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Drunk jet passenger jailed after going on rampage at 30,000ft
A DRUNKEN airline passenger from South Yorkshire went on a rampage at 30,000 feet after cabin crew caught him trying to gatecrash first class.
Joiner Paul Hoyland, 42, who was travelling in economy class, knocked back two litre bottles of vodka during the flight and tried to invade the first-class compartment of the Boeing 757, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard yesterday.
During the nine-and-a-half hour flight Hoyland stumbled about the aisles hurling abuse, reducing passengers to tears and causing his own daughter, then aged 15, to go and sit with the crew to hide from him.
By the time the Thomas Cook jet from Manchester to Cuba arrived he was being refused a return flight home. Hoyland then had to pay 700 to get back to the UK.
Yesterday Hoyland, of Highfield Road in Swinton, near Rotherham, was jailed for eight months after pleading guilty to being drunk on an aircraft.
Sentencing him, Judge Jeffrey Lewis said: "Despite the sentences which courts pass, the message doesn't seem to get through to people like you who think nothing of behaving in the way in which you did."
The judge described Hoyland's conduct as disgraceful. "You were obnoxious, aggressive and intimidating."
Lisa Boocock, prosecuting, said Hoyland came to the attention of cabin crew six hours into the flight last October.
She said: "He was reported going into the first class area even though he had an economy ticket and requesting servings of coke and ice.
"The cabin staff became suspicious because the defendant appeared to be slightly drunk but not ordering alcohol.
"They had the view that he may be concealing his own alcohol and may be acquiring mixers."
Miss Boocock said that, once Hoyland was told to return to his own seat, he was seen to pull out a litre bottle of vodka from a holdall and mix it with cola.
She said: "He was asked if he was drinking alcohol. He denied it, offering his glass to the cabin crew to smell it. She smelt it and thought it smelt like alcohol.
"He did concede that he had drunk alcohol eventually and was warned not to continue doing so. He was told that if he continued to drink it would be confiscated from him."
Hoyland was aggressive and abusive, Miss Boocock said, and, as a result, flight manageress Nicola Cardoza began to feel intimidated.
Miss Boocock said: "She later saw the defendant stumbling down the aisle in first class. He looked drunk, he looked irate.
"He was aggressive and standing directly in front of the manager saying they were 'out of order' telling him what to do in front of passengers. Various passengers were approaching, complaining that he was drinking and was aggressive towards other passengers."
Hoyland's daughter went to sit with the crew, keeping distance between herself and her father.
"The manager genuinely feared for other passengers' safety and said the language he used was disgusting and foul."
Hoyland was arrested in the UK in May this year.
Adam Watkins, defending, said Hoyland had "substantially reduced his consumption of alcohol and very rarely drinks."
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
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