A protestor has been jailed after he superglued himself to a plane’s roof and caused a string of cancellations affecting hundreds of people.
James Brown, 56, was boarding a flight at London City Airport when he clambered up the aircraft, glued his hand to the roof and told officers he was visually impaired and would stay as long as possible.
Protest removal specialists and the fire service attended and used a de-icer machine to remove his hand from the roof before he was arrested.
The Amsterdam-bound flight had to be cancelled as it was taken out of service to be inspected by an engineer.
The stunt also caused several other flights to be cancelled or delayed affecting nearly 400 people.
Following the incident at around 1pm on October 10, 2019, he was taken into custody and charged with the offence of public nuisance.
Brown, of Magdalen Road in Exeter, was sentenced to one year in prison on Friday, September 24, after being convicted at the same court on Wednesday, July 28.
Commander Karen Findlay, from Met Taskforce, said: “Brown’s actions not only impacted on the business of passengers but also on their families, friends and colleagues with some being left out of pocket for travelling to meet them.
“Not only that, he endangered himself and the officers who had to work to safely remove him from the aircraft structure.”
She added the Met supports the right to protest peacefully but will not tolerate this level of disruption.
“Activists do not have the right to cause unreasonable and serious disruption to other people,” she added.
“We will always deal robustly with such incidents and look to bring to justice anyone who commits a criminal offence as this sentence shows.”
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