An easyJet passenger from the UK found himself in a legal battle after he touched and harassed a flight attendant.
As the Manchester Evening News reports, the inciting incident happened when Gavin Capps took a flight from Manchester to Iceland in January 2019. As 51-year-old Capps has since told the Minshull Street Crown Court, he enjoyed three cans of Heineken beer while on the flight. The man was taking the plane to go work on a fishing trawler.
Midway through the flight, Capps went to the front of the easyJet aircraft in search of more alcohol. Flight attendants immediately told him to sit down and wait for them to bring the service trolley to him. Once they did, Capps allegedly stole cigarettes from the trolley and hid them under his seat.
After serving him, flight attendants asked Capps to stop causing trouble. Capps, of course, did not listen. Instead, Capps grabbed the butt of a flight attendant who was serving another customer. The flight attendant, named David Calder, told the court that Capps took “hold of his left buttock and squeezed with a lot of force.” Calder recalled feeling Capps’ “fingers between buttocks.” When Calder called Capps out for the touch, Capps started yelling.
“He started shouting saying ‘you are gay saying that I touched your bum,” Calder told the court. Calder shared that Capps then yelled out, “You are not British if you think that is sexual assault.” Capps then went to the front of aircraft and started taking pictures of the cabin crew with his phone while calling Calder a “gay boy.”
According to the Bury Times, police on the ground were alerted to the situation. However, the arrest took until Capps returned to the UK, through the Manchester Airport, in March 2019. It was then discovered that Capps has 30 previous convictions for 105 offenses. The most recent being for battery. Though, he had no previous sexual offenses on his record. Until now, of course. Now after a year of court hearings, Gavin Capps has been sentenced to six months in prison. This was after he pled guilty to one count of sexual assault and one count of threatening words or behavior.
