Air rage lawyer drank three bottles of wine at breakfast
She racially abused crew who wouldn’t give her more
A HUMAN rights lawyer who launched a foulmouthed, racist tirade at cabin crew had drunk three bottles of wine at breakfast, a court heard.
Simone Burns, 50, spat in the face of a flight attendant and called the crew ‘Indian f****** money-grabbing c****’ after they refused to serve her more.
As fellow business class passengers looked on in shock, she got up out of her seat and started shouting and gesticulating.
The Belfast-born lawyer threatened Air India cabin crew with being shot by the IRA if they did not bow to her demands.
At one stage she turned to other passengers and berated them for not ‘standing up against injustice’, while referring to her legal work in Palestine. Burns was served the wine – the size of the bottles is not known – with breakfast in the first hour of the 4.10am flight from Mumbai to London in November last year before staff decided she was too drunk to order more.
In response she shouted: ‘I’m a f****** barrister. I’m a human rights lawyer. I’m an international criminal lawyer for the f****** Palestinian people. You think I’m scared. You threaten me with b******s. You’ll be stabbed in your f****** heads. Also, Irish Republican Army, you’ll be f****** shot.’ Burns, who uses the name Simone O’Broin professionally, added: ‘Give me a bottle of wine and game over.’ The lawyer, who was pacing around the aircraft in bare feet, was twice caught trying to smoke in the airplane’s toilet.
She was given a written warning Magistrates’ Court last month, while a separate public order offence charge was dropped. Yesterday she was jailed for six months for being drunk on an aircraft and two months for assault at Isleworth Crown Court, to be served concurrently.
She was also ordered to pay £300 compensation to Miss Pervin. The court heard Burns had learned that her uncle had died before the tirade – and missed the funeral.
Mark Kimsey, in mitigation, said Burns now lives like a hermit and doesn’t leave her home after online ‘trolls’ had threatened to kill her.
He said: ‘She accepts responsibility for what happened and is very ashamed ...’
Judge Nicholas Wood rejected submissions from her lawyers and said that the vile outburst was racially motivated. He added: ‘The experience of a drunk, unrepentant, irrational person in the confines of an aircraft is frightening, not least on a long-haul flight, and poses a risk to safety.’