Drunk thug’s ‘animalistic’ assault on flight noticed him chew worker for ‘three minutes’

A drunken passenger launched an ‘animalistic’ attack on a flight by biting a crew member for ‘up to three minutes’ and kicking another.

Kevin Healey, 26, claimed that staff should ‘be afraid of him’ as his dad was ‘very powerful’. But his lawyer insisted Healey is not a ‘bullyboy’ following the incident on January 13.

Healey was on a 12-hour flight from Shanghai, China, to Manchester having previously being in Australia. Hours into the journey, he was seen drinking alcohol that he had carried onto the flight himself and puffing on an e-cigarette. He appeared to be making threats to other passengers and cabin crew members intervened, but he did not comply with their orders.

Manchester Crown Court heard he repeatedly threatened staff by saying he would kill them, before being escorted to the back of the plane. Blaise Morris, prosecuting, said he was later seen shouting at other passengers. Healey was restrained after being verbally abusive towards a woman. People on the flight were ‘frightened’, the court heard.

The prosecutor said: “As the defendant was being restrained, he became violent and bit one of the crew members. It was described as a forceful and aggressive bite lasting up to three minutes, causing a tear in their work uniform and a deep bite injury.

“The defendant then said his dad was very powerful and the crew should be afraid of him. As another member of the cabin crew tried to de-escalate the situation, he kicked her to the thigh causing her to fall to the ground whilst he continuously verbally abusing her.”

The flight landed at Manchester Airport at around 6.35am. Healey was frogmarched off the plane and arrested. As he was taken away he was heard saying: “I’m sorry.”

The court heard Healey, who had no previous convictions, has complex mental health issues. His lawyer Neil Ronan said: “He was beset by real misfortune of a personal nature, which I will not delve into.

“He is not somebody who is a bullyboy who is on his way back from a lads holiday to Magaluf. He was someone in a mental health crisis having been extricated thousands of miles away from home. It was a perfect storm.”

The court heard Healey, who is type 1 diabetic, did not have the correct insulin medicine with him on the flight, which caused him ‘acute anxiety and stress’. The defence barrister said he suffered a ‘psychotic break’ and that he had previously been sectioned. He added: “He has removed drink and drugs from his life. This is an opportunity for him to have a huge wake up call, and for his family.”

Judge Tom Gilbart told Healey: “You were drunk and aggressive and had a seriously concerning presence to other people on that plane, and were behaving in this way on a confined aircraft, which is a frightening thing to do.

“To bite somebody is an animalistic thing to do. It is appalling to do that to anybody, but to bite her, someone at work dealing with your drunken, thuggish and aggressive behaviour, is serious.”

The judge said Healey’s father had died when he was eight-years-old and he was diagnosed with diabetes not long after that, which had an ‘ongoing effect on him’. He added that he had since been suffering with ‘complex, unresolved grief’.

But he added: “It was your decision to drink alcohol to excess which had an impact on you. The richness of what you did deserves immediate imprisonment, but under changes in law in March this year, courts must now suspend prison sentences of 12 months or less, unless exceptional circumstances apply. Exceptional circumstances do not apply in this case.”

Healey, of Newry, Northern Ireland, admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm and assault by beating. He was handed a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years, and was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and abide by a three-month electronically monitored curfew.=