JOSEPH MCCABE

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 behaviour aboard the flight, which had taken off from Edinburgh, he ripped it up.

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

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.

He pleaded guilty to four sexual offences at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month.

On Friday he 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 contact with the victims indefinitely.

Sheriff Alison Stirling said the offences involved ‘a high level of culpability and harm’.