Hostess made it plane I was big
Flight humiliation spurs Zoe to shed eight stone
A WOMAN dropped eight stone after the “horror” of being shamed by a flight attendant for needing a larger seat belt.
Zoe Foster, 63, boarded a plane home from Spain but “wanted to disappear” after being humiliated.
At size 26, Zoe was unable to fasten her seat belt. She said: “The air hostess walked down the aisle swinging a bright orange belt extension saying loudly, ‘Who’s the lady who needs this?’
“I made my mind up – I’d never let this happen again.”
Zoe, of Scunthorpe, Lincs, joined Slimming World just two days later.
But she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and her spleen ruptured.
She “ate her way through recovery”, before she found “new motivation”.
Zoe, who has been shielding but now walks 12,000 steps a day, dropped to a size 16/18. She added: “I rarely have rheumatoid and my blood pressure is normal.”
And now she is looking forward to jetting off for a holiday on a Greek island next year.
A LABORATORY scientist is suing the “woman-dominated” firm where he worked, claiming that his female boss told him to “man up”.
Daniel Price alleges that “extreme discrimination against males” made the company a “toxic workplace”.
He claims that his manager Ashleigh Knowles told him “men are less organised” and that he was repeatedly ordered to “go away” during “girls-only” conversations.
Mr Price says he was the only worker instructed to carry boxes, being told “because you’re a man”.
He once refused, due to a hernia, but was ordered to “man up and get on with it, it’s only a few boxes”, a tribunal heard.
Mr Price was dismissed last May after 16 months with food-test specialists PiQ in Ebbw Vale, South Wales. An employment judge in Cardiff ruled he has an “arguable case” for sex discrimination and ordered a full hearing.
The tribunal heard that lab manager Ms Knowles said of a new appointment: “More than likely it’ll be a girl, as women tend to be better and more organised in the lab.” She then allegedly told Mr Price:
“You’re lucky to have your job, as everyone was shocked that it was a guy being employed. We normally only employ females because men are less organised.”
Mr Price said she once threatened him with disciplinary action for insubordination after he told her tasks should not lie solely with him because he was a man.
He also claimed she informed staff of his one-time refusal to carry boxes, saying this led to a “tense” work environment. Mr Price said another female employee also subjected him to discrimination.
He told of several occasions when he was told to “go away” as he tried to enter an office.
Reasons and comments allegedly included “We’re talking woman stuff ” and “You’re a man, you don’t need to be listening to this”.
Ms Knowles allegedly told him as he tried to go into an office last May: “This conversation isn’t for you to hear – girls only”.
Two days later he was fired. A unfair dismissal claim was thrown out, as he had not been at the firm for two years.
PiQ Laboratories deny the allegations and are challenging his case.
DUBAI’S captive princess has asked British police to reopen the probe into the alleged kidnap of her sister, who has not been seen for 20 years.
Princess Latifa, the daughter of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, claims she is being held against her will in her “villa jail”.
In the summer of 2000 her older sister Princess Shamsa escaped from her father’s Longcross Estate in Surrey. Two months later she was allegedly abducted in Cambridge, flown by helicopter to France and then by private jet to Dubai.
Shamsa, aged 18 at the time, has not been seen in public since. Latifa, understood to be being held in solitary confinement, penned a letter in 2019 asking Cambridgeshire Police to reopen the case. She wrote: “All I ask of you is to please give attention on her case because it could get her her freedom.”
Last week, videos were made public showing Latifa claiming she is being held hostage by her father following a failed escape attempt.
Sister Shamsa was also captured after trying to flee. She was partly brought up in the UK until she was barred from attending university.
In the summer of 2000 she drove a Range Rover to the edge of the sheikh’s £75million Surrey estate and fled. On August 19 of the same year she checked into a hotel in Cambridge before being captured by four of her father’s agents.
DCI David Beck previously told a documentary how a kidnap allegation reached Cambridgeshire police seven months later. He said: “It’s not every day that an allegation involving a head of state lands on a police officer’s desk.”
During a High Court case last year it emerged DCI Beck managed to speak to Shamsa by phone. He applied to travel to Dubai to interview her but says his request through the CPS was rejected.
The case lay dormant until a message from Shamsa sparked a 2018 review. However this was later closed because of “insufficient evidence to take any further action”. Latifa’s letter marks the third time that police have been asked to investigate the alleged abduction.
Her words paint a chilling picture of Shamsa’s life in Dubai. Friends claim she has been left a “zombie” after being given pills and is “kept incommunicado with no release date, trial or charge”.
In 2019 a High Court judge ruled that the Sheikh had abducted both daughters, holding them against their will.
Cambridgeshire Police said the letter “will be looked at as part of the ongoing review”.
The government of Dubai has not responded to requests for comment.
I ask you to please give attention on her case, it could get her freedom
PRINCESS LATIFA IN LETTER TO CAMBS POLICE