A businessman who assaulted four cabin crew on a Jet2 flight has been jailed and put on the sex offenders register.
Joseph McCabe, 40, groped and slapped the buttocks of two stewards, grabbed another around the waist, tried to hug a fourth, and made sexual comments on the flight from Edinburgh to Tenerife last year.
Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard McCabe, a former Private in the Royal Logistic Corp who now runs a construction firm and co-owns a party boat business, was given a verbal warning by cabin crew, then a written warning, which he ripped up.
He also threw his bank card at an airline employee and began dancing in the aisle.
The flight, on 15 March 2024, had to be diverted to Porto Santo, where Portuguese police boarded and arrested McCabe.
Prosecuting, Miriam Farooq said McCabe touched a female flight attendant’s buttocks, then later slapped a male steward’s buttocks. He then tried to hug a second female steward, and put his hands on a third.
“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. 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,” the prosecutor said.
McCabe, of Tollcross, Glasgow, admitted four sexual offences when he appeared at the court and was sentenced to 46 weeks in prison.
Sheriff Alison Stirling said the offences had involved ‘a high level of culpability and a high level of harm’ and put McCabe on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
He has been banned for life by Jet2.
