the diversion amounting to over €28,000. When interviewed by gardaí, Noone said he had no recollection of touching the teenager or saying those things to her.
In interview, he said he was horrified and shocked at what he was then alleged to have done.
He said: “I’m terribly sorry – I’m always helping people.” Judge Comerford said the teenager, who was not in court, had made an impressive victim impact statement.
In it, she said she felt trapped as the seatbelt lights were still on. She said: “During the entire incident I felt entirely trapped. I was strapped down into a seat with a man who I did not know was touching me in places that I did not want him to touch me.
“I never felt more violated, nor more afraid. I can only assume that had I stayed he would have gone further.
The captain made the decision to turn the plane around(Image: AFP/Getty Images)
“In no world should it be accepted that anyone should put their hands on or near someone’s private regions without their explicit consent, never mind a man in his fifties putting his hands on a young girl of 16.
“That is an act that is, to put it simply, deeply perverse and incredibly violating.”
He has attended counselling and is now facing divorce proceeding.
His defence team said: “Mr Noone is horrified that he did this to a young girl, given the fact that he has four daughters from 21 to 10 years of age.”
In sentencing, Judge Comerford said all sexual assaults are serious.
He said the sexual assaults perpetrated by Noone on the teenager did fall into the lower range of offending, as it was outside the clothing, but it was serious as it was perpetrated on a 16-year-old.
The judge said he was taking into account Noone’s guilty plea, having no previous convictions and his co-operation with gardaí, and that due to the offence, his name will be in the sex offenders register.
He added that a probation service report on Noone concluded he is at low risk of re-offending, and said courts have shown they are slow to imprison a first-time offender where the probation service has expressed a view that they are unlikely to re-offend
