Jet2 flights: Man spared jail after exposing himself on flight from Spain to Manchester Airport

Jack Breheny, 32, from Burnage, was spared an immediate jail sentence after he told a court he was “deeply ashamed” of his behaviour. Breheny was returning from a trip to Salou in Spain to get over a break-up and was arrested when the aircraft landed at Manchester Airport.

At around 10pm on October 3 last year, police were called to the aircraft as soon as it landed at the airport in response to reports of a 'very intoxicated' passenger seated with his twin brother, armed with 'plastic shards' running amok during the flight. Prosecutor Hayley Parkes told Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday afternoon (14 January) that it later emerged he was not, in fact, armed with plastic shards and when police boarded the aircraft officers concluded that "it was immediately obvious that the defendant was heavily intoxicated".

Flight attendants told officers Breheny had been running up and down the plane 'trying to expose himself' in front of shocked passengers, Miss Parkes told the court. The defendant's twin brother "prevented this to an extent", said the prosecutor, but the defendant began "shouting and screaming" and locked himself on a toilet.

When crew finally opened the door, they found him seated and fully clothed. Upon his arrest on arrival in Manchester, the court was told how unemployed Breheny was at first "compliant", offering out his hands to the arresting officers and telling them "take me" before they handcuffed him. But a statement from one of the officers read out in court detailed how the defendant "fell over immediately" in front of him and then began to display 'resistance'.

The man was so drunk he had to be assisted by the arresting officers as they walked him off the aircraft before being loaded onto a waiting police van and driven to the airport police station. Breheny had no previous convictions apart from one reprimand and one caution when he was a youth, the court was told.

Defending Breheny Adam Roxborough told the court his client had been on a week-long holiday in Salou, Spain, paid for by the brother to get over a recent break up suffered by the defendant, which he had taken "badly".

When Judge Suzanne Goddard KC said it had taken until page 11 of the pre-sentence report for the defendant to say he was sorry, Mr Roxborough said: "He's expressed to me he's deeply ashamed of his behaviour. He knows it will have caused a significant degree of anxiety for a number of people on the flight."

Breheny, of Burnage, Greater Manchester, was handed a six month jail sentence suspended for 18 months after he admitted a single charge of being drunk on an aircraft. He was also ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and 15 days of rehabilitation activity. He was also told to complete an alcohol treatment program.