The builder ripped up a written warning about his drunken behaviour after making sexual comments to one woman about her tights and makeup, and asking her age and where she lived.<\/p>\n
McCabe\u00a0groped and slapped the buttocks of two air stewards before grabbing a third around the waist and trying to hug a fourth.<\/p>\n
He also threw his bank card at an airline employee and danced down the aisle during the outrageous episode in March last year.<\/p>\n
His disgusting behaviour forced the plane to divert to the island\u00a0of Porto Santo – delaying his fellow passenger by two hours.<\/p>\n
Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard that Portuguese police boarded the plane and arrested nuisance McCabe after the unplanned landing.<\/p>\n
![\"Joseph](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/104927453-15404343-image-a-1_1766353278736.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Joseph McCabe, 40, was jailed for 46 after admitting to four sexual offenses<\/p>\n
![\"His](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/104927547-15404343-image-a-13_1766353559792.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
His assaulted members of the crew on a Jet2 flight from Edinburgh to Tenerife<\/p>\n
McCabe served as a private in the Royal Logistic Corps for five years before he set up the B-Heard clothing business in memory of a friend who took his own life during the Covid-19 lockdown.<\/p>\n
He now runs his own construction firm and co-owns a party boat business called The Drunken Anchor.<\/p>\n
McCabe, of Tollcross, Glasgow, pleaded guilty to the four sexual offences during an appearance at the capital court last month and he returned to the dock for sentencing on Friday.<\/p>\n
Sheriff Alison Stirling was told Jet2 had banned McCabe from their flights for life, and that he had refused to pay the \u00a35,000 imposed by the airline.<\/p>\n
Sheriff Stirling said the offence involved ‘a high level of culpability and a high level of harm’ as she sentenced McCabe to 46 weeks behind bars.<\/p>\n
The sheriff also put the tradesman on the sex offenders register for 10 years and imposed indefinite non-harassment orders banning him from having any contact with the victims.<\/p>\n
Anna Kocela, defending McCabe, said her client had been drinking excessively at the time of the flight due to a family bereavement.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Miriam Farooq previously told the court the Jet2 flight took off from Edinburgh Airport bound for Tenerife with roughy 110 passengers at around 8.30am on March 15 last year.<\/p>\n
Ms Farooq said the flight was packed with families and children and shortly after take off cabin crew had noticed McCabe ‘making multiple trips to the toilet’.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor said that around 90 minutes into the flight, a female flight attendant ‘felt someone behind her touching her buttocks’ as she was serving another passenger.<\/p>\n
She turned round to find McCabe was ‘looking at her with a smirk on his face’ and had asked her ‘where she bought her tights because he liked them’.<\/p>\n
The perverted builder asked the woman how old she was and where she lived – and went on to slap the buttocks of a male steward later in the flight.<\/p>\n
McCabe, a father-of-two, was also seen attempting to hug a second female victim and putting his hands on a third female employee for around 30 seconds.<\/p>\n
McCabe was issued with a verbal warning and then a written warning, which he tore up.<\/p>\n
Ms Farooq said: ‘A decision was made to divert the aircraft and the captain was instructed by air traffic control to land at the airfield at Porto Santo.<\/p>\n
‘After landing the accused got out of his seat and began dancing in the aisle. Portuguese police boarded the flight and arrested him and took him into custody.’<\/p>\n
The court heard the holiday flight resumed its journey and eventually landed in Tenerife two hours late.<\/p>\n
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\n Former soldier, 40, who sexually assaulted four cabin crew and forced a flight to be diverted is jailed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By PATRICK HARRINGTON Published: 16:44 EST, 21 December 2025 | Updated: 20:19 EST, 21 December 2025 A former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[97,59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-329121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-dailymail","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}