Spared jail, mum who bit pilot in air rage buggy row
An ‘UNRULY’ young mum who bit and scratched an airline pilot made a very public show of celebrating yesterday after she was spared jail.
Henrietta Mitaiare, 23, was seen leaving court alongside her own mother, who raised her arms to the heavens in a gesture of relief and joy following the sentencing.
Mitaiare had been found guilty of attacking Swiss Air Captain Guido Keel during a ‘wholly disproportionate’ reaction when the flight from Zurich landed at Heathrow on May 2 last year. The mother of one had
‘His shirt was left blood-stained’
argued with airport staff and the cabin crew manager before take-off after being told she had to stow her three-year-old child’s buggy in the hold rather than put it in the cabin, Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court was told.
Mitaiare’s mother Mary Roberts, 53, who was accused of kicking Captain Keel while he was on the floor, was found not guilty of assault. A district judge said Mitaiare’s offending ‘crossed the custody threshold by a million miles’. However she was given only a four-month suspended jail sentence.
She was also ordered to keep a curfew to stay at home between 7am and 7pm every day for six months, wear an electronic tag, and was told she must pay Captain Keel compensation of £1,000 as well as £1,500 court costs. But the defiant mum, from Kensington, west London, vowed to appeal against her conviction. Sentencing Mitaiare, District Judge Deborah Wright told her: ‘You “lost it” because you couldn’t take your buggy into the cabin and couldn’t accept that, and when you were asked to leave the plane, instead of being sensible, you escalated matters.’
During the melee Captain Keel suffered scratches to his neck and arm as well as a bite mark. His shirt was also left bloodstained after the incident, the court heard.
Condemning Mitaiare’s ‘unruly behaviour’, the judge said: ‘I am satisfied that it was [the captain] who was acting in selfdefence, not Miss Mitaiare.’