Drunk Portadown air passenger spared jail over ISIS bomb claim

District Judge Alan White told 25-year-old Jay Woolsey it was a “good thing that you were drunk” because that meant his fellow passengers knew the claims about Isis were “a nonsense”.

The judge added, however, that his behaviour would have caused stress to anyone on that flight.

Earlier the judge heard that Woolsey had been removed from a Bristol-bound flight after he strode up the aisle shouting that ISIS were going to blow the plane up.

A prosecuting lawyer told Antrim Magistrates’ Court that as Woolsey was being taken from the flight, he pushed a man who had come to help cabin crew, causing him to fall down some stairs.

And once inside Belfast International Airport, he spat at a female member of check-in staff.

Police attended the airport after Woolsey was reported as being “angry and agitated” and when officers found him outside the airport at the taxi rank, he shouted: “The police are here over the Isis bombing.”

During an earlier court appearance Woolsey, from Brownstown Park in Portadown, pleaded guilty to common assault against the man and failing to obey the lawful command of an aircraft commander”.

He also confessed to using disorderly behaviour at Belfast International Airport, one count of common assault on a woman, being drunk on a plane and “behaving in a disorderly manner towards a member of the crew,” all of which occurred on November 27 last year.

As well as the five-month jail term, which was suspended for three years, Judge White imposed a £400 fine and ordered Woolsey to pay compensation of £100 each to the member of staff he spat at and the man he pushed in the chest.