Former soldier jailed after sexually assaulting four Jet2 cabin crew on Tenerife flight

A Brit who sexually assaulted four Jet2 cabin crew on a flight to Tenerife has been jailed and placed on the sex offenders register.

Joseph McCabe, 40, drunkenly groped and slapped the buttocks of two air stewards, grabbed a third around the waist and tried to hug a fourth.

The father-of-two and former solider also made sexual comments to one of the staff members about her tights and asked her age and where she lived.

When given a written warning about his behavior aboard the flight, which had taken off from Edinburgh, he ripped it up.

The plane was eventually diverted to the island of Porto Santo in the Madeira Archipeligo, so McCabe could be removed, and arrived in Tenerife two hours late.

Upon landing, McCabe, who lives in Tollcross, Glasgow, started dancing in the aisles, before Portugese police came onboard, arrested the Scot and took him off the flight.

Following the incident on March 15 last year, McCabe received a £5,000 fine from Jet2, which he refused to pay, and was then banned from flying with the airline for life.

McCabe, who runs a construction firm and co-owns a party boat business called The Drunken Anchor, pleaded guilty to four sexual offenses at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month.

On Friday he was was sentenced to 46 weeks in prison at the same court and put on the sex offenders registry for 10 years.

He also received non-harassment orders that ban him from having any contact with the victims for an indefinite period.

As she sentenced McCabe, sheriff Alison Stirling said the offenses had involved ‘a high level of culpability and a high level of harm’.

Previously prosecutor Miriam Farooq told the court the Jet2 flight took off from Edinburgh Airport bound for Tenerife at around 8.30am.

Not long after cabin crew had noticed McCabe ‘making multiple trips to the toilet’, she said.

Then around 90 minutes into the flight a female flight attendant was serving a passenger when she ‘felt someone behind her touching her buttocks’.

The employee turned round to find McCabe was ‘looking at her with a smirk on his face’ and had asked her ‘where she bought her tights because he liked them’.

He also asked the woman how old she was and where she lived, before going on to slap the buttocks of a male steward later in the flight.

McCabe was also seen attempting to hug a second female victim and place his hands on a third female employee for around 30 seconds.

Ms Farooq said that after ripping up the written warning ‘a decision was made to divert the aircraft and the captain was instructed by air traffic control to land at the airfield at Porto Santo’.

She added: ‘After landing the accused got out of his seat and began dancing in the aisle.

‘Portuguese police boarded the flight and arrested him and took him into custody.’

Solicitor Anna Kocela, defending, said her client had been drinking excessively at the time of the flight due to a family bereavement.

McCabe was a private in the Royal Logistic Corps for five years, the court heard.

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