A Scots builder who sexually assaulted four Jet2 cabin crew during a holiday flight from Edinburgh to Tenerife has been jailed and placed on the sex offenders register. Joseph McCabe, 40, groped and slapped the buttocks of two air stewards before grabbing a third around the waist and attempting to hug a fourth.
McCabe made sexual comments to one woman about her tights and make up, asked her age and where she lived and ripped up a written warning he had been given for his drunken conduct. The former soldier also threw his bank card at an air employee and began dancing in the aisle after his shocking behaviour had forced the plane to be diverted to the island of Porto Santo.
Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told Portuguese police had made their way onto the plane and arrested McCabe after the flight made the unexpected landing in March last year. McCabe was a private in the Royal Logistic Corps for five years before he set up the B-Heard clothing business in memory of a friend who took his own life during the Covid 19 lockdown, reports the Daily Record.
He now runs his own construction firm and co-owns a party boat business called The Drunken Anchor. McCabe, of Tollcross, Glasgow, pleaded guilty to the four sexual offences during an appearance at the capital court last month and he returned to the dock for sentencing on Friday (December 19).
(Image: Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Sheriff Alison Stirling was told Jet2 had handed McCabe a lifelong ban from flying with them following his arrest and he had refused to pay the £5,000 fine the airline had imposed on him. Sheriff Stirling said the offence had involved “a high level of culpability and a high level of harm” and sentenced McCabe to 46 weeks in custody.
The sheriff also placed the tradesman on the sex offenders register for 10 years and imposed non-harassment orders banning him from having any contact with the victims for an indefinite period. Solicitor Anna Kocela, defending, said her client is a self-employed building boss and had been drinking excessively at the time of the flight due to a family bereavement.
Previously, prosecutor Miriam Farooq told the court the Jet2 flight took off from Edinburgh Airport bound for Tenerife with around 110 passengers on board at around 8.30am on March 15 last year.
(Image: Alexander Lawrie)
Ms Farooq said the flight was packed with families and children and shortly after take off cabin crew had noticed McCabe “making multiple trips to the toilet”.
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