Pilot Flies Into Rage Over Taunts
From the Daily Telegraph:
23dec05
To the public he was a respected pilot, but to his colleagues he was better known as "Mini Me" and "Trevor's b....".
It was this long-running alleged harassment that fuelled a "spur of the moment" fit of rage in which Qantas pilot Jarrod Seen hit captain Marc Alphandary in the eye with a glass at a colleague's party.
First Officer Seen, 27, of Zetland, yesterday pleaded guilty in the Downing Centre Local Court to assaulting Mr Alphandary in the early hours of June 12, at Darling Harbour.
He escaped a jail term and conviction, with Magistrate Tim Keady instead placing him on a 12-month good behaviour bond.
Seen told the court he and Mr Alphandary fell out after he was promoted to assistant senior fleet manager by Trevor Mcguire, the senior fleet manager.
He said Mr Alphandary started to call him "Trevor's b....", "mini Trevor" and "Mini Me".
"This would happen every time I saw him in the crew room," he said.
The two men met again at the function 18 months later. It was there Seen said two female flight attendants came to him in tears, claiming Mr Alphandary had called them "back-stabbing b....s".
Seen, who had three drinks before the party then five schooners and a scotch and Coke, said he approached Mr Alphandary and asked if he enjoyed picking on girls.
He then grabbed Mr Alphandary's right shoulder, took a glass from his hand and swung at him, the base of the tumbler hitting him just above his left eye, leaving a 4cm cut requiring stitches.
In court yesterday, Mr Alphandary strenuously denied bullying and harassing Seen.
He admitted he may have called him those names but had never done so maliciously.
The magistrate said built-up resentment and alcohol did not excuse Seen's behaviour but it did explain it.