British Airways Passenger Is Fined $15 For Taking Pictures Up Flight Attendant’s Skirt

Apparently, a passenger traveling in the first class cabin on a British Airways flight decided to put his phone up the skirt of a flight attendant.  The incident occurred on a flight from London to Cape Town.  Multiple passengers reported witnessing the incident:

A British businessman arrested on a BA flight for filming up a stewardess’s skirt was let off with a £13 fine and allowed to walk off the same day, sources claim.

Married father-of-two Martyn Vaughan, 61, was flying First Class from Heathrow with British Airways and was arrested when he landed in South Africa.

But sources say he was wrongly charged with common assault, which allowed Vaughan, from Northamptonshire, to take a £13 ‘admission if guilt’ fine and walk free.

Maybe he got bored on the long flight and the IFE?  It appears alcohol may have been a factor:

It was alleged that, after a few drinks, the father-of-two pushed the handset under the attendant’s uniform as she leaned over to serve another passenger.

Fellow passengers claim Mr Vaughan lit up his £6,000 First Class suite with the phone’s torch app before committing the assault.

There’s a joke in here somewhere about the US presidential election, but I’m going to avoid that.

I’ve never been to Africa.  But, I just can’t imagine how someone is detained after a flight for something like this and gets away with a puny fine.  I have to imagine the crew of the flight were there to verify the story.  And yet, somehow the officer detaining the passenger missed the obvious concern.

The post British Airways Passenger Is Fined $15 For Taking Pictures Up Flight Attendant’s Skirt was published first on Pizza In Motion

 

12 Comments

  1. “Maybe he got bored on the long flight and the IFE?”
    Maybe you shouldn’t write about sexual assault in such a joking manner? Maybe.

    “I’ve never been to Africa. ”
    That’s one way to generalize an entire continent.

    1. Brian, I don’t think I see this as a joking manner. I actually think it’s pretty disappointing that the local police didn’t take it more seriously. I don’t think I inferred anything generally about the people of Africa, just that I have no experience with local police in the region, so I’m not sure if this is a common practice or not. Really not for me to say given no experience. But, hey. Feel free to take my comments in a negative light.

      1. Fair enough if you didn’t mean to joke about the matter, but that quote “Maybe he got bored on the long flight and the IFE?” doesn’t really reflect that. Either way, having an incident occur in one specific place in South Africa (which you quote), but then still generalizing it to the entire continent is not ok. South Africa /= African continent.

        1. Brian, still don’t get why you think I’m generalizing anything about the continent. I’m asking a question as to whether this is a typical reaction to a serious charge by a Cape Town officer.

          1. Yes, you are asking a question which isn’t the problem, but you’re still generalizing the entire continent when you say “I’ve never been to Africa”. You could easily have said “I’ve never been to South Africa”, but instead you generalized and said Africa. Again, South Africa is not the same as Africa. If an incident happened in New York, no one would ever say “I’ve never been to North America”. I don’t get what’s unclear about that. It seems minor, but the problem is that people think incidents like this reflect on the entirety of the African continent, and it perpetuates negative portrayals of the continent, even when they happen in a specific place, such as Cape Town, in this case.

  2. “Maybe he got bored on the long flight and the IFE?”
    Maybe you shouldn’t write about sexual assault in such a joking manner? Maybe.

    “I’ve never been to Africa. ”
    That’s one way to generalize an entire continent.

    1. Brian, I don’t think I see this as a joking manner. I actually think it’s pretty disappointing that the local police didn’t take it more seriously. I don’t think I inferred anything generally about the people of Africa, just that I have no experience with local police in the region, so I’m not sure if this is a common practice or not. Really not for me to say given no experience. But, hey. Feel free to take my comments in a negative light.

      1. Fair enough if you didn’t mean to joke about the matter, but that quote “Maybe he got bored on the long flight and the IFE?” doesn’t really reflect that. Either way, having an incident occur in one specific place in South Africa (which you quote), but then still generalizing it to the entire continent is not ok. South Africa /= African continent.

        1. Brian, still don’t get why you think I’m generalizing anything about the continent. I’m asking a question as to whether this is a typical reaction to a serious charge by a Cape Town officer.

          1. Yes, you are asking a question which isn’t the problem, but you’re still generalizing the entire continent when you say “I’ve never been to Africa”. You could easily have said “I’ve never been to South Africa”, but instead you generalized and said Africa. Again, South Africa is not the same as Africa. If an incident happened in New York, no one would ever say “I’ve never been to North America”. I don’t get what’s unclear about that. It seems minor, but the problem is that people think incidents like this reflect on the entirety of the African continent, and it perpetuates negative portrayals of the continent, even when they happen in a specific place, such as Cape Town, in this case.

  3. Hi Edward, I realize it’s perhaps odd to revisit this post a year later, but hopefully in lieu of the national conversation on sexual assault that’s occurred in recent months, you can see why I found your comment to be problematic. Even if not intentional, saying that a passenger “got bored” and decided to sexually harass a woman is tone deaf at the very least.Just hope that maybe that’s more clear now that this has been talked about on a national level.

    1. Brian, I don’t view it odd to revisit a post from last year. I think you may be taking my comments out of context. If you read the last paragraph, I clearly state that I think the punishment didn’t fit the crime. I was openly asking what would possibly make someone think this was okay behavior. I stand by what I said in the post. I don’t know how he got off with just a puny fine. It shocks me the authorities didn’t understand the severity of the issue.

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