Ryanair Passenger Who Called Woman ‘Black B*stard’ Could Get Away With It

DavidLawrence/Facebook

The Ryanair passenger who called a woman a ‘black b*stard’ may come away from the incident unharmed. 

Horrifying footage recently went viral showing a white male shouting abuse at a black woman who was sitting one seat down from him, as other passengers boarded a plane from Barcelona to London Stansted.

He’s seen hitting the empty space between him and the woman, alerting crew to ‘put her in another seat.’

The passenger can be heard saying:

I tell you what, I hope someone sits there because I don’t want to sit next to your ugly face, your ugly f*cking face.

Don’t talk to me in a f*cking foreign language you stupid ugly cow.

I will carry on as far as I can with this ugly, black b*stard.

A passenger sitting behind the pair leans over to interject, saying: ‘There’s no need for that at all. Just stop.’

Another tells cabin crew, ‘You have to move this lady,’ while another says: ‘Throw him off the flight, get rid of him.’

At last, a cabin crew member approaches the bigot and tells him to ‘calm down’ before the woman is led away to a different seat.

The victim’s daughter has since revealed what caused the row: her mother’s arthritis. It meant it took her some time to move out of the way for the man to reach his window seat.

She said:

My parents were married over 50 years.  She’s been feeling really down and depressed, so I thought the trip would raise her spirits.

I know that if I was behaving like he was or any other black person for that matter, police would have been called and we would have been kicked off the flight.

The trip was a holiday to mark the one year anniversary of her father’s death.

Ryanair later tweeted:

We are aware of this video and have reported this matter to Essex Police.

Mr Karl Turner, who’s a qualified barrister and former Labour shadow attorney general, tweeted:

Suspect the pressure to turn this aircraft around quickly and get it airborne meant that they have allowed this alleged offender to remain on the aircraft. He may now get away with it.

He added:

@Ryanair failure to deplane the alleged racist offender, handing him over to the Spanish authorities probably means that he isn’t now prosecuted.’

Unfortunately because @Ryanair is registered in Dublin not in the UK the alleged offence could only be tried by UK authorities if it was “in flight” to the UK. Section 92(1) Civil Aviation Act s.92(4) defines ‘in flight’.

Labour MP David Lammy tweeted in response to the shocking video:

OK boycott @Ryanair if they think it’s ok for a racist man to abuse an elderly black woman and remain on the plane.

It’s 63 years since Rosa Parks said “No” to sitting on the back of the bus and we ain’t going back.

Essex Police said in a statement:

This incident, which we were made aware of this morning, is believed to have taken place on a plane at Barcelona Airport.

Essex Police takes prejudice-based crime seriously and we want all incidents to be reported. We are working closely with Ryanair and the Spanish authorities on the investigation.

Let’s hope this man never gets let near a Ryanair flight again.

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